TAG

TAG is a superb film - great slapstick and verbal wit - wonderful spoofs of action movies - and a really genuinely warm heart.  It's based on a Wall Street Journal article about a bunch of grown men who have been playing a game of tag together since they were kids. Now grown-ups, every May is hunting season, and while all of them have been tagged one time or another, Jeff (Jeremy Renner) hasn't. So they band together to try and take him out at his wedding, although they aren't complete dickheads, so they don't actually want to ruin his wedding doing it. It's absolutely glorious seeing Ed Helms, Jake Johnson and Jon Hamm take in pratfalls and stunts - they look like they're having the time of their life.  And Jeremy Renner is hilarious spoofing the super-serious inner monologue of an action hero trying to avoid being tagged. The visual humour has flair and the film just works! But what I really loved was the attempt to seriously interrogate where the line is between a fun game and obsessive competition, and what the value of friendship really is.  The ending of this film gives us a clear view on this, and it's deeply moving while never feeling cheap or manipulative.  I also love how the script - which could've just been another HANGOVER style bro comedy - managed to beef up the roles of the women - making them actual protagonists and deeply enmeshed in all of the moral questioning that occurs. Kudos to all involved!

TAG is rated R and has a running time of 100 minutes. It's available to rent and own. 

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

By now I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but how wonderful to confirm that all the hype is justified - SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is an absolutely delightful film! It's heart-warming, witty, visually inventive and has such a wonderfully light touch about diversity.  I cannot imagine a better version of Spider-man, and learning that this is based on a comic book series that pre-dates the latest live action version, I'm utterly disappointed that Sony/Marvel didn't take the bold step of using this continuity rather than reverting to the old one.

In this Spider-man story, Peter Parker dies early and his role as crime-fighting hero is taken over by a kind called Miles Morales (Shameikh Moore) - a young boy who just got bitten by a radioactive spider. Peter Parker  (Jake Johnson) is around just long enough to pass on a few tips before Spidey 2.0 is joined by a bunch of other Spideys from parallel universes - including a schlubby Peter Parker (Chris Pine), a female Spidey, a noir Spidey (brilliantly cast Nic Cage!) and even a Looney Tunes Spidey!  I am reliably informed that all of these are from old comic book series, and I have to say that I would pay good money to see a full length Spidey Noir movie starring Nic Cage.  All the different Spideys have to team up to save the world from evil Doc Ock - both sending back all the parallel universe spideys through Ock's evil machine, before Miles can destroy it for good.

What I love about this story is that doesn't condescend to it's young audience - giving them a story that hinges on parallel universes and rather hallucinogenic depictions of what it might look like to be in an unstable environment.  I also love the film's core message that anyone can be a hero - even if you haven't seen a hero on screen that looks like you before - whether because you're a girl, or an ethnic minority. In fact, anyone can be a supervillian too! Just look at female Doc Ock. It's a film that doesn't shy away from showing what it must mean to be a poor kid who gets selected for an elite school and has to leave his friend's behind. It's a film that will casually show a homeless person sleeping outside of a shiny building. And it's a film that will have a African-American/Latino kid speak to his mum in Spanish without feeling the need for subtitles. I love that courage, self-confidence and inclusion.

But most of all I just love how visually inventive this film is, and how manifestly the creators love comic books.  They have a real understanding about how the flow of panels works, how we turn a page on a story, even giving Miles thought bubbles as soon as he becomes a superhero.  This gives the film a wonderfully kinetic energy, real joy, and wit in also parodying the 3d blurring around its edges.

All in all, I really hope Sony/Marvel will capitalise on this film's success by continuing the Miles Morales storyline in animated form if nothing else.

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE has a running time of 117 minutes and is rated PG. 

DRINKING BUDDIES - LFF 2013 - Day Eleven

There's a lot to like in Joe Swanberg's relationship comedy, DRINKING BUDDIES.  He moves on from the narcissistic, solipsistic mumble core stylings of UNCLE KENT to something more mainstream and accessible, but manages to keep the emotional authenticity of his previous work.

Olivia Wilde is fantastic as Kate, a fun-loving, rather fragile girl who works at a micro brewery with her best friend Luke (Jake Johnson of THE NEW GIRL fame).  They have one of those close friendships that verges into sexual chemistry and we feel sure that they're with the wrong people.  This is compounded when we realise that their respective others, played by Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston, are also actually pretty well paired, and should probably get together.  

In any other movie, this would descend into a cheesy play by numbers rom-com in which Chris breaking up with Kate and Kate rebound sleeping with a sleazy coworker would spark Luke into jealously realising that he should be with Kate all along.  But this isn't that movie. Instead, in a number of closely observed scenes, we get Jill go on vacation, leaving Kate and Luke to become closer but also to be exposed to what each of them really up is and wants.  As an audience, we realise that Kate really isn't as attractive as all that.  She quite immature, maybe developing an unhealthy dependence on alcohol.  And while Luke seems like a similarly fun loving guy, he's actually a lot more grown up.  In fact, the seemingly perfect couple if-only-they-knew-it, well, isn't. 

The joy of this film is seeing the largely improvised and naturalistic way in which these relationships evolve and unravel.  I love that it subverts and depends the classic rom-co characters and tropes.  And I love that I genuinely liked the characters and wanted to see what happened to them.  Kudos to all involved. 

DRINKING BUDDIES has a running time of 90 minutes and is rated R in the USA.

DRINKING BUDDIES played SXSW and London 2013. It opened earlier this year in the USA.  It opens in the UK and Ireland on November 1st. 

Sundance London 2012 - SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

I guess it was a sure bet.  Any movie based on a cutesy internet meme (see above graphic) was gonna rub me up the wrong way.  SAFTEY NOT GUARANTEED is the kind of hipster, quirky, indulgent comedy that I hate.  In fact, even calling it a comedy is a stretch given that it peddles the gentlest of gentle comedy.  I only laughed out loud three times, so on that basis it fails the Wittertainment 5-Laughs rule.  I predict that this will end up like last year's lauded hit, LIKE CRAZY. That was another movie the indie community loved and I hated. It too ended up in a bidding war at Sundance only to fail at the box office.

The problem with the film is that everything about it is so contrived that goofy that there's nothing to relate to - no point of entry unless you're also a wannabe oddball hipster.  It also contains precious few proper jokes (as mentioned above), and uneven tone, as it skirts past various genres. I blame Derek Connolly's pretentious script and Colin Trevorrow's lacklustre direction.  Performances are mostly so-so.  Aubrey Plaza (PARKS AND RECREATION) does her snarky, moody thing, but predictably melts when she meets Mark Duplass' oddball paranoid wannabe time-traveller.  They meet up because she an intern at a magazine and her boss Jeff is faking interest in the madcap scheme so as to write a funny story on the guy.  Jake M Johnson provides the only real laughs as Jeff, nicely playing against the "nice Nick" character in THE NEW GIRL.  As for Karan Soni's Arnau, it's nice that we people of Indian origin are starting to get more airtime in movies, but does it always have to be a clichéd geeky hard-working student? I'm starting to get offended.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED played Sundance 2012 where Derek Connolly won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. It also played Sundance London. It will play SXSW 2012 and will be released in the USA on June 8th.