If you go down to the Woods today…

Hello Everyone :-)
As we’ve covered previously, I don’t do well with Horror, but as an ardent film fan I find it very difficult to ignore a film that gets described as a “game changer”, especially when it gets rave reviews from several people whose opinions I trust.
Reassured I wouldn’t have to deal with cinematic induced insomnia, off I trotted (along with a volunteer whose arm I could hide behind if things got a bit scary) to see my second Joss Whedon creation in the space of a week, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’.

So, this is the part of my post where I usually try and give as brief as possible description of the film. In the case of ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ this is going to be ridiculously tricky. All I can say (and all a lot of people have said) is the less you know about it the better. The only facts I will impart are; there are 5 people and they go to a Cabin in the Woods, however things are not always as they seem…

And now to praise it without giving away any of the details… Oh Mr Whedon, Mr Goddard, you have not made my task and easy one!

It’s no great mystery that what you see in the trailer is only a fraction of what the film is about. This becomes apparent from the off, with a highly amusing opening sequence that totally catches the viewer off guard. Take that as a warning shot for things to come. The beauty of ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ is that after those few opening scenes you’ll run a few scenarios through your head and think you have the measure of the film… believe me when I say, you’re not even close to having a handle on it.

This isn’t an actor’s film but the cast have been well chosen and a couple of them are really good. Kristen Connolly puts in a good performance as Dana and Fran Kranz is brilliant as Marty the comic relief (in the same vein as Randy Meeks from Scream albeit not quite as ‘meta’). And Chris Hemsworth takes his top off… (What’s that? Shallow? Who me?!?!)
I’m in love with Bradley Whitford from his days on ‘The West Wing’ but he is great in this. I’m not saying anything else about his character lest I spoil it for you!

As much as I’m sure it was a joint venture between Whedon and Goddard it had Joss’s name stamped through it in like a stick of Blackpool rock. It’s got his dark humour all over it which is really refreshing. It’s not as scary as it could have been for which I was quite thankful, but if you’re a hard core Horror fan you might be slightly under-whelmed by the scares.

‘The Cabin in the Woods’ is an exercise in precision, in every sense. The gags are timed to perfection, the dialogue is snappy, the plot points are delivered bang on time; it really feels like someone took a great deal of care to craft it.

As an admitted Horror-phobe you’d think going to see a film that parodies common horror tropes would leave me nonplussed. Wrong! If you’re a horror nut that’s seen every slasher flick under the sun or (like me) you covered the absolute basics of the Horror genre for your Media Studies A-Level, either way, you’ll know exactly what they’re sending up. I imagine that if I’d have seen more Horror films I may have found it even funnier but I’ve still seen enough to get the references and I was giggling throughout.

I loved ‘The Cabin in the Woods’. If you’re planning on seeing it, leave your preconceptions at the door because you won’t be needing them.

Oh, and, this won’t make sense until you see the film but, we must now all refer to erections as ‘Husband Bulges’.

Now, let’s have some…

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. Read this, the story of a Five year old Avenger! Is it not the sweetest thing you've ever seen in your life?!?! It made my day, it really did :-)

2. "NEWS TEAM... ASSEMBLE!" Oh yes. This is happening!

3. Robert Pattinson will not be playing Finnick Odair in the upcoming sequel to ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Catching Fire’. Thank FUCK for that! There were rumours, rumours that chilled me to the bone but thankfully it’s not happening :-) Finnick is one of the key characters in ‘Catching Fire’ and Pattinson would have been awful and I would have cried.

That’s all I’ve got for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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"Ma'am, there's only one God, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that"

Hello Everyone :-)

No daft pre-amble today. Let’s crack on, here’s what I think of ‘Marvel’s Avengers Assemble’ (just ‘The Avengers’ from this point on because that is a bloody stupid name).

Our story begins in a S.H.I.E.L.D base where Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) has been enlisted by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to help on a project to harness the power of the Tesseract (previously seen in ‘Captain America’).The Tesseract activates, opening a portal to another world through which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) falls. Loki steals the Tessseract and places Selvig and some of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents, including Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye played by Jeremy Renner), into a trance where they will do his bidding. Loki and the brainwashed S.H.I.E.L.D agents escape with the Tesseract forcing Fury to re-open the ‘Avengers Initiative’ in order to track Loki and retrieve the Tesseract.

Wow. Just WOW!

