24 Hour Party People (Review)

Posted on June 18, 2013 by OGR

Here is a film that is far more creative and entertaining than the source material might warrant, especially given that much of the film is devoted to navel gazing morose musicians in an especially depressing area of the United Kingdom.

But the film is driven by its experimental nature and the performance of Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson, a central figure in the real life events that the film portrays, who Coogan plays with far more than a dash of his other alter-ego Alan Partridge.

In short Wilson is an ego-maniac with chronic insecurity issues and simultaneous delusions of grandeur, that probably makes him a lot or at least a little like Coogan… Partridge. Whether you love him or hate him, you can’t not watch him – at least in this film anyway.

Wilson was there at the genesis of more than a couple of landmark scenes in music, and he tells us as much in clever irreverent, 4th wall busting narration, often turning direct from a dramatised moment to tell us what ensued after the event. As the face of music changed, so did he.

* NOTE: All the rest are to be prefaced by ‘allegedly’. The film even admits it makes up a fact or two to keep the story popping.

(Allegedly) Wilson was present at the Sex Pistols first gig, then for almost every cultural breakthrough for the better part of a decade in Britain, including the formation of the Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays.

Initially it was largely paranoid, claustrophobic, depressing shoegazer stuff, like emo but lacking a marketable angle, Tony was on hand to discover Joy Division, and like many others found beauty in tragedy, until the lead singer ‘removed himself’ from proceedings just as they seemed set to explode worldwide.

Here is a man that despite – or perhaps because of his confidence, bravado and the occasional stroke of luck – manages to be around at the nichiest of niche moments in musical history.

Credit where credit is due, Wilson might be an opportunist, but he had the balls to put on the line, establishing a music label that heavily favoured the artist themselves, then opening an ahead of its time club in Manchester prior to anything similar enjoying any success in such a low socio-economic area. It might again be pot luck, but the opening of the club coincided with the arrival of cheap and omnipresent party drugs including speed and ecstasy, which fuelled a generation of glow-stick rocking kids shuffling away with their eyes closed. The same kids that made the drug effected purchases that made over-rated crab-bands like The Happy Mondays short lived Kings of the scene, despite minimal talent.

Unfortunately as Wilson discovers, when the music that drives the drugged out partiers is in turn driven by musicians equally of their face, it makes for volatile, unreliable and combustible dealings on both sides of the stage.

Featuring cameos from many of the real musicians portrayed in the film’s events, and with several performances from notable British character actors – especially Andy Serkis as a pompous self-important producer – 24 Hour Party people is amusing even if you weren’t a big devotee of any of the scenes portrayed, which I am not. In fact I was continually surprised to find how much I enjoyed a film that centred on a guy that I would probably loathe in real life and his dealings with musical genres where I haven’t even a passing interest.

Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. This probably won’t be the film to convince you of the merit of British pop in the 80s and early 90s if you aren’t already a fan, but it will likely entertain you anyway.

Twitt
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Beetle Juice (Review)

Posted on June 17, 2013 by OGR

At the core Beetle Juice is a baroque kid’s bedtime story brought to life by a scene stealing performance by Michael Keaton and backed up by Tim Burton’s unique visual aesthetic and black sense of humour.

Life is hard, but as idealistic young couple Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) being dead is somewhat harder, especially when you don’t realise at first.

When their dream home is unceremoniously converted into the eternal resting place for their spirits – thanks to an act of dog – this cloying pair of devoted ‘newlydeads’ decide to maintain a stiff upper lip and make do. Then they find that their home has been sold to the Deetz’s, a family that could only exist in a Tim Burton film.

Husband Charles is an uptight self important businessman looking for a quiet reprieve from the city bustle, wife Delia is an over the top whirlwind of unnecessary energy who aggravates all around her, and daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) is a semi-suicidal emo-teen who hates her life and her family.

Lydia is probably the most sane of the bunch.

Adam and Barbara look on with horror as Delia and her smarmy pompous interior designer Otho commence destroying all that they painstakingly built in the name of ‘style’. But  they are not yet aware of their powers and limitations – they haven’t even read the Guide for the Recently Deceased that was thoughtfully left for their perusal. There is a scene set in purgatory’s waiting room that allows Burton freedom to explore his wildest ideas, it is the most memorable sequence in the film.

