A Simple Favour

Alfred Hitchcock is probably the most influential director ever. His fingerprints can be seen all over 20th and 21st century storytelling. From the books of Patricia Highsmith to the films of Brian De Palma, David Fincher and of late, Steven Soderbergh. I never expected Paul Feig to start channeling him though. The fella who directed the masterful trio of Spy, Bridesmaids and The Heat has now turned his hand to the thriller genre and not surprisingly he's made a pretty good job of it.

Quiet and timid Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a constantly apologetic single mother who fills her time by being a PTA over achiever in her son's school and posting video blogs of her cookery. Her extra curricular activities alienate the other school parents making her lonely so of course she jumps at the chance of friendship with the glamorous and mysterious Emily (Blake Lively) when it arises. Before she knows it's it she's in the midst of a dysfunctional relationship that grows even stranger when one day Emily vanishes off the face of the earth.

I enjoyed this. It's Gillian Flynn meets Hitchcock but sprinkled with a liberal dash of humour and it's every bit as fun as that sounds. The trailers for it sold it as a straight mystery drama but a very entertaining performance from Anna Kendrick as an initially mousy woman forced out of her shell turns it into something quite different. It's twisty and turny and a couple of late reveals may force a guffaw out of you but it never cheats and everything that happens happens for a reason. It's a film that brazenly wears it's influences on it's sleeve. A shout out to a french horror/thriller classic set in a school feels a bit too on the nose but a blonde femme fatale, some weird family relationships and unresolved familial traumas all pop up, all the tropes that have been the ingredients of all film noirs and classic thrillers over the years. I'm not saying this film compares to those classics but it's always a joy seeing these genre staples getting a fresh roll out.

Kendrick owns the film. An early scene where she bluntly relates a brutal past trauma will have you empathizing with her straight away. She also has great comic timing and one tense moment of her trapped in a piece of clothing that most certainly does not belong to her will make you laugh and squirm. She sells her part in a way that you are never quite sure what direction the story is about to take and more than once you'll find yourself tripping over an assumption you've already made about her. Her blog is used throughout the film as a narrative and framing device and while it does actually serve a genuine purpose come the end of the film it feels a bit annoying when the action cuts back to her speaking into her webcam and it does at times make the film feel a bit episodic. Blake Lively plays a fun part too but it's harder to talk about her part without spoiling anything. She brings a nice edge to the story though and carries herself well when the twists and turns veer towards the sillier side of things. And believe me they do.

This is Paul Feig's 5th film with women in the lead and I hope he keeps making them. Spy and The Heat rocked. Bridesmaid was great craic. Ghostbusters was messy but more of it hit the spot than didn't. A Simple Favour is like that too. Some of it doesn't work but enough does that you'll enjoy yourself. One thing it does really well is building a believable relationship between the leads and in that it's similar to his other movies. It feels genuine and not forced like a lot of quick film friendships tend to. The two are chalk and cheese and one moment of Emily telling Stephanie to stop saying sorry all the time will definitely ring a bell with certain watchers. The shittier sides of friendships crop up too, one side putting everything in, spilling their guts and the other not really caring or happy to just take. Just like real life sadly. It's easy to tell the story was written by a woman. It's adapted by Jessica Sharzer from the book of the same title by Darcey Bell. It's always good when a story takes the time to build it's characters and their complexities up before horsing a wrecking ball at them. 

A film that's a bit messy and overly confusing in parts but a great showing from Anna Kendrick will win you over. Definitely worth a watch.

Fave gory special effects

It's getting to that time of the year when my movie thoughts turn to the horror side of things. These days I'm all about the atmosphere and the chills of a more sedate type of scary movie but there's always something to be said for a brilliantly gory death scene. Below are 10 of my faves. They are not for the faint of heart and yes they are a bit mainstream but you have to take what you get with youtube. Oh and no CGI is involved at all.

Dracula : Prince Of Darkness



Count Dracula has been dusted by Abraham Van Helsing and the only way back is blood. It's always blood. And as usual courtesy of an eejit wandering around where he shouldn't be wandering. A disgustingly effective moment and a surprisingly nasty one for the time period.

Day Of The Dead



The most deserved death on the list is one of the more spectacular ones too. A group of survivors are hiding from the zombies above in an underground bunker and bastard Captain Rhodes treats them like muck. It of course all backfires on him when the bunker is invaded. He goes out in style though courtesy of FX impressario Tom Savini

Paura Nella Citta Dei Morte Vivante ( City Of The Living Dead)



John Morghen. The whipping boy of Italian exploitation cinema buys the farm in this still excruciating moment of gore from director Lucio Fulci and make up master Giannetti De Rossi.

Robocop



The list doesn't have to be all horror of course as this brutally entertaining moment from Robocop will attest to. Scumbag Emile gets his just desserts and Robo doesn't even lay a finger on him. A fave moment of all kids of the 80's.

Society



The most fucked up orgy you'll ever see comes courtesy of director Brian Yuzna and make up maniac Screaming Mad George. This one will take your breath away when we find out what exactly the rich and famous of Beverly Hills get up to behind closed doors.

