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.

Ex Machina - why so much hype?

Only back in the UK for a couple of days last week and I went to see a new Science Fiction film that had been heavily trailed and well-reviewed while I was away.  Ex Machina is a film that presents a view of the near future, a future in which true AI is beginning to dawn, and a billionaire entrepreneur (Nathan - played by Oscar Isaac) has created a female robot AI (Ava - Alicia Vikander) that he believes can be the next step in evolution.  To test his creation, Nathan brings in Caleb (a programmer played by Domhnall Gleeson) to carry out a series of Turing tests on the robot, and determine if she has consciousness.

This is a film that looks great, has a simple aesthetic and even simpler setting - the entire film (save for a few moments at the start and end) is set inside the underground bunker where Nathan has carried out his research.  The film consists of a series of interactions between characters.  Firstly Nathan and Caleb get to know each other and Caleb comes to realise what Nathan has created, then Caleb and Ava get to know each other as part of a series of tests, finally Caleb comes to realise the true nature of the relationship between Ava and Nathan, and must work out what is real and who to trust.

Now all of this is fine.  But I cannot understand how this film is sporting a 8.0 rating on IMDB at the moment.  Ex Machina is nothing more than a reasonably good episode of the Twilight Zone.  It's 45 minutes of television padded out into 2 hours through the use of moody shots of scenery and endless scenes of flat conversations that rarely build character, tension or plot.  The plot isn't rocket science.  At it's best it's a rehash of 2001 with a bit of misogyny thrown in and without the awe-inspiring vision of space and exploring the unknown.

Put simply; I just don't get the hype.  It's nothing new, and although the effects used to create Ava are clearly impressive, they're hardly a paradigm shift in film SFX - the are no Jurassic Park dinosaurs here.  Watch Ex Machina if you must, but please don't believe the hype.

22 Jump Street - Funnier than you would think

Having been pleasantly surprised by the amount that I enjoyed 21 Jump Street, it wasn't too difficult to decide upon the second film that I would watch on the long haul to Buenos Aires.  22 Jump Street is obviously the sequel to the reboot of the TV series, again starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as a pair of douchebag cops who are drafted in to investigate a dodgy ring of drug dealers - this time on a college campus (last time it was in a school).

The running gag in the film is one that has carried over from the previous, and to be fair to the writers they've done a pretty good job of making something that could have been tedious into something funny.  The joke is that everything is the same as last time; playing on the idea that the sequel needs to be as similar to the first to appeal to the same audience.  In 21 Jump Street the gag was that everything happening was exactly the same as the TV series.  And it really is the same as last time, but somehow the postmodern acknowledgement of that isn't tedious, it's pretty funny.

I guess the thing that makes the film work is a combination of smart writing and excellent comic performances from Tatum and Hill - aided by Ice Cube ably bringing his performance as the archetypical 1980s style angry black police chief.  It's crude and not subtle in the slightest, but it's undeniably funny with its penis jokes, weird trips, lampooning of the buddy cop genre and general refusal to take itself seriously.  The film ends with a montage predicting future iterations of the xx Jump Street genre, with Hill and Tatum going to all sorts of schools and academies solving exactly the same crimes as they age and pretend to still be in their early 20s.  It's surprisingly funny as end-credit sequences go.

As this kind of stuff goes, it's no Bridesmaids, but it's definitely better than most.

Edge of Tomorrow - not edge of my seat though

The first film I watched on my flight to Buenos Aires a few weekends ago was Edge of Tomorrow, the recent science fiction / time travel / action adventure starring Tom Cruise playing off against a potential love interest who is literally young enough to be his daughter (Cruise is 21 years older than Emily Blunt).  Would this ever happen the other way around without the age difference being a plot point in the movie?  If anyone can think of any examples then I would love to hear about them.

The premise of Edge of Tomorrow is that in the nearish future there is some kind of alien invasion of Earth in progress.  The aliens have no apparent agenda, they're simply evil-looking blobs with tentacles and claws waiting to be dispatched in a variety of ways before they dispatch you.  Tom Cruise's character is press-ganged into joining the marines after insulting his commanding officer Brendan Gleeson.  Cruise protests but ultimately joins the human invasion forces on the beaches of Northern France - which are horribly defeated.  Cruise himself is killed, but he immediately awakens back on the previous day, ready to live the day again and repeat his death in a Groundhog Day style.

And this is the plot for the rest of the film.  Cruise must work out how to try and survive the day.  Not only that, but he soon discovers the reason for his time travel is intrinsically linked with the aliens' victory over Humanity.

Let's be honest, Edge of Tomorrow sounds like a fun idea, but in the end it's science fiction filler.  There are plenty of nice effects, different types and styles of guns and body armour and aliens, plus some cool arse-kicking action, but that's all.  The story is incredibly simple when it's all boiled down, and by its very nature pretty repetitive and full of CGI.  It's fun to look at if you're a fan of the science fiction action genre, but I think that even the most hardened of fanboys will be unable to give it more than average marks.  This is a film very few people will be watching in 5 years time.