For starters, someone give Josh Whedon a medal; so many plates and 143 minutes in which to spin them, he does a fantastic job.
Let’s break it down: It was one thing to have to deal with three established characters making sure their respective fans were happy, but it’s quite another to also have to develop Hawkeye and Black Widow into fully formed characters and build the ‘Hulk’ into the franchise after two previous attempts to launch the character, both of which had limited success. You’ve also got to juggle Loki and the Chitauri making sure their motives seem believable, reinforce the character of Nick Fury, make sure you give fan favourite Agent Coulson a fair amount of screen time and introduce Maria Hill to the series. That’s just the characters; you have to make sure the script is funny and has purpose, make sure it looks amazing, sounds amazing and has just the right amount of teasing for further forays into the Marvel universe… Whedon manages all of this with aplomb.

The cast is on fine form. Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans pick up their roles from the previous Marvel films with the greatest of ease and the three actors bounce off each other really well, balancing the comedic and more serious elements of the dialogue really well.
Tom Hiddleston is great reprising his role as Loki. There’s a definite step-up in the character’s motives from ‘Thor’ to ‘The Avengers’. He descends into full on, world-conquering megalomania quite nicely!
Black Widow and Hawkeye are developed well. Both made cameos in ‘Iron Man 2’and ‘Thor’ respectively and both prove their mettle in this as fully rounded main characters. I like them a lot and hope they get their own spin offs.
Much has been said about Mark Ruffalo's performance as Bruce Banner and (as the Banner calls him) "the other guy". I really liked it and there's no doubt that his is the best interpretation of the character to be put on the silver screen in recent years. He delivers some of the funniest lines whilst keeping a real sense of inner-turmoil.

The action set pieces are, predictably, amazing. They’re big on spectacle and edited really well. It never descends into not knowing what part of what belongs to who but they still manage to make everything look epic. Having said that my favourite fight scene is between Black Widow and Hawkeye and in that there’s no big effects or explosions in that; it’s just well-choreographed, close range fighting that shows exactly why the newcomers are on the team.

Granted the plot is a little bit thin, in the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins it’s “like... butter scraped over too much bread”. Basically the team have to stop Loki making a thingy that will open a hole in the galaxy and bring about the enslavement of the human race… and that’s about it. Suffice to say creating a labyrinthine plot of twists and turns is not the film’s priority.

Even though the plot is a bit non-existent, what I really like is the dialogue. Never has the script of a Superhero film been so witty and fun. Not every comic book adaptation is light and fluffy but also not everything has to be 'The Dark Knight'. It is so much funnier than I thought it’d be and the film is better for it.

I hope this is taken on board by the entire cinematic world. Big Blockbusters don’t have to be lowest common denominator trash. They can be bright, funny, well rounded, well executed films such as this. It’s so awesome it makes me smile just thinking about it :-)

If that's not enough to bring a smile to your face how about some...

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. The new series of Doctor Who will be premiering at the Edinburgh TV Festival this summer. This isn't the biggest shock in the world because it's exactly what happened last time, but hey, now it's official.

2. Kevin Feige has said that of all the upcoming Marvel sequels "Captain America 2 will be most closely associated with Avengers.". It makes sense if you think about it. All the other characters have their own people to deal with but poor, gorgeous, lonely Captain left all his friends back in the 40’s, the only people he knows were in ‘the Avengers’ so naturally they’ll be quite closely linked.

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

Expect to be seeing a few posts over the next few days, I’ve been distracted so I’ve got a few waiting to go up!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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"We're not bad people, we just come from a bad place"

Hello Everyone :-)

Cast your minds back to the Oscars (seems like an awfully long time ago doesn’t it?). You may have read various articles on various film-ey websites about reactions to the nominees. If you did it’s highly likely they mentioned the film I am writing about today, many said Michael Fassbender should have received a best actor nomination if not the award itself. Here’s what I thought of ‘Shame’.

Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a 30 something has a high-powered job (possibly in advertising although it’s never really clarified) and is suffering with sex addiction. Brandon hires prostitutes, has many one-night stands, uses online sex chats and utilises many other outlets for his addiction until one day his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) needs somewhere to live and decides to crash in his flat. The film follows his life and the tragedy of being afflicted with an addiction.

One of the things I like about ‘Shame’ (and there are many) is that it portrays sex addiction as a ‘proper illness’. Whilst drug addiction has (to some extent) been accepted as something that needs medical treatment, sex addiction has not been afforded the same level of understanding. I’ve seen it emblazoned across the T-shirts of lads heading to 18-30’s holiday destinations and whenever some poor celebrity gets checked into rehab on account of sex addiction, it’s always commented on as if it’s not as deserving of sympathy as, say, an addiction to heroin. What ‘Shame’ does is show sex addiction as something that isn’t exciting or enjoyable; it’s something that is debilitating, all-consuming and deeply sad.