Friday The 13th part 4



Jason Vorhees gets his head bisected by one of the two Corey's. It doesn't take off course and he's returned 7 times and counting since. Looks sore though.

Company Of Wolves



Neil Jordan's take on old werewolf stories takes a far more visceral route than similarly themed movies when it came to the transformation scenes. Yeeesh.

Deadly Friend



Very much one of the lesser Wes Craven film's but that doesn't mean it's all bad. Fans of The Goonies will love seeing that happens to Anne Ramsay. And yes, that is the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer playing ball.

Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh Eaters)



Everyone goes for the eyeball bit from this Luico Fulci classic but this death scene has it all. The build up, the maggots, the music, the horrified fool not running away, the splat and then the revenge.

Scanners




Never try to compete with Darryl Revok. Especially when he looks like Michael Ironside. Still an amazing scene 38 years later. No CGI will ever beat this scene from David Cronenberg's classic.

What moment's would you pick?

11 films worth watching on TV this week

Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army   Sat   22/9   ITV2 @ 21.15

When a pact between humanity and mythical creatures is broken, chaos threatens to reign and it's up to Hellboy and his buddies to sort things out. You don't have to have seen the first film to enjoy this brilliantly put together bit of escapism. Guillermo Del Toro's comic book film so full of imagination and action that you just won't want it to finish. Ron Perlman as Hellboy rocks and Selma Blair, John Hurt & Doug Jones give superb backup.

The Skin I Live In   Sun   23/9   BBC2 @ 00.20

A widowed doctor, obsessed with his work, develops and experiments on his new creation with the help of an unwilling subject. Pedro Almodóvar's unique take on horror is a stunner of a film, very dark, creepy and gripping. Antonio Banderas and Elena Anayas give career best performances too. It's a graphic movie and not for the faint of heart and will offend some people though. Be warned.

Suffragette   Sun   23/9   CH4 @ 18.40

The story of the suffragette movement in early 20th century Britain and the hardships they faced in the pursuit of rights that women should have had all along. A rage inducing, angering, moving and stressful film but one that should be watched. A fantastic cast led by Anne-Marie Duff, Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter makes the whole thing barrel along too.

The Nice Guys   Sun   23/9   RTE2 @ 21.30

The death of a porn star and the case of a missing woman bring two very different private investigators together in 1970's Los Angeles. Shane Black's 2016 film is overlong and muddled but it is a funny and surprisingly violent watch held together by two solid performances from Ryan Golsing and Russell Crowe who work very well together.

Catch Me If You Can   Mon   24/9   TG4 @ 21.30

The story of Frank Abagnale, a teenager who conned his way around the world. Leonardo DiCaprio is cracking fun in the lead role and Tom Hanks is solid as always as the FBI agent tasked with catching him. Throw in Christopher Walken in super form as Frank's Da as the icing on the cake  A sorely underrated film from Steven Spielberg that's extremely entertaining but with a dark cautionary edge.

Martha Marcy May Marlene   Tues   25/9   Film4 @ 01.20

Martha is a troubled woman woman struggling to rejoin society and re-adjust to a normal life after leaving a cult that abused her physically and psychologically. A haunting and troubling watch that's tough going but ultimately rewarding. Elizabeth Olsen gives a performance that will stay with you for a long time and John Hawkes & Sarah Paulson are great as always in supporting roles. 

The Searchers   Tues   25/9   TCM @ 13.25

John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a man searching for years for his niece who has been kidnapped by a Comanche war party. But what are his intentions? A gorgeous looking and highly influential western (one shot of Wayne framed by a doorway has been homaged in dozens of films and shows), well acted by all especially Wayne and Vera Miles. One of the finest, most thoughtful westerns ever made 

Tale Of Tales   Wed   26/9   Film4 @ 23.00

3 interweaving fairytales that tell the stories of an angry queen, strange siblings and royal obsessions. This is quite a bit removed from the fairy stories we heard growing up but it's easily as fascinating, disturbing, compelling and horrifying as the best of them. Oh and it's definitely not for kids. Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and John C.Reilly head a well acted and beautiful looking movie.

Enough Said   Thur   27/9   Film4 @ 19.10

Eva is dreading the thought of her daughter going to college but then she meets both an interesting fella and a new friend through work. Little does she know both of them share a past. This is a joy of a film, warm and funny and filled with people who feel genuinely real. Julia Louis Dreyfus and the late James Gandolfini are both excellent as the leads and the always reliable Catherine Keener offers fine support.

Sudden Death   Fri   28/9   ITV4 @ 23.45

Darren McCord is a security guard working in an ice hockey rink and a man haunted by his past. When a game night is taken over by terrorists he has a chance to redeem himself. A very enjoyable watch that manages to hit all the action beats you'd expect while simultaneously ripping the piss out of the genre. Jean Claude Van Damme is fun in the lead and Powers Boothe is a deadly boo hiss bad guy.