Beetle Juice, or more accurately Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) is the film. Without his incredible (though all too brief) performance as the charismatic bio-exorcist (remover of unwanted living spirits) this film would sputter to a dead stop. Keaton’s Beetlejuice only arrives about half way through the film but revives and restores the energy and more importantly the sense of unpredictability.

Even in this early Burton effort all of his now familiar traits are evident, the favouring of sets, costuming and off kilter imagery over story, the gothic themes.

The ‘Day-O’ scene still holds up well, the purgatory waiting room remains excellent and the giant sand worms amateurish but effective. Despite several projects with muse Johnny Depp I feel it was Michael Keaton as Beetle Juice that was the most indelible character that Burton has as yet created. Unfortunately he was consigned to a supporting role in what is essentially a one note film with a threadbare plot.

In the moments that he is there though, Beetle Juice zings along.

Final Rating – 7 / 10. Keaton is an adrenaline fuelled force of nature in this film, throwing everything at the film and having most of it stick. His performance will stick with you, as will some of Burton’s images, alas the story will not.

Twitt
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Snitch (Review)

Posted on June 14, 2013 by OGR

SnitchSnitch begins in a chillingly realistic way when a teenage boy does something stupid. Only in this case the penalty for accepting a parcel of drugs on behalf of a mate is a minimum ten years in prison. That’s a lot of time for young Jason to think about the definition of stupid.

Jason’s dad is John (The Rock). John is a fine upstanding man running a trucking business and being there for his second wife (Nadine Velasquez) and second child. His ex-wife Sylvie is Jason’s mum. After some tears, hugs and self-blame, they expect Jason to cop a smack on the backside, after which he will be grounded for the summer. Then district attorney Joanne Keegan (Susan Sarandon) cold-heartedly tells John and Sylvie not to expect to see Jason without a striped tan until he is nearer thirty.

Unless…

Unless Jason gives up someone else. A bigger fish up the drug chain. Jason tells his parents that the only drug dealer he knew was the one who sent him the package. And he is already in jail too. (I guess the moral of the story is ‘always know more drug dealers’.)

All seems lost. But remember that earlier bit about John being a nice family guy? (Also he is The Rock.) He tells DA Joanne that “I will bring you your drug dealer”, and off we go…

The first step to getting into the crime business is apparently finding a sponsor. Someone to vouch for your scuzziness. John believes he has that on staff with ex-con Daniel (Jon Bernthal). Using Daniel and his contacts as an ‘in’, John swiftly finds himself up to arched eyebrows in crime and the perils that go along with it.

The film also doesn’t shy away from the human side, going far beyond the usual kidnapped girl who needs saving. Both John and Daniel find their families in danger as they advance up the crime hierarchy and the stakes rapidly rise. This leads to increased interest from the DA’s office who can smell a big catch, and from vicious and calculated crime lords.

The Rock has had a checkered filmography to date, with the occasional pleasant surprise (The Rundown) tempered by bland filler (Tooth Fairy, Walking Tall), stuff that found WWE viewers because The Rock was on the poster. Snitch just might be the film that proves Duane Johnson can both fill a poster and a role competently. It is both a compelling drama and an efficient action flick, with that rarest of sub-genres being ‘Action and violence… With justification!’.

Johnson holds his own in both environments, trading barbs with Susan Sarandon (and Barry Pepper as an undercover agent), and bullets and car chases with the drug world’s nastiest.

I found myself becoming more involved as the film went along, and enjoying the film far more than I expected. Snitch starts out in one direction and dabbles in a couple more genres before it finally comes around to something indicated by the poster above. By this time it has more than earned a little action indulgence. This might be the film that converts WWE guy turned actor The Rock, into full time movie star Duane Johnson.

Raise your eyebrow to that!

Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. Snitch deserves to have more people ‘dobbing it in’ – as one of the better films in cinemas at present

Twitt
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Finding Neverland (Review)

Posted on June 13, 2013 by OGR

I watched Finding Neverland about a month ago, but I haven’t written about it until now. (Normally I write my reviews the same week I watch the flick.)