This is the second collaboration between Fassbender and Artist turned Director, Steve McQueen. I’ve never seen any of McQueen’s art-work so I can’t comment on it but I think filmmaking is his calling. What surprised me about ‘Shame’ was how tense it is. Throughout you’re sat praying that Brandon will get better, that he’ll have some kind of redemption in a way that had my heart in my mouth for a great deal of the film.

It’s such a wonderful looking film. Forgive me while I get a bit geeky but a lot of ‘Shame’ is comprised of long takes where the camera doesn’t cut away, it moves with the characters, most memorably a shot where camera tracks alongside Brandon as he runs across the blocks of Manhattan. In anyone else’s hands that scene would be boring but with McQueen it becomes so much more. I can’t put my finger on what makes these long takes so special but McQueen injects so much emotion into these simple shots you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a magician.

Unsurprisingly for a film about sex addiction there is a lot of nudity and some very graphic sex scenes. This may put some people off but I was ok with it and I’m not a lover of gratuitous nakedness. The sex scenes serve to illustrate the overwhelming bleakness of Brandon’s addiction; they’re never sexy or hot, they don’t even seem particularly fun.

McQueen has his skills as a filmmaker reflected in the two lead actors. I very much doubt that Mulligan and Fassbender would have been able to give such stripped down (in every sense of the phrase) performances without his support.
Mulligan plays against her usual type of ‘shy, English rose’ and instead makes Sissy a brash, loud, fractured individual. She’s heartbreaking.
Fassbender turns out another tour de force. I think if an actor gives one performance of this level during his career, he’s done well, for Fassbender to have films like ‘Shame’ and ‘Hunger’ under his belt already…it’s nothing short of extraordinary. He is consistently on the money and gives the same amount of passion and conviction whether he’s playing an Irish republican Prisioner, a Mutant with a bucket on his head, a Swiss psychiatrist or the Byronic hero of a Brontë novel. I adore him and in ‘Shame’ he is an absolute revelation.

I had been waiting to see ‘Shame’ for months before it was finally shown at the brilliant Warwick Arts Centre. It was everything I could have hoped; absorbing, tragic, mesmeric and searingly honest. Be under no illusions, it’s not an easy watch, but sometimes you need to see something like this to remind yourself of how powerful cinema can be.

That’s enough seriousness for one day. I think we need some…

Reasons to be cheerful :-)
1. New Dark knight rises trailer (there are some pretty awesome photos in that link too!). I have been rather neglectful of the Caped Crusader’s latest cinematic outing, for this I can only apologise, I’ve been terribly distracted by other Superhero shaped offerings (more of which next time), but this certainly made me pay attention to the final instalment of Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy :-)

2. New 'The Amazing Spider-Man' trailer! Lots of superhero trailers today isn’t it? Not that I’m complaining! Why would I when I have Andrew Garfield’s lovely visage to look at! This makes me a bit more comfortable with the idea of a reboot so soon after the Sam Raimi trilogy. The initial trailers were a bit dark and gloomy but this one has more of a sense of humour which is what Spiderman should be about. I approve!

3. It's been revealed (WARNING – THIS LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS) who Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing in J.J Abrams follow up to 'Star Trek'. I won’t write it on here just in case you don’t want to know but all I will say is that I am VERY excited :-)

That’ll do for today. Hold on to your hats people because next time… Avengers will Assemble!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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Who’s the fairest of them all?

Hello Everyone :-)

Last week I had what I've christened a ‘cinematic binge’. Basically I went to the pictures three nights on the bounce.

When they released the first images of this I was VERY interested, it looked bright, colourful and fun which is right up my street. Then they released this ridiculous trailer which put me right off. However, I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and went to go see it.

‘Mirror Mirror’is a twist on the universally known story of Snow White. After the tragic death of his wife, the King is left to raise their only child, a girl called Snow White (Lily Collins). After a few years the King re-marries and mysteriously disappears leaving his Queen (Julia Roberts) to rule. It is only after he has gone that the Queen’s true colours are revealed, she rules with no regard for her people, taxing them into poverty. The Evil Queen keeps Snow shut in the palace to prevent her from taking her rightful place on the throne.

I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I really try not to judge things before I’ve seen them and it’s for films like this that I bear that rule in mind. That god awful trailer does this film a disservice, the film itself is infinitely better than the trailer would have you believe. I mean if you’re not a fan of camp things, don’t waste your time or money but if you’re after a super fun fairy-tale romp ‘Mirror Mirror’ could be just the ticket.

The writing isn’t naff as you might expect, it’s light and breezy. Some of the more comedic scenes trail off rather than hitting the punchlines but for the most part it’s nice and family friendly.

