Kick Ass kicks ass (apologies)

It has been bloody ages, but I went to the cinema on Wednesday. Has some kind of mass insanity happened since I last went? The queues at the Reading Showcase were literally out of the door, and almost no-one was watching Kick Ass! As far as I could tell it was the tickets for 'Clash of the Titans' that were selling out. Not that I'm against seeing a huge great blockbuster of a film, but it is really going to be worth queuing out the door?

Once inside the mostly-empty screening of Kick Ass the cinema experience got even weirder. A couple of people behind me decided to take it upon themselves to demonstrate that they have no ability to understand fiction. Every time anything happened on screen that was even slightly out of left field one of them took it upon themselves to explain the recent plot development to the other. Then when some of the characters got into danger, one of them decided to opine that "ooh, I hope he doesn't die". This is what happens when people who never go to the cinema get hold of an Orange phone contract.

Odd as the people in the cinema were, a part-filled screening of an adaptation of a cult comic book was always going to be more fun than a child-filled screening of a CGI-laden, pointlessly-3D, remake of a classic. And so it was. Kick Ass is the story of a nerdy guy (special skill - being invisible to girls) who decides that the world needs a superhero, so he dresses up in a silly outfit and goes out to take on some criminals. He promptly gets beaten up, stabbed and run over by a car; but the legend of Kick-Ass is born and he becomes an internet phenomenon - a real life mystery super hero.

If you thought that the 15 certificate implied this was going to be less violent than many a comic book adaptation, then you're in for a shock. We get stab wounds, chopped off arms, gunshot wounds to the face, the whole 9 yards. One of the secondary characters is a 12 year old girl who has been trained by her father from birth to be some kind of ninja. When introduced, we see her father training her to take a bullet wound by shooting her in the stomach. This character has caused some controversy in the press because of the fact that she is a 12 year old girl acting in a very grown up way. We see her getting beaten up; grown men literally punch her in the face with full force. We see her murder people almost indiscriminately. Odd then that the focus of the press controversy over this character is her use of the word 'cunt' to taunt a group of drugged-up bad guys. I guess the press are happy to see a little girl kill people and be physically abused by adults, but heaven forbid she might say a rude word! For me that moment was hilarious, long live the inappropriate use of swear words!

Obviously the point of all this is that none of it is meant to be taken seriously. The girl - 'Hit Girl' - is meant to be a joke, as are the behaviour and mannerisms of her protective-yet-psychotic father - 'Big Daddy'. If anything you might read more into the awarding of a 15 certificate than into the content of the film iself. 'Kick Ass' is funny, silly and has plenty of entertaining stunts and effects. There's a comic book style to everything in it that I enjoyed, the outfits and make up are garish and bits of the back story are told in a cartoon style similar to a memorable scene 'Kill Bill'. There was nothing not to like.

The Prisoner remake

I don’t know if anyone’s seen this, but a trailer for the US remake of ‘The Prisoner’ on ITV last night (I was watching ITV for the football by the way) has got me annoyed. I can think of very few times in which a remake was better or even comparable to the original. Off the top of my head I’ve come up with Battlestar Gallactica – and the original was rubbish anyway.

This new one might have Ian McKellen in it, but it’s not needed. I can’t imagine how this will get anywhere near to capturing the psychedelic spy-ridden angst of the 1960s original. They could try to focus on the fact that number 6 was being held against his will and without trial after resigning his post as a kind of modern parable about Guantanamo and state v individual freedom of choice etc – but the things that made the Prisoner memorable (the big white balloon, the pastel shades, the psychotic dream sequences) will end up looking hokey in the modern era. If they leave those elements out then why call this series ‘The Prisoner’ at all?

Silly people trying to hang on to the coat tails of a classic to make a bit of money. They’d better not mess with the opening titles either, great music.

Jennifer's Body - actually fairly good!

When I first heard about this film I thought myself "hmmm, exploitation". Billed as staring FHM's latest 'sexist woman ever' Meagan Fox as Jennifer, a high school cheerleader-type who is possessed by demons and starts seductively luring high school boys to their deaths, it was not hard to guess the market this was aimed at. At least that's what I had assumed. Reviews that came out were positive, so - as seems to be the case all the time these days - several months after the film came out I gave it a go.