Little Miss Sunshine   Fri   28/9   RTE1 @ 23.55

A delight of a film about a troubled family driving across America so their daughter can take part in one of those godawfully creepy American child beauty pageants. There's a great cast in this with an adorable Abigail Breslin in the lead and Toni Collette on fire as her mother. Both Alan Arkin (so much fun) & Steve Carell (playing very much against type) as family members tagging along for the ride steal the film though. 

Mile 22

It's rare to get to see a full on 18 certificate action film in the cinema these days. Things have changed a lot since the 80's and 90's when nearly every big action flick had that little red 18 cert symbol on their posters. The vast majority of films in this genre are aimed at teenage audiences now, their stories and action beats softened to make them family friendly affairs. Hearing Mile 22 was going to be for an adult audience was a genuine surprise. It's just a pity an adult certificate doesn't guarantee a quality watch.

A batch of highly radioactive caesium is missing and an elite CIA black ops team lead by James Silva (Mark Wahlberg, terrible) is in Indonesia looking for it. A police officer called Li Noor (Iko Uwais, wasted) rocks up to the gates of the embassy claiming to know it's whereabouts and will only share the information if he can get safe passage to the U.S. Silva and his team now have to move Noor the 22 miles to their extraction point but all hell is about to rain down around them.

This might have been a better film had Mark Wahlberg died in the opening scenes. I enjoy the chap but he's such an annoying fucker here that he'll put you off the film even before the terrible action scenes and awful dialogue will. He shouts at everyone and he's a prick to everyone and when he isn't shouting and LOVING the sound of his own voice he turns the smug dial up to 90 which will make you despise him. He's a horrible character and quite why he and writer/director Peter Berg decided to play him like this is baffling. Is it a sly take on how the world perceives America? The loud bully boy sticking its nose in everywhere? A commentary on how taking a government job turns you into a merciless soulless bollix with no room in your life for anything but your job? It would be nice to think this film has the depth and layers to do this but no, it's just a 90 minute action film with a very unlikeable lead.

The action....hmmm. Yes yes it's all very violent and very crunchy but it's not very good and the film's unique selling point is frittered away. Iko Uwais as Li Noor is an amazing martial artist but he's wasted here in his first big English language role. He gets a couple of cool moments but they are so badly shot and so rapidly edited that you don't get any real sense of what a force to be reckoned with he actually is. The star of The Raid franchise deserves better than this. In a perfect world the film would have disposed of Wahlberg in a pre-credits shock moment leaving the next 90 minutes to consist of Iko Uwais decimating people as he strolled to a plane. But instead we get overedited bursts of gunfire interspersed with a bit of hand to hand combat where people we don't give a fig about take on a faceless and never ending swarms of bad guys. It's all done at such a dizzying pace that you'll never be bored but at the same time you'll be a bit baffled because the reason for the dizzying pace is never quite explained. It just has to happen!! 

This is the latest Peter Berg/Mark Wahlberg collaboration about people who take their jobs very very seriously and it's easily the least of them. Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and Patriot's Day were all based on true stories so at least had a reason to exist even if they weren't particularly good. Mile 22 seemed to exist to justify an ending that both sets up a sequel and thinks it's far cleverer than it is. It's the kind of ending that makes you retroactively rethink the entire movie but not in a "OH WOW" kind of a way. No its more of a "Wait, what?? None of this makes any sense" kind of a moment. Berg has deigned to include women in his film this time but in roles that come to nothing. Lauren Cohen of Walking Dead fame tries vainly to bring a bit of heart to the film as a team member concerned about her family life but in the end she just turns into a Wahlberg mini-me and Ronda Roussey's most memorable moment is telling someone to fuck off. Seriously.

This film wants so badly to be the start of a franchise but it doesn't deserve to be. It's the kind of film you'll have forgotten a few days after you watched it. It offers nothing new, there's nothing to hook you in and the stuff you think it will do well is just badly filmed and hard to see. Don't bother. Go to the ploughing championships instead. 

David Strathairn. Another unsung hero of film & TV

Some actors just get a perfect start to their career. David Strathairn's first role was in John Sayles' Return Of The Secaucus 7 and he never looked back. His is a rare acting career that started in film without TV or theatre beforehand. Those came later. A very recognisable character actor who rarely snags a main role but always steals the screen. And one so skillful that when he does get head billing he also gets nominated for every acting award going including Oscar himself. He has the head of doctor/judge/lawyer and not surprisingly plays them often but his most interesting roles are the ones where he takes a different tact. David might be better known than most of the actors in this series but he's still an actor you rarely see mentioned.