I think one of the things that makes it so entertaining is that all of the cast seem to be having a hoot.
Lily Collins is suitably fresh faced and adorable as our heroine Snow White. She’s very sweet, likable and is absolutely beautiful. She also embraces the‘this princess saves herself’ vibe that her character has. I really like that, I mean she’ no Katniss Everdeen but she kicks a decent amount of fairy-tale ass.
Julia Roberts is a bit hit and miss. Most of her over the top-ness villany goes down quite well but her attempts at comedy fall a bit flat, verging on cringe-ey. That said, it’s hard to criticise someone that seems to be having such a good time :-)
The Seven Dwarves are brilliant. Their characters aren’t really delved into that deeply on an individual level(which I would have liked) rather they act as a unit which is quite nice.
However, performance wise, Armie Hammer steals it as the dashing Prince Alcott. They play him as a classic Prince Charming which suits his drop dead, matinee idol good looks down to the ground. I enjoyed him in ‘The Social Network’ but in this he gets to stretch his comedic muscles to great effect. The humour is unashamedly aimed at a children but it raised several chuckles from me (read into that what you will…).

There is a rather large Disney shaped Elephant in the room whenever ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ is adapted. Thankfully, Tarsem Singh has not made a frame by frame re-hash of the 1939 seminal classic, I think he’s made something that’s original enough to stand on it’s own, out of the shadow of the house of mouse.

It looks beautiful; fantastically fairy-tale and fun, however there are some things that feel like they’ve been done for the sake of it just to be a bit fancy. Like the idea of the titular Mirror (the face in the Mirror is a reflection of the Evil Queen but with magic powers and without any flaws), but is it really necessary to have her go through the weird water mirror and into a random straw hut? No, I don’t think it is.

This is a really accessible family film. It’s by no means a Tomboy adventure but it’s not as girly girl-ish as it could have been. I don’t think it’s had the good fortune it deserves, possibly because of that god awful trailer and the fact that it came out a week after ‘The Hunger Games (under which EVERYTHING was trampled for about a month after its release).

I really liked‘Mirror Mirror’; it’s charming, colourful and has a lovely, independent role model for young girls (who are this film’s target audience) which is really refreshing in an age when cinema bends over backwards to accommodate a male audience. All that’s left to say is, it’s your move Kristen Stewart…

Now, if that dose of fairy-tale lovliness wasn’t enough to make your day how about some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
1. The‘Prometheus’promotional train is running down the track. A video of David the android (played by Michael ‘I want his Babies’ Fassbender) and poster were released on 17^th and 18^th April as part of the ongoing ‘Prometheus’ viral ad campaign.
The video is unnerving to say the least (I've watched it at LEAST 15 times). There’s something about the accent he’s using. I think it’s the bit where he says“distressing… or unethical”. That pause is properly sinister. And I mean, I think he’s lush, but Fassbender in a bag… WEIRD!!!
I must commend the marketing team for all of the promo they’ve been doing, it’s inspired. The super-slow eeking out of information since July last year, the pictures, the trailers, the viral 2023 TED conference (which was hosted on the TED site as well as Youtube boosting awareness of the conference, which is great), the‘David’ teaser and now this. It’s brilliant. 1^st June can’t come soon enough!

2. ‘The Avengers’ had the biggest worldwide opening of any superhero film ever. I’ve seen it. I will be writing about it soon. Watch this space :-)

3. New Trailer for ‘Brave’! I know that we’ve all been burnt after ‘Cars 2’ but I think it looks really good. It’s Pixar’s first foray into full on fairy-tale and I like the look of it!

That’s all for now. In the coming days I’ll be posting about ‘Shame’, ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ so stay tuned!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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"We didn't evolve from slugs just to sit drinking our own sweat now did we?!"

Hello Everyone :-)

Children’s cinema is a hard nut to crack. By now it should be universally acknowledged that getting a balance between entertaining the kids and keeping the adults amused is really rather difficult. Pixar were the previous standard bearer but, with the uninspired ‘Cars 2’, have fallen slightly from grace of late (I await ‘Brave’ and ‘Monsters University’ to mark their return to form).
Animation fans have therefore waited with baited breath to see the outcome of Blighty’s own; Aardman helmed ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists’ (we’ll just call it ‘The Pirates!’ though).

Our hotchpotch crew is led by the suave and luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) who sets his sights on securing some booty (not the Beyonce/J.Lo kind…) to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award. After various fruitless raids on useless ships, the crew hijack the Beagle and accidentally run into Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who informs them that, without knowing it, they have been sitting on the scientific discovery of the century.