Set in a small town with a high school and kids who conform to all the usual teen genre specifications, 'Jennifer's Body' isn't too forthcoming with information about its setting. It could be anywhere in America at any time in the last 10 years or into the near future. The town is visited by an emo band who want to "... support our fans in the shitty areas too" (that made me laugh out loud) and decide to engage in a spot of satanism to ensure their success. It's here that the many gaping plot holes begin: how does the fire in the music venue start and what causes Fox's character to become entranced by the band if have not invoked satan yet? Also - most glaring of all - what on earth makes the band members think Jennifer is a virgin? Anyway, decide she's a virgin they do; so they somehow hypnotise her into their van and try to sacrifice her to satan while her mate (Amanda Seyfried) goes home alone. It's here that the fun begins - only 15 minutes into the movie!

This all might seem silly and brainless, and one level it is - although for the Meagan Fox fanboys expecting to see plenty of flesh, there isn't as much of that as the trailors and posters made out - but I think there's something more subtle going on as well. There's a highschool-as-literal-hell metaphor in all this which is kind of lifted out of the Buffy mould (with plenty of Joss Wheedonesque valley girl teen talk). Jennifer is a high school girl who realises that she can be eternally pretty and youthful, but only by killing boys. Her friend realises her secret, but their friendship goes back to childhood and she can't bring herself to break the school yard code and tell on her. There seems to be a slightly odd understanding that goes on between them, that killing boys to look pretty isn't actually that bad as long as you only pick on the ones who were ogling you anyway.

In a way you might also think of the story as something of a teen-girl revenge thriller, in which the boys who expect the girls to look pretty pay the ultimate price for that conformity. I could well be reading too much into it, but it was written by the same woman who did 'Juno' so you might expect something more than a straight slasher movie. Something to think about anyway.

There are several things wrong with the film, I've mentioned a few of the plot holes already (another - why do the band not realise that something has gone wrong with their ritual when it turns out that Fox's character is not dead!) and it jumps right into the grisly stuff without giving the audience enough time to get to know the main characters, but it's a pretty good horror film with a couple of nice teenage years = hell metaphors going on. I was entertained, and you can't really ask for much more than that from a film billed as this was.

Inglorious Basterds

My appeal for people to come forwards and lend me a copy of Inglorious Basterds has paid off, I was even also lent a copy of an older film by the same name (not quite the same genre though). Since putting out my appeal actor Christoph Waltz has won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in the film. Not bad for someone playing a sadistic Nazi war criminal in a film in which German soldiers are scalped for wearing the wrong uniform. Waltz is well worth the award though, he plays the character of Hans Landa (the 'Jew-hunter') with a devious glee that made it quite difficult to dislike him or what he represents.

Inglorious Basterds is a revenge film, simple. It's a re-telling of history in which a group of American volunteer borderline psychotics travel to Nazi-occupied France to kill as many Nazis as they can. Leave aside any qualms you may have about the morality of slaughtering soldiers who have surrendered in wartime simply because they're on the wrong side - for this is a Tarantino film and ethics are not required.

The film actually focuses on several different but linked stories, in which various groups of people (French resistance, a Jewish cinema owner, British special forces, the eponymous 'Basterds') all plot to kill Hitler at the same time. It's all very farcical, non-historical and great fun. And although I agree that Waltz is great in his role, Michael Fasbender steals the scenes he is in as a terrifically caddish British special forces soldier.

In short, this is funny and entertaining. Just keep remembering that it comes from the same mind as the man who brought us Pulp Fiction, so try not to be too shocked when the violence goes all graphic and iky.

Also, don't expect to learn any history.

Up - Pixar at its finest

The Disney / Pixar behemoth strikes again. Between them these two organisations have virtually sown up the animation business, in partnership there is nothing stopping them. If they carry on producing fantastic films like Up then more power to them.

Up begins as a story about a young boy who sees a film about an explorer and dreams of all the adventures he will have. Sounds like the classic start of a Disney film doesn't it. Well it would be, if it weren't for the fact that the film's opening 15 minutes are some of the saddest and most moving I've seen. The young boy meets a girl, marries his sweet-heart, they grow old together and realise they can't have kids. They then get older and she gets ill and dies - without having any adventures in the form he had imagined. He is now left as a lonely old man holding a yellowed scrap book that he was going to fill with pictures of his adventures. I was holding back the tears by the end of this, lord knows what kids in the cinema thought (although I wonder if this bit would go over the heads of a lot of younger children).

The main character - now an old man - then embarks on an extraordinary adventure to find a location in South America that he had dreamed about as a child. He attaches innumerable balloons to his house and sets off in it as if it were a zeppelin. Along the way he makes friends with a boy, a hyperactive giant bird and a talking dog.