The primary reason – for once – wasn’t laziness but fear. It is exactly the same predicament that I find myself in after watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, something I have done twice since starting this site.

The fear emanates from the fact that both this and ‘Spotless’ elicit… you know… oh don’t make me say it… oh alright… FEELINGS and stuff.

Put more succinctly both films make a liquid substance well up in the corner of my eyes. Precious few films do that, well maybe my wedding video – but that is another reason entirely. (I’m kidding! I burned our wedding video…)

Finding Neverland shows the family that provided the inspiration for famed writer J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) when he came up with Peter Pan, a story that has since been told to millions of wide eyed children the world over.

Despite many projects being developed and performed as stage plays, Barrie was wracked with self-doubt, amid a period where his writing was becoming less and less powerful, and his marriage to Mary (Rahda Mitchell) less and less meaningful.

Each day Barrie would leave the confines of both home and marriage to take his large dog to the park, where he would sit and watch the world go by, hoping to find something to spark his next great literary work. It was on one such day that he met Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four young sons.

Unlike the present day a solitary man sitting on a bench talking to small boys wasn’t seen as grounds for a summary lynching carried out by a frenzied mob, in fact Sylvia and especially the boys quite enjoyed Barrie’s company – especially his storytelling abilities. Where the kids saw a shaggy dog lying on the grass, Barrie described in vivid detail the real whimsical truth behind this shaggy bear.

Each day the two parties met, with the children swept away as the tales became more interactive, and the locales eventually moving to the Davies’ residence, where they evolved into games and interactive fantasy, all while the delighted Sylvia watched on.

And while Mary sat alone in her own spacious home, wondering when her husband would return home from visiting the Davies’ children… and their single mother.

Of course Barrie was oblivious to all this, for as well as living through the children, his own screening process of logic was almost as juvenile, not caring how this grown man looked to outsiders such as his wife and Sylvia’s concerned mother. Barrie lived vicariously through the children, rediscovering his own sense of wonderment and inspired by their energy and spark. The only child that didn’t seem to share his ‘you’re only as young as you feel’ motif is Peter (Freddie Highmore), a child all too serious and weathered beyond what a small innocent child should be. It seemed that Peter wanted to grow up too fast, with Barrie concerned that he would miss out of the simple joys of an uncomplicated childhood as he did.

One day he announces to the children that his latest work is a fictionalised version of their escapist games and backyard adventures. Furthermore he asks young Peter if he can name the hero in his honour. And Peter Pan was born, with the project explained to an extremely doubtful Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman) Barrie’s longstanding production partner and owner of the local theatre. Frohman reasonably questions if a play about a man, some boys and a fairies will be the one to break Barrie’s recent string of flops. Regardless of his doubts, the play enters pre-production.

Then with everything seemingly moving in the right direction, Sylvia reluctantly informs Barrie that she is ill. Despite her staunch protestations and constant brave face both Barrie and the kids fret that it might be far more serious than she is letting on.

While essentially about the genesis behind one of history’s most renowned stories, the core of Finding Neverland is the relationship between Barrie and Sylvia – which I would point out immediately is not of the ‘behind closed doors’ variety. There are no knowing looks, longing glances or handshakes that linger, simply two adults that are aware of what should logically be, but will never eventuate due to circumstances beyond their controls. Even when Mary leaves her husband the united front of ignorance to the facts remains steadfast.

Whenever ‘real life’ becomes too hard for Barrie he retreats into his play like a kid to a playroom, but an innate sense of maturity and reality keeps bringing him back to face the ever more depressing music, in that way Finding Neverland is equal parts uplifting fantasy and sobering reality,

There are times – especially around Oscar season – that I wonder if there is a noticeable difference between merely ‘adequate’ and ‘award-worthy’ acting. I mean ruling out rank amateurs if you give two decent actors the same script, will there really be a huge difference in the end result? Well I consider Finding Neverland to be Exhibit A that sometimes excellence is supremely evident. Depp and Winslet are both at the top of their considerable powers here, with the more emotional scenes nearer the film’s conclusion brilliantly underplayed and all the more powerful for it. Freddie Highmore is equally sensational as Peter, the kid who will not be fooled by grown-up nonsense and misdirection. His incredible delivery of heartbreaking dialogue, while still reminding us that this is ‘just a kid’, demands acknowledgment.