He was one of the infamous Chicago Red Sox players banned forever after the mafia scandal of 1919 and he was used by Carmela Soprano for selfish purposes.  He played a CIA director on the hunt for amnesiac super assassins and a navy admiral on the hunt for a gigantic city destroying Japanese nuclear lizard. Memorably took on the NSA as a visually impaired hacker and was great as a senator angered by bondage pics of Bettie Page. Played both scumbag criminals in John Grisham adaptions and scumbag fathers in Stephen King adaptions.  He's been emasculated by Kevin Bacon in the wild and been John Sayle's muse turning up in no less than seven of his films. He's faced off against both Crockett & Tubbs and the Equalizer. Been a colonel in charge of a Memphis Belle led bombing mission in nazi Germany and been in charge of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War 2. I was about to say he's done everything except a western but nope, there's one in there too. In fact the only thing he hasn't done is lower his standards over the years. A glimpse through his career shows nothing but quality viewing. Good man. Long may he grace our screen with his presence.

Greatest hits

Sneakers. Whistler. The blind phone hacker entrusted with solving clues with his super hearing. Gets the funniest line in the whole film too.

L.A. Confidential. Pierce Patchett, smut peddlar and purveyor of women cut to look like movie stars. A respectable looking man hiding a venal and scummy centre. 

The River Wild. Tom Hartman. Husband to Meryl Streep. You think he's going to be the hero but come on, it's Meryl Streep. She doesn't need saving. A great everyman character though.

Good Night And Good Luck. Edward R. Murrow an American broadcaster and one of the few people brave enough to take a stance against Joseph McCarthy and his communist witchhunt that tore American society apart in the 1950's. A brilliant part that should have won him every award he was nominated for.

Previous heroes

Frankie Faison
Conchata Ferrell
Dick Miller
Veronica Cartwright
Edie McClurg
Barry Shabaka Henley           
Raymond Cruz                        
Reg E.Cathey                          
Elizabeth McGovern               
John Amos                              
Bruce Greenwood                  
Mary McDonnell                     
Gerald McSorley                       
John Rothman                        
Margo Martindale                   
Kurtwood Smith                     
Paula Malcolmson                 
Luis Guzman                          
David Morse                           
Linda Hunt                              
Keith David                             
Zeljko Ivanek
Fiona Shaw
Xander Berkeley
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
C.C.H Pounder
William Forsythe
Beth Grant
Sven-Ole Thorsen
Regina King
Ric Young
Mark Rolston
Illeana Douglas
Jeanette Goldstein
Al Leong
Allan Graf
Bill Nunn
Thomas Rosales Jr

Superfly

Remakes rarely work. They nearly always miss out on the magic that made the original sing. For every one that turns out well there's two that are awful. For Scarface there's a Halloween and a Robocop. For It there's a Total Recall and The Mummy. For Magnificent Seven there's a Chips and a (sweet jesus) Baywatch. Superfly is a remake of the 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly and it falls into the awful category with ease. Nothing about it works.

Youngblood Priest is an Atlanta based drug dealer who wants out of the life before he's killed or is forced to kill. To do this he wants to make one last massive deal, big enough to never have to worry about money again. But in order to get his hands on that much product he has to go around his usual supplier and this stirs up a whole mess of trouble involving cartels and corrupt cops. On top of that he has to deal with a rival crew called Snow Patrol (yep) who want to take his piece of the business.

The best blaxploitation films rose from the aftermath of the 1960's civil rights movements. Enpowered by the movement and raging about the deaths of it's most prominent faces like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King they sought to show the African American experience in a way that had never been shown on film before. There was a righteous anger to them, a fierce desire to burn away the cinematic caricatures created of them. Shaft, Super Fly, Foxy Brown, Black Caesar, Coffy and so on. They succeeded because they were actually about something, they had something so say about Black people's place in America or lackthereof. 2018's Superfly remake has nothing to say apart from money is good. It's become a film for Trump's America. It glorifies things the earlier films had railed against. It's an exercise in style over substance. The best thing about it is Youngblood Priest's hair. It's a grand head of hair in fairness but it won't carry you through 116 minutes.

This is a terrible film. It's cheap and shoddy looking, filled with terrible acting from both unknown and more established performers and it's cliched as hell and predictable too. It's the kind of film that turns up on ITV4 at 2 o'clock in the morning where the only people who would take anything from it are chronic insomniacs looking for nudity and violence. In a time where Moonlight won best picture, Black Panther broke down cinematic barriers worldwide and Blackkklansman took potshots at Hollywood's depiction of Black people it's a shame to see Black cinema still heading in this direction. I know as a White man its definitely not for me to judge things like this but this kind of depiction isn't good for anyone.

The regressive attitudes towards woman depicted in the original Superfly are still present and correct too. They exist to please Youngblood or to die so he can suffer. It's always a pity when a remake carries forwards the worst aspects of the era the original was made in. Just when you think all is lost one plot strand about police violence seems like it might have something interesting to say but it just fades away in a blizzard of dollar bills, strippers and glorified gunplay. This film could have been a perfect vehicle to rail against misogyny, sexism and institutionalised violence but nope, slow motion kicks to the face look cooler....