It is gorgeous to look at. There’s something about those plasticine and chicken-wire models that warms the cockles of your heart. I know that where Aardman are concerned the rose tinted glasses of Britishness descend and many go all misty eyed, however, even through the patriotic haze, there’s no denying this is a quality product. A labour of love, crafted with total affection, I think that’s why Aardman films are so consistently good. Their clay-mation features take so long to make, you’d better have written something worth making!

The visual gags are brilliant; it is Aardman’s little touches that make me smile. I found myself scanning every frame; signs in the background, pictures on the wall of Pirate Captain’s office, eyes darting across the Pirate of the Year application form. They have a great ability to make it seem like they included all these little in-jokes just for you, which makes it so wonderfully personal.

The characters are absolutely superb. Pirate Captain is lovely and you root for him right from the off. Pirate with a Scarf aka Number 2, is voiced by Nerdy Rachel May favourite, Martin Freeman, Pirate with Gout (check out the badge on his hat) is Brendan Gleeson, The Surprisingly Curvy Pirate is Ashley Jensen, Albino Pirate is Russel Tovey, Imelda Staunton is Queen Victoria, Brian Blessed is the Pirate King (never has anyone been so appropriately cast in anything. Ever)… I could sit here all day waxing lyrical about the cast.  
It’s, undeniably, a star studded line-up but the brilliant thing is that they don’t trade on it, in fact it’s hardly mentioned in any of the trailers. In a similar way to the ‘Toy Story’ films, every one involved realises that it’s not enough to have Tom Hanks or (in the case of ‘The Pirates!’) Hugh Grant speaking some lines, what matters is making the characters likable and making you care about what happens to them. This is where ‘The Pirates!’ succeeds.  

It’s a lovely length; 88  minutes is bob on. Enough time to engage the viewer, enough time to establish a good set of characters but not enough time for Kids to get bored. It’s nicely paced as well, all of the major plot points come at the right time. The gags are non-stop which is great because if there’s one that you miss or falls a bit flat there’ll be another one along to make you giggle a minute later.

Also (as if there weren’t enough wonderful things to say about this film) the soundtrack is awesome. It’s a jukebox soundtrack and some may sneer at that, but the songs are so brilliantly chosen, it’s just perfect. Besides, any film that manages to crowbar in a Flight of the Conchords song is fine by me.

The best way to describe this film is a wonderful assault on the senses. Like being hugged my madness, it’s as if Aardman have grabbed your face in both hands and are snogging it with their eccentricity. It’s fantastically British but I think its mainstream enough to have legs outside the UK, the characters are well rounded and, lovable and the animation is to die for. The best thing about it? It feels timeless; I can’t see a reason why Children and Grown-Ups alike can’t continue to enjoy this wonderful film for many years to come.

Right, after that jolly on the high seas let’s continue the merriment with some…

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. The new series of Horrible Histories started on Monday! IT’S SO BRILLIANT!!!! I squealed most of the way through and totally lost it when a few people, whose work I adore, made little cameos. The new series is aired every day this week on the CBBC channel and episode 1 of series 4 will be on the BBC Iplayer until 16.59 on Monday 16^th April (the subsequent episodes run out at the same time in the days after), in fact the CBBC channel had a little Horrible Histories marathon on Monday to celebrate the new series and there’s all sort of old episodes on the Iplayer including the absolutely wonderful ‘Horrible Histories Big Prom Party’ (available until 17.29 on Monday 16^th April). WATCH IT! You’ve been told!

2. Bored of sending the same birthday cards as everyone else? Have a look at this. Brainbox Candy has an array of highly amusing cards that couldn’t be further removed from the saccharine rubbish you get in most card shops. Who could resist the allure of a Valentines card that says “I love you well loads”?

3. JK Rowling, writer of little known children’s book series ‘Harry Potter’, has revealed that her next book will be an adult novel called ‘The Casual Vacancy’. I must say, for a woman that has earnt enough so that she never has to work again, I think it’s commendable that she’s written another book, proof that if you find something you love, no matter how much you earn, you can’t give it up. Whether the book is any good remains to be seen but it’s sure to be a sure fire hit if only because she wrote it.

4. Is a loved one having a big birthday this year and you can’t think what to buy them? Are they a massive fan of zombies? Look no further! You and some friends can stage your own re-enactment of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ in your own ‘Zombie Shopping Mall Experience’! What could be better than that?!?! Omg, it just looks amazing! I love that I live in a world where this stuff exists :-) And by the way… you’ve got red on you…

That’s all I’ve got for you today.

Next time I’ll be looking at ‘Mirror Mirror’, the first of this year’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs adaptations and the one not starring Kristen ‘face like a smacked arse’ Stewart…

Goodbye till next time :-)

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