I have now watched Finding Neverland a few times. Each time I wonder if it’s that I’m run down, or just in one of those moods, or if the pollen count is unusually high – but regardless of the truth – each time I watch it I get more emotional than in 127 purpose built tear-inducers that are trotted out each year. Despite this my over-riding thought is that J.M. Barrie had the right idea; every now and then we all need reminding that above all being a kid should be fun.

Finding Neverland isn’t always fun. But it is always great.

Final Rating – 8.5 / 10. An especially adult tale about a man who thought he was a kid.

Twitt
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Epitaph ‘Gidam’ (Review)

Posted on June 11, 2013 by OGR

Bath time is family time.

At the opening of Epitaph it is 1979. Dr Park is an elderly university lecturer who learns of an old hospital being torn down, the very same hospital that he trained and spent the early years of his career in.

The film then takes us back to 1942, Park’s formative years, and rolls out like a more thematically linked ‘Three… Extremes’ with a trio of entirely different horror tales all occurring at the hospital during Dr Park’s tenure as a man with the unenviable role of morgue assistant; prepping bodies for autopsy and the like…

The first story starts when a beautiful young suicide victim arrives at the morgue, the second when a young girl is admitted after a car accident that claims her mother and stepfather, the third when a Korean soldier who took refuge in the wrong place ends up in the morgue.

This is all very formulaic, Asian horror stuff, with long drawn out silences punctuated by long haired figures emerging suddenly from dark corners. The central theme seems to be love in its many misguided forms.

I won’t spoil anything by explaining the subplots further, besides there isn’t much more to tell. Suffice to say that you’re either scared by this stuff or you’re not.

After dozens of them over the years, many of them far more efficient than this, it takes a lot more than a lank haired pasty character saying ‘boo’ to get my pulse racing.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. If I had to judge though, the second tale has the best ‘boos’ and the most blood, so if I had to pick just one story I would go with that. In reality though if you miss this you aren’t missing much.

Twitt
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The Rocketeer (Review)

Posted on June 10, 2013 by OGR

Handsome everyman good guy? Check. Insanely hot but wholesome good girl? Check. Smarmy bad guy? Check. Evil ‘really’ bad guy? (Well how about Nazis?!?) Check.

Welcome one and all to Disney’s The Rocketeer. A film which follows the formula so closely it needs a restraining order. As did the million or so young pre-teen boys that Jennifer Connelly fast-tracked to puberty after seeing this film…

I’ve been reading a lot of ‘first reader’ books lately with my son, and I think the simplicity of this film lends itself to the concept – and my writing style to the mono-syllabic approach – so here we go.

Clifford the Rocketeer

Clifford is a pilot. He finds a jetpack. A special rocket powered jetpack. Let us call it a rocketpack shall we?

Clifford is surprised.

Clifford wears the rocketpack. It makes him fly. He likes to fly. He flies with the pack and saves a falling man. Everyone cheers for Clifford. He is proud.

The men who lost the rocket-pack are sad. They look for it. Bad guys look for it too. They want it.

The men try to find Clifford. They ask Clifford’s friend Jenny if she knows where Clifford is. Jenny doesn’t know where Clifford is. The men are sad.

Clifford finds out that the men are talking to his friend Jenny. They won’t let her go. Clifford is sad.

Clifford puts on the rocketpack and flies around. He beats the bad guys. He saves Jenny. Everyone is happy. The bad guys are sad.

Some guy gives Clifford a plane. It is fast. Clifford and Jenny are happy.

The end. (Good reading kids.)

In reality The Rocketeer has bugger all going for it. If it weren’t for Jennifer Connelly in her supple uber-prime there would be nothing at all to take away (and don’t think that Disney didn’t awkwardly chuck a couple of amazingly clumsy perv-shots in there to showcase the assets).

Clifford the hero is so bland that now a few days later I can’t recall what he looked like, not even his hair colour. He only gets to wear the damn pack a few times as well, yet somehow manages superhero status by saving a grand total of one guy until the climactic scenes – which are dull by the way.

