WILSON

To quote the back of Daniel Clowes' darkly brilliant graphic novel, "Wilson is a big-hearted slob, a lonesome bachelor, a devoted father and husband, an idiot, a sociopath, a delusional blowhard, a delicate flower, 100% Wilsonesque!"  In this new movie from director Craig Johnson (THE SKELETON TWINS), Clowes adapts his own work faithfully to give us a film that is funny, melancholy and sometimes plain crazy.  Woody Harrelson plays the protagonist as a shambolic man with no sense of proper behaviour.  Spurred by the death of his father he tracks down his ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern - CERTAIN WOMEN), who's now a recovering addict. She tells him she had the child he thought she aborted, and put her up for adoption.   Much of the rest of the film concerns this deeply dislikable and yet somehow charming man trying to forge a relationship with the girl (Isabella Amara - SPIDERMAN THE HOMECOMING) and navigate the wild twists that life throws at him.  To say more would be to spoil the surprise. 

THE UGLY TRUTH - joyless

Despite re-teaming the director and writers of LEGALLY BLONDE, this new Katherine Heigl vehicle/rom-com is utterly mirthless. Heigl plays a character all too familiar from recent rom-coms- the frosty career-bitch who just needs to get laid by a Real Man (Gerard Butler). It's the same basic set-up as THE ACCIDENTAL HUSBAND, THE PROPOSAL et al. She's a TV producer on a dismal morning show - he's the misogynistic guest-host brought in to boost ratings. He bets that if she can follow his advice, she'll get her dream man - if he loses, he'll quit the show. What then follows is an entirely predictable, entirely mirthless affair. Heigl simply does not have the physical comedy skills to pull of a scene where she's wearing vibrating pants in a restaurant. To see it done better check out Jenna Elfman in KEEPING THE FAITH. As for Gerard Butler, he really needs to work on his American accent because at present it's stuck in Scotland. Grim, grim, grim.

THE UGLY TRUTH is on release in the US, UK and Australia. It is released in Portugal on August 20th and in France, Argentina and New Zealand on August 27th. It is released on September 4th in Denmark, Mexico, Norway and Romania. It is released on September 11th in Spain and Sweden. It is released on September 17th in the Czech Republic, Greece, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine, Brazil, Finland and Iceland. It is released on September 23rd in Belgium, Egypt and Bulgaria. It is released on October 1st in Germany and the Netherlands and on October 9th in Estonia and South Africa. It is released in Italy on November 27th.

SPACE CHIMPS - the great run of B-movies continues!

SPACE CHIMPS is another one those movies - like THE MUMMY 3 and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH - that is funnier and more enjoyable than I had any grounds to expect. It's an animated film that does exactly what it says on the tin. There are some smart-talkin' chimps and they get shot into space by NASA to see if there is life on a distant planet.

This isn't a movie working on the level of WALL-E. And, frankly, there's nothing special about the animation, and many of the characters are stock-types. But it is, nonetheless, an enjoyable film. The hero is a wise-crackin' cocky chimp called Ham III, who lives in the shadow of his grandfather, the original (and real life) space chimp Ham. He's always macking onto the uptight but pretty Lieutenant Luna. Naturally, they have one of those classic movie scenes where the laid-back cool guy gets the chick to loosen up through the power of....vodka? No, body-popping! The third member of the crew is a Buzz Lightyear-like chimp called Titan - earnest, brave but a bit stupid. The three chimps land on an alien planet where the mean Zartog has enslaved the other aliens thanks to his control of the original landing probe. The chimps have to go jump through some hoops (very Journey to the Center of the Earth/platform video-game) before freeing the aliens and returning home. On the way, they learn to clean up after man's metaphorical mess and the true nature of being an astronaut. The humans may use chimps as dumb animals but they can take control and become true space chimps.

Why did I like this movie so much? Maybe because it new its limitations, keeping to a brisk 70 minute run-time. Maybe because its colour palette is so bright and cheerful and because the aliens are do damn cute - especially a sweet little baby alien called Kilowatt. Mybe it's because the film-makers eschewed the usual cast of big-name actors and went for a cast of high-class TV comedians who know their craft? On the whole, I think I liked SPACE CHIMPS because it's genuinely funny and engaging. The jokes are clever - satirising the relationship between politicians and scientists and lovingly spoofing the sci-fi genre. But on a more basic level, who wasn't laughing when they saw three geeky scientists body-popping to Axel F?!

SPACE CHIMPS is on release in Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, the USA, Portugal, Kuwait, the UK and Israel. It opens later in August in Singapore, Croatia, Finland,Spain, Russia and Poland. It opens in September in Norway and Australia and in October in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

WAITRESS - bittersweet

WAITRESS is a beautifully imagined, bittersweet little movie that is likely appeal to fans of quirky humour and stylised photography - I'm thinking fans of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and Wes Anderson flicks. Keri Russell plays a poor waitress called Jenna who is unhappily pregnant by her jealous, domineering husband. She resents her unborn child for throwing a spanner in the works of her plans to escape and enter a $25,000 Prize Pie Competition (she's an amazing pie-cook). So we see her work in a crappy old diner with a short-tempered manager and her two plucky, endearing best friends. The elder of these is married to a senile old fart and the younger is trying personal ads to find a husband. All three have to work out how to be happy.

Jenna finds an odd kind of companionship through an affair with her doctor (a surprisingly good, dead-pan performance from Nathan Fillion) and friendship with the old coot (Andy Griffith) that owns the diner. It's an admirably brave move on the part of Adrienne Shelly to have us empathise with a heroine who is, after all, an adulteress, and brutally honest about her lack of feeling toward her unborn child. But that's the real hook of this movie. Sure we have funny, quirky characters, but so do a lot of films in this genre. Similarly, a lot of these faux-naif movies have deliberate framing and stylised production design. But few have such a hard bitter edge and honesty to them.

The only real criticism I have is that the movie seems to lose this hard egde in the denouement. And while I like the fact that the heroine is emancipated from emotional dependence on men, it's still by virtue of a man that she is free. Still, WAITRESS remains a touching, genuinely funny, and genuinely fresh movie. It's tragic that we won't be able to see how Adrienne Shelly would have developed as a director.

WAITRESS played Sundance 2007 and went on release in the US in May. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in Australia and New Zealand on August 30th. It opens in France and Belgium on September 5th; in Estonia and Italy on September 21st; in Hungary, Russia, and Norway on September 28th and in Japan on November 17th.