Airplane - Joey in the cockpit

There are far too many funny moments to pick from in a film like Airplane.  It's a film that's packed with almost endless one-liners, sight gags, snippets of comedy and call-backs to earlier moments in the film.  Some of the funniest moments for me are the moments that are simplest in execution.  Here we see when young Joey is brought up to the cockpit and meets Captain Victor, complete with brilliantly out-of-place references to homosexuality and his encounter with 1970s NBA star Kareem Abdul Jabar.  Why is Jabar on the plane?  Is it meant to be an in-joke for the audience or is the joke meant to be the idea that an NBA star needs to fly planes on the side to top up his income?  Either way, the sheer stupidity of it makes it a classic scene.



Like much of Airplane, it's a scene that's so bonkers it's almost not funny.  But just like the rest of the film, it's so unrepentant in its ludicrousness that the only reasonable response is to laugh along with it.  Watch and enjoy.  Then click on the suggested videos and watch more.

You're Next - Horror! (sort of)

Watched this one a few months ago, but didn't really have anything interesting to say about it so I decided not to bother.  The blog's looking a bit thin on content at the moment though (doing too many other things at the moment to keep up on cinema commitments) so I thought I'd dredge through my viewings from the last few months and see if there's anything to say about any of them.

So, You're Next.  It's a classic set up involving a bunch of people trapped in a remote location being assailed from all sides by something terrible.  This time around it's a family having a reunion dinner in a massive house.  There are all the usual family tensions going on with some people not liking other people's choices of partner and blah blah, but it doesn't take long for the grisly action to start when a group of men in goat masks assault the house with bows and arrows and knives etc.

The fun arises from how one of the assailees (our lead character Erin) turns out to be something of a badass who has done army training of some kind and is able to fight back.  There is then a reveal when we learn who the assailants are and why they would be attacking an isolated house in the middle of nowhere during a family dinner.  It's Night of the Living Dead without the social commentary, Evil Dead without the animatronics, Cabin in the Woods without the satire or Texas Chainsaw Massacre without the chills.  Basically it's trying to be any and all of these, but not really succeeding on any front.  Watch to fill time.  Or don't.  Either way your life will not be significantly different.

Before I go to Sleep - it's a miracle I didn't sleep through this film

Do I have to review Before I go to Sleep?  I guess I don't have to review it, but I'm going to anyway because I paid to rent the bloody thing and the least I'm going to get out of it is a few minutes entertaining myself writing mean things about it on the internet.

Let's begin with the plot.  A woman called Christine (Nicole Kidman) wakes to discover that she does not recognise the man sleeping next to her (Colin Firth).  Soon she learns that she suffers from amnesia, she wakes up every morning like this, and that Colin Firth is in fact her husband Ben.  After Ben leaves for work she gets a call from a doctor Nasch (Mark Strong) who tells her of a video diary she has been keeping for herself.  She soon learns that both Ben and Dr Nasch are keeping secrets from her.

Skip ahead 80 minutes and you find out that one of either Ben or Dr Nasch is lying, and that one of them is responsible for the attack that left her in her amnesiac condition.  Do you care which?  Well then watch the film, or look it up on imdb.  If I sound like I'm being quite dismissive of this film, then you've read me right, I am being rather dismissive of this film.  I am assured that the book it much better, since there are more twists that don't really work in a visual medium like film.

And that's all I've got to say really.  It's a film that gives away its own limitations by the fact that it's only 80-odd minutes long.  Basically it's a one-twist story without much else going on.  If it wasn't for the presence of 3 very well-respected actors I doubt this is a film that would have got close to being on my radar.  If you're a fan of the book it's based on then you'll probably be interested to see what they've done to move it on to the big screen.  Otherwise, give it a miss.

Guardians of the Galaxy - The Marvel Revival?

It was a summer blockbuster from last year, but it has taken me quite a long time to get around to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel action adventure that pits a disparate band of ne'er-do-wells against some sort of pan-galactic terrorist intent on using the Maguffin of Doom to enslave / destroy the universe.  Classic.  The film combines action, a simple and effective story, good special effects, witty asides and most importantly of all - a sense of fun.  It does this very well, making use of an entertaining ensemble cast to provide 2 hours of entertainment that - though hardly genre-defining or boundary-breaking - is seldom seen these days in superhero action genre that's packed with far too much pain, anger and portents of doom.

The plot for Guardians of the Galaxy is simplicity itself.  Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill, literally the most 'everyman' of all men as a human abducted from Earth as a child who has now grown up to be a small-time space adventurer / good-hearted pirate in a galaxy full of no two creatures that seem to be of the same species (erm - Star Wars universe?).  When he comes into the possession of an "orb of power" that's wanted by arch-villain Ronan, he finds himself pursued by one of Ronan's reformed minions and a cartoon rat version of Han Solo with his very own Chewbacca Ent.  Eventually they decide that the fate of the galaxy is more important then the monetary value of this orb, and decide to band together to defeat Ronan before he can unleash its power.  Cue badass kung-fu moves, weird space ships, even weirder weapons, bad 80s music and a tone that from the opening credits has its tongue wedged into its cheek.

Now this isn't exactly the rocket science of story-telling, but it's effective and showcases what is possible with the superhero action genre when it remembers that it's possible to enjoy yourself watching a film.  It's a film that gets very close to ripping Star Wars off completely, but Star Wars itself was a product of a coming together of a variety of old stories, tropes and action adventure serials that George Lucas commonly cites when talking about his inspirations  So I think we can let Guardians of the Galaxy off there.  And what's wrong with something fresh and new that channels the sense of adventure and simple story-telling of the original Star Wars?  It makes you remember why you loved Star Wars in the first place!

I may offer up a small criticism?  Obviously this is not a film that's meant to be taken seriously but I do get annoyed by the stereotypical use of genders in the film.  Our heroes are all meant to be rogues, but it is constantly Zoe Saldana's character Gamora who provides the heart of the gang, reminding us that people need to be saved and "wont someone please think of the children?!" (she never says this - but you get the point).  She is introduced to us as a rebel who say her family killed at Ronan's hands, so it would have been nice for her to have a slightly harder exterior - maybe a bit like Anne Hathaway's Catwoman in the recent Batman series.  Also the film currently scores over 8 on IMDB, which is way too high.  Yes Guardians of the Galaxy might be a lot of fun, but it definitely isn't Casablanca.

If Marvel can make films like this then why do they need to persist with reboots, rehashes and repeats of stories, characters and mythologies that have been rinsed to death and thousand times before?  The answer is of course money, and the fact that yet another reboot of the Spiderman franchise generates more buzz and ultimately more cash than taking a chance on something new and interesting.  The commercial success of Guardians of the Galaxy is beyond question though, and so I expect to now see an entire Guardians of the Galaxy franchise that balloons out of control. With a bit of luck though it will encourage Marvel to take a chance on more stuff like this in the future.