And Timothy Dalton is really the only guy to differentiate himself from the cast lifted straight from a Dick Tracy comic. Timothy Dalton!

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. If you ask me the only superpower here is Jennifer Connelly’s ability to fill out a dress. (By the way, I am proudly one of the ‘fast-tracked’.) The rest is entirely forgettable.

Twitt
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An OGR List: 6 so-called ‘Novelty acts’ that create genuinely cool music

Posted on June 8, 2013 by OGR

One-Man BandTo me a ‘novelty’ is something with immediately identifiable charms but lacking in genuine quality and long term appeal.

When I think of novelty value my mind goes straight to such ‘classics’ as ‘Who let the dogs out?’, ‘The Macarena’, ummm how about everything the awful Good Charlotte ever excreted, and a million other songs that were momentarily notable but vanished a week later.

A truly successful novelty song requires an awful lot of luck. It’s certain that there have been dozens of songs similar (and likely better than) Gangnam Style released in recent years, for some reason it was the song with the guy in the toilet imploring you to dance like a horse that took off.

Well done Psy, you’re a millionaire now. And a trivia question in about 6 months time.

Remember maybe a decade ago a song that arrived from nowhere and ruled the airwaves for a month or so called ‘I don’t want you back’? Me neither. And it somehow inspired a female response song that was almost as successful.

The point is though, that not all novelty stuff need be mindless crap created by idiots lucky enough to have one idea that somehow arrived at the right time to connect with the public.

Some of it can be good, here are a half dozen examples  of songs that were initially crafted around a gimmick or a single hook, but have not only stood the test of time, but also emerged as solid songs in their own right.

Blues-Brothers_1660615cBlues Brothers

The Blues Brothers were born from a Saturday Night Live skit, which like many other SNL skits was fleshed out and expanded into a feature length film. Unlike all other SNL films, The Blues Brothers ended as something truly special.

Jake and Elwood Blues were the frontmen for an R&B band that covered some of the great blues songs in history. And because the backing band was chock full of genuinely talented and charismatic musicians, and the songs were selected judiciously, the musical results were as good as the film.

But none of this would’ve happened if the singers were awful, which is where the late John Belushi steps in. His Jake Blues is a born showman with a perfectly suited voice for the material.

With brother Elwood jumping around like a goose by his side and occasionally filling in with some nifty harmonica, Jake makes songs like Sweet Home Chicago and She caught the Katy memorable in their own right.

Of course it helps having such luminaries as John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin filling in the gaps, and the soundtrack sold millions.

Tenacious+D+tdTenacious D

A duo of fat middle aged white guys who bicker constantly and have a desire for rockin that far outweighs their rockin ability. Tenacious D are also named after an obscure phrase coined by NBA commentator Marv Albert. Maybe a recipe for laughs, but hardly for musical immortality.

But with the rotund and ebullient Jack Black’s charisma behind the microphone and an all star cast of backing musicians behind the scenes (Dave Grohl among them), Black and co-founder Kyle Gass put together an album that is both hilarious and chock full of hard rock goodness.

While songs like F her Gently, Tribute and Karate bring the funny, mock-rockers like The Road, Lee, Rock your Socks and Kielbasa are good enough tunes to find their way to the iPod on musical credibility alone.

The D are far more a comedy act than a real band, though they have toured globally as a musical act, and their last two albums have been decidedly mediocre, but I can happily put on their debut and enjoy the bulk of it non-ironically. And I often do.

LovageLovage

This album is a real shame. A shame because it is practically unheard of despite being full of really good songs.

A so called ‘supergroup’ put together by a man with more aliases than Fletch, most notably Dan the Automator, as whom he produced a bunch of good tunes including those by De La Soul and the Gorillaz. Lovage is a jokey concept album  with a bunch of skits, some tongue in cheek instrumentals and musical pastiches of samples and pieced together dialogue. But all these are mere filler.

The strength of Lovage are the half dozen or so genuine songs with Mike Patton and Jennifer Charles sharing vocal duties, where the subject matter is uniformly adult in nature without veering too far into smutty territory.  Many of these songs are especially worthwhile, To catch a thief, Book of the month and Stroker Ace in particular all firmly entrenched in my iPod and never skipped regardless of the setting.