It's here that the magic of Pixar kicks in. I assume that the talking dog and massive colourful crazy bird are meant to be there for the kids, but I was laughing all the same. The old idea that the best cartoons are the ones that kids can laugh at while the parents enjoy the adult gags holds up here. But its not just adult humour that's going on, there is sadness in the story of an old man who has gone through life without achieving anything who clings to the memory of his wife as if it is all that will sustain him. As he searches for the promised land in South America he relinquishes the baggage of his former life and realises that his life did have a purpose, even if it wasn't what he expected it to be.

The film's final shot is tear-jerkingly beautiful, a final testament to just how good at telling stories Disney and Pixar are. Long live their partnership.

Spaced - US remake my arse

The Guardian upset me last Thursday by running a piece in its TV blog about the long-dreaded US remake of Spaced. Just watch it, it's awful. No surprise really when you discover that it is the creation of the ridiculously-named self-styled moron of cinema - "McG". Just sod off and die.

Anyway, this started me off watching a couple of YouTube clips of the original Spaced series to cleanse my soul. In case you don't know, Spaced is the genre-defying sitcom that ran for only 2 series (12 episodes) in 1999 and 2000 on Channel 4. It follows the trials and tribulations of Tim and Daisy, a pair of 20-something work-shy miscreants who pretend to be a couple in order to get a flat and try to exist while dodging doing anything that might be interpreted as useful or productive.

Rather than being a series of well-intentioned sketches about losers (as the US series seems to be turning out), Spaced was a razor-sharp sitcom about modern life, about how friendship is becoming more important than family, about fear of growing up and having to grow more responsible. Spaced was also famed for its signature directorial style, which used oddly-timed cuts to provide a somewhat anarchistic feel to the whole thing. Series director Edgar Wright has since gone on to direct 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz'.

Spaced defied conventions and showed the contemporary generation X that someone actually understood what it meant to be a 20-something in Britain in the late 1990s. This is a series that is so quintessentially 'British' and of its era that I am always surprised to find that it has exported at all to other parts of the world, a series that managed to explore the ennui of being a person stuck between youth and adulthood as well as looking at the difficulty of building relationships in a modern world where pop-culture is just as important as real life.

Spaced took the concept of paying homage to a new and scary level, the first episode is so densely packed with oblique and obscure references to popular films, books and music that often the actual plot risks getting bogged down in a mire. Thankfully the writers are cleverer than me, and manage to piece all the references and gags together in a way that seamlessly meshes into the plot. Indeed the characters themselves are so obsessed by popular culture that they can see their own lives through it (this seems especially obvious of Tim and his sci-fi obsession).

For me, 'Spaced' is a landmark in British comedy history. It is riotously funny and one of my favourite television programmes. I even created a website dedicated to it while I was doing my PhD. Once again, another reason to stay a student for as long as possible.

Alphaville - a science fiction film noir

Over the last few years I have been slowly working my way through the 'canon' of 50 great science fiction films as recommended to me by the 'Rough Guide to Science Fiction' - cheers Mum for that gift, it has been enlightening. Such films have included Soylent Green and - now - Alphaville.

A French, black and white science fiction thriller from the 1950s, Alphaville immediately feels like a film noir detective story. However it also feels confusing and disturbing as it paints a picture of a world that has succumbed to the nightmare of authoritarianism through machines. Alphaville the city is introduced to us through a series of confusing scenes in which a reporter from the 'outer countries' arrives in the city and is greeted by emotionless individuals and a harsh, grating, mechanical disembodied voice that emanates from Alpha-60 - the machine that controls the city. There is no introductory montage that explains what this city is, no news reel that explains how Paris of the modern era became this heartless place of the future, instead we get a confusing experience in which people greet each other with the same banal phrases and fear any expression of humanity. From this we piece together a picture of a nightmare future.

It is never completely clear how far in the future this film is set or indeed where in the universe it is set. Telephone operators talk of making 'galactic calls', while the film looks firmly set in an Earthly city. Far from being confusing though, this is actually quite satisfying since it makes the world even more strangely alien.

Our main character - the reporter - is a man named Lemmy Caution, who is possibly a spy from the outer countries. Is he investigating the machine that is Alpha-60, or is he trying to destroy it? Alpha-60 runs Alphaville by implementing a strict authoritarian regime of zero emotion and devotion to the state. Caution is shown people being executed for demonstrating feelings, he talks to his female aide about the use of words and how there are certain phrases that have lost all meaning in this world. They discuss how Alpha-60 is the creation of scientists in Alphaville and has realised that it can only survive by imposing its regime on the other countries. Caution then resolves to fight against Alpha-60 and try to save humanity from its influence.

Hugely confusing at first - deliberately so as the world Alphaville portrays should be confusing and disturbing - Alphaville is ultimately very satisfying. Another classic science fiction film that's worth checking out, not for the easily-confused though.