Ron O'Neal who played Youngblood Priest in the original Super Fly wasn't a particularly good actor but the man had presence to burn and he was believable in the part of the hypocritical man who saw himself as a hero while treating his girlfrend like muck and sampling his own wares. In this 2018 remake Youngblood Priest is played by Trevor Jackson, a man without an ounce of charisma or depth and when you don't give a shit about the lead of a film you're on a hiding to nothing straight away. He's the smoothest man in Atlanta, has two women he pleasures into the ground in a scene that wouldn't feel out of place in one of those ubiquitous erotic thrillers that used to turn up late at night on sky movie, he's the most respected criminal in the city, a martial arts master who's almost supernaturally fast and an absolute crackshot with a gun. With a good actor you could nearly get away with this but here you'll just scoff at everything he does. He's just not remotely credible as a human being. Better known actors like Jason Mitchell and Michael K. Williams appear but don't even try. Both have put in immense work in TV's The Wire and The Chi and Mitchell was fantastic as Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton so watching them both sleepwalk through this is frustrating. I won't even mention the people playing Snow Patrol because it.......nope.....it hurts too much.

It's shit. Don't bother watching it. It's offensive, it's dull, it just sucks. How it got a cinema release is beyond me. Films 100 times better than this bypass the cinema every week but somehow this tripe gets booked? I'm baffled. It's a film destined for the €1.50 shelf in Dealz.

Music

Around 2007 I fell out of love with music.

Around 1993 I fell in love with music.

The first album I ever bought was the soundtrack to Singles. A CD full of the sounds of Seattle. Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Jimi Hendrix, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney and The Screaming Trees. Within months I was a grunge kid and Soundgarden had become my favourite band with the release of Superunknown. Music became my life. Every penny I could save from my first job gardening in a retirement home run by nuns (bastards all of em) when to the local music shop or to the Sound Cellar on Nassau street during my trips to Dublin. The walls of the room I shared with my brother were plastered with Donington : Monsters of Rock posters and White Zombie posters and pages ripped from Kerrang and Raw (before it went britpop and broke my heart) filled the spaces in between.

My friends were the same too. Music mad. I was introduced to Slayer, Pantera, Megadeth, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Corrosion Of Conformity, Machine Head, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse. All far heavier than I preferred but slowly it all took hold. We sat for hours listening to albums and discuss every aspect of them. We were purists too and would only listen to music created by guitars, bass and drums. Stuff like the Prodigy was looked on with the type of distain that only a 16 year old music snob could muster. In 1996 Slayer brought out an album of punk covers and this drove us to travel back and listen to the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Then a friend's love of hip hop started to rub off on us and we realised it was ok to broaden your horizons and be open to different genres.

College came around and new people and new influences arrived. I fell in love with REM after a listen to New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I became obsessed with them and they came at the right time because Soundgarden had broken up and heroin abuse had destroyed Alice In Chains. It was upsetting seeing your favourite bands imploding and REM provided a new and less likely to self destruct musical outlet. They were also something better than the bland mankiness of Oasis and and Ocean Colour Scene and all the other britpop wank clogging up the radio. Everything they'd ever released as snapped up and yet again they introduced me to a more indie side of music. Frequenting the Roxy nightclub in Waterford was brilliant source of inspiration for new tunes too. It was a dank pit of a club where the words "Top 40" didn't exist.

I started to work and had money. Now I could buy music AND films.  Films had always been an interest but music was still ahead. The internet opened up a whole new world to me. The films I'd only ever read about were available finally. Foreign cinema, Asian crime, French new wave, Italian horror, I overdosed on it all courtesy of DVD's sent from Play247 and CDwow. My cinematic education was beginning but it came at the expense of my musical one. There was only so much time in the day and I decided to devote what I could to film watching. I still bought music regularly but soon that slowed down and it nearly stopped when I got my first Ipod.

My trusty ipod, would have been 14 years old this year if a bottle of club orange hadn't killed it

I realised I didn't have to buy music anymore. I could just pirate it instead. Whole albums became a thing of the past. Now i just downloaded individual songs. Carefully crafted tracklistings didn't matter to me anymore. Music became disposable. I was downloading everything and anything to fill my ipod. The joy of browsing music shops vanished. The excitement of waiting for a new album to be released evaporated when I could get it the week before hand off Kazaa or Limewire. I stopped buying music magazines. The affair was over and I went from buying 50 albums a year down to 1 or 2. In 2012 I bought my last album. Soundgarden's King Animal. It was a bittersweet moment realising that I'd probably bought my last new album ever.

I still listen to music everynow and then but it's always old music, rarely anything past 2000. Nothing new interests me. I don't go see live music because packed venues wreck my head. I miss that buzz of discovering something. But I can't be arsed going for new stuff. So I've decided to delve into the music of an artist who was always around when I was younger but whom I never took any notice of. Prince. I asked Twitter to recommend me an album of his earlier and Twitter came back to me with a resounding roar of "Sign O'The Times." As I'm typing this I'm having my second listen to The Ballad of Dorothy Parker and feeling that little buzz again.

I hope I get back into it. I miss it.