The problem with a novelty album centred around tunes for the bedoir, is how one might market it. No-one seemed to find a way beyond the cheesy cd cover above, so hardly anyone ever even found out about these cracking tracks.

Flight-of-the-Conchords-flight-of-the-conchords-2653585-600-594Flight of the Conchords

I miss them too. Jemaine and Bret (‘Brit’) only graced the small screen for a couple series, which impels me to look at the skinny DVD set and feel sad about what might have been.

Each episode ran around 25 minutes and contained two short musical numbers, some part of the plot, some clumsily shoehorned in.

But during that all too brief run New Zealand’s third most successful folk parody duo managed to come up with some classics.

Ladies of the World and Business Time work on many levels, while Mother’uckas and Too many dicks (on the dance floor) are a little more straightforward.

Perhaps their greatest achievement though is making parody rap music that doesn’t make you cringe, something no amount of skits from a million other shows have managed over the years.

"THE MUPPETS"..Ph: John E. Barrett..© 2011 DisneyThe Muppets

The Muppets are everyone’s favourite talking socks. Now since Jason Segal’s 2011 reboot, we can be assured that another generation can grow up safe in the knowledge that a diva pig, a bad stand up comedian bear, and a ‘whatever’ can be lead about by a spindly legged frog.

The often overlooked strength if the Muppets is just how great some of their songs actually are. The reason Rainbow Connection still brings a misty sensation to the eye after a quarter century is because its a damn good song. It helps that Jim Henson was also a damn good singer, even in frog form.

And everyone knows ma-na-ma-na is because it is simple, catchy and far more memorable than so many other crappy tunes. Admit it, you’re humming it in your head right now.

More recently, ‘Life’s a happy song’ from the 2011 movie is insanely catchy, which may have a lot to do with the fact that Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie wrote it.

111006_parker_stoneMatt Stone & Trey Parker

America FUCK YEAH!

Montage.

Freedom isn’t Free!

All tracks from Team America: World Police, sung in gloriously over the top faux macho, and all songs better than half of the trumped up faux macho that passes for popular music these days.

Not cracking it? How about Uncle Fucker, mmmmmkay, or Kyle’s Mom is a big fat Bitch from the South Park film? All show-tuney instead of rocky, but all catchy as hell nonetheless.

Say what you want about the peurile language, the casual obscenity and the controversial plot lines, no-one can argue that these boys can’t pen a great melody and clever lyrics.

I especially like the throwaway lines that often pop up a second or two after the song proper has completed…

…

wait for it…

…

(Suck my balls.)

psy4In Summary

And there you have it, half a dozen artists and/or sources better known for everything but the music, but featuring several tracks that are better than you think.

Even if the tv shows, movies and comedy acts don’t ring your bell, the music is well worth checking out. I can listen to the Lovage album and enjoy it from first track to last as a musical work, ditto (the hilarious) Business Time or Tenacious D’s The Road. And what would The Blues Brothers movie really be without the music?

People are quick to judge and pigeon hole. I should know, I have one of the fastest judgement trigger fingers going around, but good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from.

By the way, I don’t know if Dee-Lite’s ‘Groove is in the Heart’ is a novelty song in the purest sense, but it is a brilliantly catchy song. But I’ll get to that elsewhere at another time. As well as a lot of other things…

OGR

Twitt
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The Hangover 3 (Review)

Posted on June 7, 2013 by OGR
Thank God.

Thank God.

Hangover the Third is an incredible achievement. Uproariously tedious. Hilariously worthless. Just Magnificently dull and unnecessary.

It is a fascinating social experiment and a triumph in marketing. Dubbed the closing chapter of ‘the Wolfpack Trilogy’ (aren’t they all called ‘The Hangover’?), though if we’re going to be granting nicknames that sum up the films, better name it The Lollipop Trilogy, because Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Ghostbusteriasis) have been making suckers of dopes like me for a full five years now.

After Alan’s dad is killed by a decapitated giraffe – in a roundabout way – Alan continues along parallel to rails he long since Ran off. Speaking of ‘off’, he is also off his meds for six months and running wild, leading to the ‘crew’ (none of whom seem to like him by the way) staging a reluctant intervention. The result of which is a two day road trip to a facility for Alan to dry out and come to gri…

Nope. Cancel that. Instead an unwanted and unexpected intervention by still another third party sees Doug waylaid yet again, and Phil, Stu and Alan are tasked with tracking down the unpredictable Mr Chow (Ken Jeung) within three days. And off they go killing joy and spreading feelings of unfortunate déjà vu across many countries.

The attempted humour is generated in two ways, how dumb Alan is, and how dumb Mr Chow is. Bradley Cooper does nothing but swear. Ed Helms refers to previous shenanigans instead of summoning the energy to try new ones. At least facial tattoos and missing teeth got him noticed. He might as well have missed this intervention. Doug is… is the fact that we never care about Doug being taken proof that the man playing him has less than zero charisma? I vote yes.

Which brings us to Alan, and Galapogastortoise ups the ante on his ‘reacting to everything like a five year old’ shtick by added a nasty streak. He’s like a real life version of Homer Simpson without a single joke. Another triumph.

In fact I cannot fathom why Alan warrants an intervention. Aside from a terminal case of douchiness here he is quite placidly behaved. Actually no-one does anything particularly uproarious except Mr Chow, who at least is perpetually under the influence of a lethal speedball of everything available on the dingiest street corner.

The least enjoyable part about over-celebrating is when everyone stops drinking. The first hangover they never stopped. The second seemed to run through the motions but at least they tried in vain to one up their earlier effort. No-one drinks in the third. It is painful, awkward and gives me a headache. Just like a real hangover.

The Hangover 3 is the final part of the trilogy not because it’s the logical end to the story, or even because they ran out of ideas. They ran out of ideas after the first film. It is because director Todd Phillips is like the schoolyard bully who was held back three years and towers over his schoolmates. After three films of telling us idiots what to do and stealing our lunch movie money, he is bored and has invoked his own mercy rule.

Final Rating – 5 / 10. After the highlight arrives into the CREDITS you’ll be the one who feels like drinking heavily. My advice is to buy tickets to whatever screens after this, then arrive early and try to catch the credits. Whatever the film after will undoubtedly be better than this one…

Won’t make nearly as much money as this does though.

Suckers are we…

Twitt
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Little Miss Sunshine: An OGR Protest Review

Posted on June 6, 2013 by OGR

Little Miss Sunshine is one of those films that the mainstream audience inexplicably decide to embrace for no tangible reason.

Warning: From here on in this is SPOILER FILLED.

If you have seen this and don’t see where I am coming from, consider this;

  • The entire film exists only because a young girl has aspirations of stardom that begin and end with a child’s beauty pageant. She spends countless hours working on her routine, honing and perfecting her every move and gesture. The entire family move heaven and Earth (some reluctantly) to accommodate her dream, barely making it to the venue in time.

Then they are all shocked to see the final product when Olive performs it on stage.

One girl. One family. Days, weeks, months (?) of preparation in the SAME HOUSE. And no-one has seen it.

This is why they are surprised.

‘Look’ I hear you say, ‘It wouldn’t have been a surprise to them or us if they had already seen it, and their reactions wouldn’t have been so genuine and life affirming’.

Granted on the surprise angle. But their reactions are both fake and stupid. Save the girl from embarrassment. It’s one thing to indulge a mildly talented girl who thinks she is a star – another to allow a seven year old strip tease in front of a group of strangers.

‘Don’t quell her self-esteem Richard. Cheer the precocious girl dancing like a slut!’

Not enough? Consider this also;

  • Cute pre-teen girls acting like whores aside, the characters in this film range from aggravating to reprehensible, aside from the well meaning Mum least aggravating and/or reprehensible is the suicidal Uncle Frank. Richard the self help ‘guru’ is an obnoxious self absorbed prick who constantly waylays the entire mission with his own selfish wants, Dwayne the emo-teen is a gormless hateful git whose vow of silence would be better served with a side order of not breathing, and the porn loving, profanity spewing, drug using Grandpa. What a guy.

The fact is that these scumbags are played by famous actors; Greg Kinnear, Steve Carrell, Alan Arkin and Toni Collette. If it were Joe Smith, Betty Green and Shia LeBeouf the reprisals would be instant and damning.