10 films worth watching on TV this week

Mean Streets   Sat   15/9   BBC2 @ 23.40

Charlie is a small time wannabe gangster in New York's Little Italy. But guilt, love and friendships are all conspiring to make life difficult for him. The film that put Martin Scorsese on the map bears little resemblence to his flashier films but it's just as solid as any of them in its own way. Harvey Keitel is a deadly lead but there's huge joy to be had in watching Robert De Niro as the crazy Johnny Boy putting in the performance that made him a superstar.

The Master   Sun   16/9   CH4 @ 00.45

In post war America a naval veteran leads a chaotic and troubled life until a charismatic cult leader takes him under his wing. Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 drama is not going to be to everyone's taste but stick with it and you'll be mesmerised before long. Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and the much missed Philip Seymour Hoffman all act out of their skin. The kind of film you'll be thinking about for days after.

Byzantium   Sun   16/9   Film4 @ 22.55

Two women on the run turn up a quiet beach town and it isn't long before their centuries old secret is out and they find themselves in danger again. Neil Jordan directs Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Atherton in this intelligent, well written and pretty bloody horror. Not a film for the squeamish amongst us but if you can stick with it you'll be very satisfied by this unique take on an overcrowded area of the horror genre.

Cowboys And Aliens   Mon   17/9   TG4 @ 21.30

The frontier town of Absolution is ruled by fear but it's populace and the people who hold them down must come together to face off against a threat from the skies. Yes it's sounds utterly ridiculous and tbh it is but it's also an entertaining and gritty western and one that despite it's subject matter feels pleasingly old fashioned. Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wild and Sam Rockwell all add to the fun.

Crimson Peak   Mon   17/9   Film4 @ 22.45

After a horrible tragedy, Edith finds herself living a new life in an old mansion with her new beau. Strange occurrences have followed Edith her whole life though. A gorgeous gothic tale from the mind of Guillermo Del Toro. Scary in places, gruesome in others and atmospheric as hell. It's just great. Record it and keep it for Halloween. Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Hunnam all deliver the goods.

Ravenous   Tues   18/9   The Horror Channel @ 02.35

In the 19th century a frostbitten stranger turns up at an army fort claiming to be the only survivor of a wagon train that got lost in the mountains. Antonia Bird's darkly comic horror thriller is a ferociously enjoyable watch but it might be too much for some. There's a superb cast too. Robert Carlyle as the stranger is brilliant and Guy Pearce, Jeremy Davies and John Spencer are all on first rate form.

Mechanic : Resurrection   Thur   20/9   Film4 @ 21.00

What time is it? Why it's Statham O'Clock. The Mechanic is back and this time he has to carry out three tasks in a globe trotting mission to save the life of the woman he loves. Take no notice of the reviews of this one, it's good craic, yes it's silly as hell but it's also inventive, crunchy and very satisfying. Statham does his thing well and Tommy Lee Jones as one of his marks is fun. What more do you need?

Christine   Fri   21/9   The Horror Channel @ 21.00

Awkward and bullied Arnie leads a miserable existence but everything changes when he buys a Plymouth Fury that he names Christine. Things don't change for the best though. This John Carpenter adaption of the Stephen King novel is one of the better films made from his books. It's a fun watch and one where you'll probably end up rooting for the bad....guy. The always cool Harry Dean Stanton is the only really recognisable face here.

Nurse Betty   Fri   21/9   RTE1 @ 23.55

After witnessing a murder, Betty suffers a mental breakdown and decides to travel across America to meet a soap opera actor she's certain she has a connection with. Neil La Bute's film is an unusual watch, mixing comedy with psychological drama and lacing proceedings with a dash of bloody carnage. Renee Zellweger is excellent as Betty and gets fine support from Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Greg Kinnear.

The Predator

The only good scene in the film

In 1987 action film nirvana was attained with the release of the Arnold Schwarzenegger starring Predator. It's slightly dated now but it's still brilliant fun. There's been 4 follow ups to it so far, each of very varying quality. Predator 2 was a good gory laugh. Alien Vs Predator sucked. Alien Vs Predator : Requiem was quite possibly the worst film of 2007 and the last one was Predators which was fun but forgettable fluff. 8 years later we get the release of The Predator written and directed by Shane Black who wrote the original 31 years ago. How does it compare to the original?? Not very favourably at all as it happens. 

Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is an army sniper on a mission in Mexico when he witnesses a spaceship crashing and it's inhabitant killing his comrades. He's nabbed by U.S. government agents who want to discredit him and keep the discovery secret so they can do their own research on the alien being. But something else was chasing the spaceship to Earth on a mission of it's own and now it's up to McKenna and a bunch of ex soldiers to take on the extraterrestrial threat and defend his family.