A junkie grandfather imploring a teenage boy to ‘Get some. No lots!’?

A family that not only endorses an especially adult dance by a 7 year old, but jumps onstage and grinds next to them?

A film where it seems everyone argues and snipes at each other constantly – but my doesn’t it finish in such a life affirming manner?

(Don’t you understand? She’s a tiny bit fat but they love her anyway!)

No, nuh-uh, not on your little yellow combi, and what the fuck?

I know I am over-thinking this, but the very fact that this film was not only accepted but garnered several awards is in my opinion symptomatic of all that is wrong with the American mainstream.

Show a pair of tits in a movie; gross. Have a married couple having sex; disgusting. Having a bunch of name actors ‘playing against type’, degrading each other, swearing constantly and indulging in what should be viewed as especially anti-social, taboo breaking activity; praise worthy.

Just make sure that it sounds fun and Steve Carrell is in there somewhere.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Fuck Little Miss Sunshine. The film, not the cute little chubby girl.

Twitt
Posted in Crappy Movies, Film, Movie Reviews | Leave a comment

This film is not yet rated (Review)

Posted on June 4, 2013 by OGR

Ewwww, a bottom!

In America the ratings system is monitored and applied by the MPAA – the Motion Picture Association of America. They decide what the viewing public should and shouldn’t see when it comes to sex, violence and profanity, and after viewing each film they apply a series of ratings to the film.

The dreaded ‘NC17’ rating is the worst grade that can be bestowed upon a film from a commercial perspective, as it means that those under 18 – specifically a huge proportion of the ticket buying public – cannot gain access to the film. These films are incredibly difficult to market and are generally viewed as inaccessible.

NC17 is often the ‘kiss of death’ to a film’s commercial potential.

This documentary aims to uncover how the MPAA arrive at their decisions, why studio backed films seem to get preferential treatment and smaller independent filmmakers are regularly inconvenienced.

Should I mention that the MPAA is financed and supported by big studio money?

The early scenes highlight various inconsistencies between similar looking situations across many films. Many directors and filmmakers are interviewed and seem to share the same prevailing message, that ‘independent filmmaking’ is constantly given the short end of the stick.

These scenes are quite interesting and highlight some obvious discrepancies in the way these two distinct areas are treated.

Only the smarmy figurehead and leader of the MPAA Jack Valenti is known, the weasely head of a studio funded organisation and arbiter of taste for a nation, who happens to be in the good graces and *COUGH* pockets of all six studio heads.

Unfortunately for the independent filmmakers and this documentary, the rest of the MPAA is largely faceless and anonymous, comprised of unknowns. Unknown people in unknown numbers following unknown methodologies with only the outcomes known and made public in letter form: G, PG, M, MA, R & NC17.

It is the ‘why’ that I would want to know; why the difference in rating in two very similar films? Why is sex so very taboo in independent films while realistic and brutal violence often gets a free pass?

The documentary maker instead focuses on ‘who’. He hires a private investigator and over half of the film is devoted to surveiling, researching, tailing and uncovering the real identities behind the members of the team of censors. After about five minutes of sitting in vans, fitting cameras and sifting through garbage I grew very bored with this aspect of the film.

What we eventually realise is that the MPAA is comprised largely of old white girls and gals, with the rules all tilted in their favour and seemingly changed on the fly to suit the MPAA board. There are even representatives of church groups on the appeals board.

But who couldn’t have guessed any of that?

The prevailing message of This film is not yet rated is that there do indeed to be two sets of rules in the film industry, one for the rich and privileged and one for the hard working independents.

But again who couldn’t have guessed any of that?

The interviews with directors and the tales of how they came to see their cinematic visions compromised and their careers and integrity continually frustrated were actually very interesting. The scenes with the documentary creator and private investigator naming MPAA staff members sensationalist and irrelevant.

Still, despite the patchy nature of the film, there is certainly a story here in the material, it just wasn’t the one they chose to tell.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Interesting in parts, but being partly interesting won’t get it done. I’d rather they looked at why violence is ‘cool’ and sex is ‘gross’ to Americans and what it says about them…

Twitt
Posted in Film, Movie Reviews, The Grey Area | Leave a comment