I really wanted to like this. I'd heard a lot of negative things but was still optimistic as the 1987 film was badly received at the time too. But nope. It's not a good film and is downright shoddy in places. Yes, it has a couple of cool moments but in between you'll be cringing at humour Roy Chubby Brown would turn down for being too low brow and racking your brain trying to understand some of the onscreen happenings and certain leaps of logic made by the characters. Some horribly shot action scenes don't help matters either. Bad writing is very evident but most of the blame for this comes from post production troubles that saw the entire climax of the film reshot and whole chunks of plot cut away but it also seems they snipped away any moments not absolutely crucial to the story. There's no connective tissue between scenes. Things just happen with no explanation and at times director Shane Black seems to realise this but thinks that throwing more and more gore at the screen will cover up the gaping plot holes. It doesn't. Give me scene setting moment or a small explanation of something over a triple decapitation anyday.

If you've just come for the blood and guts you'd probably be pleased. It's definitely the most brutal film of the series and a battle in a government facility in the first half of the film is a real highlight but it's all downhill from there. It's just a big ol' pile of meh. Characters you don't give a shit about fighting an alien being that you'll actually want to win. All the people in this blend into one, no one person is properly defined. One smokes a lot, one is a woman, one tells jokes, one has Tourette syndrome (this is predictably mined for humour in a way that will leave you watching from behind your hands), one is a father and one is a kid who supposedly is autistic but that aspect seems to disappear halfway through the film. No one matters. I wanted the Predator's pet dog to have a happier ending than any of these people. Yes, it has a pet dog. Two in fact.

When we heard Shane Black was directing this it was a reason to be optimistic. After all he wrote the first film and look how well that turned out. Since then he's made Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, two very entertaining films which were funny and exciting, attributes you'd hope he'd bring to The Predator. But he's left no mark of himself on this film apart from his trademark kid character. It could have been written and directed by anyone. A fine cast is wasted too. Thomas Jane, Sterling K. Brown, Olivia Munn, Keegan Michael Key, Yvonne Strahovski amongst others are all there to fill up the screen but get nothing interesting to do. Jake Busey turns up early in the film with the same surname as his father Gary had in the second film but does nothing. And Boyd Halbrook in the lead is definitely no Arnie and one scene of him doing something very traumatic in front of his son and then joking about it will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

A few moments will make you smile; the callbacks to the original film that fans will notice peppered around the place are fun but other than those and one well lit lab massacre nothing hits the spot. The ending is left very open for a sequel too but based on this it does not deserve it. It's a real disappointment. Some things are just best left in the past and this franchise needs it's spine ripped out now.

Marvel's Spider-Man : The Game

Are you, like seemingly half the planet, a fan of the Marvel films? If so you need the Spider-Man game in your life fast. It's fucking amazing.

New York is under siege. Crime kingpin Wilson Fisk has been taken down by Spider-man but a power vacuum created by his absence brings all the city's goons out looking for bite of the big apple. Street gangs, petty criminals and some pretty serious superbaddies are out in force. Not only are they on the rampage but a mysterious government agency wants martial law to take effect in the city too. The only person who can stop them is Peter Parker, his girlfriend Mary Jane and a young man who's life has been changed by the crime wave called Miles Morales.

There's no origin story here. You're dropped straight into the middle of everything. Peter Parker as Spider-Man is taking on the notorious crime boss Wilson Fisk and you learn as you fight. It's a brilliant way to open the game. Once the first battle is over you have the entire island of Manhattan as your playground. It's up to you what you want to do and if you've been lucky enough to have been to Manhattan your jaw will drop at what you get to swing through. Want to climb to the top of the new World Trade Centre or the Empire State Building to survey your kingdom? Work away. Feel like swinging through the canyons of Fifth Avenue? Or the posh streets of the upper east side? Or the rainbow flag festooned Christopher street? Go for it. Want to traverse Central park from Strawberry Fields to the Guggenheim? Chinatown, Greenwich, Harlem, the East Village, Alphabet City, Hell's Kitchen, the Highline, it's all there and it's all for you.It's a stunning recreation of the best city in the world and you'll spend countless hours exploring before you do anything else.

Of course it's not just a recreation of Manhattan, it's also full of stuff to do, scumbags to fight and puzzles to solve. At any given minute you'll be taking on hordes of escaped Riker's Island prisoners or swinging through clouds of pollution to collect samples to analyse in order to solve the city's health problems. You might find yourself chasing a pigeon who's just robbed your valuable USB stick through Union square park or taking on a courtyard full of chemically enhanced bikers. There's a mindboggling amount of stuff to do. You can of course lash straight into the story but it's really worth your while exploring and building up your experience so that when the really bad guys appear later on you'll be prepared for them. 

Side missions give you tokens you can use to upgrade your suit, your gadgets and your fighting skills. Taking on these missions first gives you a real feel for the city and the controls. In no time at all you'll be swinging across Times Square and feeling giddy as a baba on Christmas morning. The controls are nice and simple too btw. Swinging is just a matter of holding down R2 and moving the left analog stick. Fighting is nearly all done the the square button and getting the timing right. It's all very intuitive. Once you know what you're doing you'll feel a full on adrenaline rush as you swing the length of the city and there's a lot of satisfaction to be gained from just perching on the side of a building and stealthily capturing bad guys one by one with a shot of your web.

Great voice acting and motion capture work bring all the characters to life in the games many cut scenes (these scenes are genuinely worth watching by the way, don't skip them). Peter Parker was always one of the more likable superheroes because, powers aside, he had a backstory that was relatable to a lot of people. His story here is excellent and builds to some genuinely emotional moments between himself, Mary Jane, Miles and of course Aunt May. It's a rare game that will give you the feels but this one does in spades. It's that backbone of emotion that will keep you playing the game long after you've grown used to the graphics. It's a video game story where you'll really care about how it all ends. Plus not only do you get to play as Peter but there's a couple of missions where you get to play as MJ and Miles too. These missions give you an insight into how these characters think with a lot more depth than the movies have so far. Fans of Mary Jane will especially enjoy her character.

The bad guys are all present and correct of course. The Rhino, Electro, Shocker, Kingpin, Vulture, Scorpion, Norman Osborne and a couple of others who's appearance I don't want to ruin. Daily Bugle editor and Spider-Man hater J.Jonah Jameson appears in podcasts you hear throughout the game shouting invective and general Spider hate. His rants provide the game with some hilarious moments and all the podcasts are saved so can be listened to over and over. The fights between Spidey and the bad guys are tough but the difficulty is pitched just right so that you learn from your mistakes and you'll generally get through everything just before you start pulling your hair out. The same goes for the puzzles you have to solve in your work and play. Things do get harder as you move up but there's no horrible difficulty spikes that can easily ruin a game like this.

It's an excellent game and easily the most enjoyable one I've played this year. A good game should put a smile on your face and this one will in spades. Plus if you are a Marvel fan you'll have a good time spotting all the easter eggs too. There's tonnes of them in there referencing both the films and the TV series. The only downside of the game is it's only available on the PS4 but if you've been umming and ahhing about buying one it's worth it for this game alone.

Final Score

"They think we're fucking around?" "What do we do?" "We show them we're not fucking around!"

"Police?" "No." "How do you know?" "Police don't leave dead bodies in toilet cubicles."

"I find it hard to trust someone who brings C4 to a fuckin' soccer game."

Just some of the treats in store for you if you decide to watch this.

Michael Knox is an ex soldier with a past that haunts him. While treating the daughter of an ex-comrade to a West Ham game at Upton Park he finds himself entangled in a web of danger that threatens not only the lives of the people he loves but also the crowds in the football stadium and the stability of an entire country.

Final Score is a blisteringly stupid film filled with awful dialogue, terrible acting, some seriously bad special effects, massive lapses of logic and it also steals entire plotlines from both Die Hard and Sudden Death. But you know what?? Somehow it works and turns into an entertaining whole. A very unoriginal whole of course. While watching this you'll be tempted to check the nearest calendar and make sure you haven't somehow fallen through a Jerry Bruckheimer created wormhole back to 1997. The only thing giving it a modern feel are the actors and smartphones. You could just imagine a non bald Bruce Willis in the lead, with Rutger Hauer and Jurgen Prochnow and very little story changed. It's all very reminiscent of that fun time in action movies before plot or depth mattered, when the only important thing was hitting the bad guy harder than he hit you.

There's plenty here that will make you roll your eyes. Fights taking place in front of crowds who don't take one bit of notice. Huge gun battles atop of stands and no one inside batting an eyelid. The fact that an entire football stadium's security seems to consist of one nervous comedy Asian dude. The cringingly bad crowbarred in swearing and dialogue that will make your eyes spin. Oh and the worst teenage actress in England. Happily the badness is diluted by moments of such glorious silliness that you'll end up smiling and laughing despite yourself. A motorbike chase played out to the sounds of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, a brutal kitchen fight scene containing the hardest headbutt ever captured on film and a very unexpected Tarzan moment that tops a crescendo of craziness. Add in a very British sense of humour and one self deprecating joke that will send the righteous bearded goys of twitter into a frenzy and you have yourself a fun watch. Just try not to think too much during it, just let it wash over you.

Dave Batuista as Knox is not bad at all in his part. A wrestler turned actor who's actually capable of displaying emotion in between deep frying bad guy's faces off. The action stuff comes naturally to him of course and he looks far more comfortable breaking bones than chatting about hotdogs. Ray Stevenson as the big bad looks suitably menacing even though his Russian accent is about as convincing as mine and Pierce Brosnan turns up as a man hiding from his past but doesn't do much bar rock a dignified beard. Amit Shah and Lara Peake round out the cast but the less said about them the better. Their acting...eh.....it's not good. Let's leave it at that. The fact the a lot of the movie was actually filmed at Upton park helps paper over a lot of cracks created by the shoddier ingredients. The stadium was due to be demolished so this gave the filmmakers a unique opportunity to treat it like a playground and it gives the whole thing a big budget sheen. Despite the OTT antics on display filming at a genuine location and not in front of a green screen kind of grounds the whole thing in some semblance of reality. Some.

A fun watch if you are willing to overlook a lot of ropey moments and whole swathes of story that makes no sense.