Random DVD Round-Up 5 - HOT TUB TIME MACHINE

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE really isn't as funny as it should be given it's awesome title. It's like the SNAKES ON A PLANE of comedy.

The conceit is that a bunch of schlubby frustrated middle-aged friends go back to the ski resort where they had an awesome batchelor ski-trip. They drink too much, wind up naked in the hot tub, and somehow get zapped back in time to the original holiday. Cue lots of early 80s nostalgia - images of Ronald Reagan and ALF (remember ALF!) on TV, eighties rock on the airwaves, big hair and day-glo ski-suits. It's time for the men to undo passed mistakes and work out what really went down regarding the parentage of the teenager they have in tow.

Problem is, the eighties jokes/costumes are mined for a pretty crude kind of comedy, but nowhere is the humour as brilliantly crude as in, say, THE HANGOVER or SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. Rather, the writing seems to go for the lowest common denominator. Unsurprising to find out the movie was directed by Steve Pink (Justin Long comedy ACCEPTED) and screenwriters Josh Heald (debut), Sean Anders and John Morris (SEX DRIVE). This isn't sophisticated. Which is fine. Not every comedy needs to be STRANGELOVE. But I guess what I found even more disappointing was the complete lack of chemistry between the lead actors - they didn't feel like best friends - and the fact that John Cusack - typically so charming - was basically not at all interesting in this flick.

So, basically, a big let-down and really not worth the time, even on DVD.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE opened in spring/summer 2010 and is now available on DVD/iTunes.

London Film Fest 2010 - Day 16 - Closing Night Gala - 127 HOURS

I don't do extreme sport. I don't really do common or garden sport. In the words of George Burns, 'I never go jogging: it makes me spill my martini.' If some fuckwit decides to go up a mountain or into a canyon on his own, without telling anyone about it, and then gets his arm trapped under a boulder, I basically have no sympathy. I mean, I'm glad said fuckwit survived, but do I really want to watch a dreary, dismal, against-all-odds movie where we basically spend 90 minutes watching a bloke drinking his own urine and then hacking off his arm with a blunt knife? No.

The triumph of writer-director Danny Boyle is that 127 HOURS is NOT that movie. He brings all the energy, visual style and bravura editing of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and TRAINSPOTTING to a story that could've been claustrophobic and grim. Better still, he had the faith to cast James Franco in the central role of real-life canyoneer Aron Ralston - an actor who is pretty, no doubt, but also very gifted and only now starting to get roles that show his potential.

The movie begins with a hi-energy, thumping sound-track from A.R.Rahman, and split screen footage of urban life - crowds of people and noise - trading floors and sports stadia. We see Franco's Ralston grab a map, some supplies, his cam-corder, jump in a car, music blaring, and head for the Canyon. This is clearly a guy full of energy, personable, but basically too busy to bother checking in. He's on the move - looking for that perfect outdoor sports high. And Boyle tells us all this without any dialogue - just some bravura editing and a really original approach to the material.

When we get to the Blue John Canyon, we see Aron charm the pants off two lost hikers, showing them the joy of dropping into an underground pool. Again, it's a brief episode but sketches in his character - good fun, witty, and a dare-devil. Tellingly, just as Aron ran out of the store not even turning to wave goodbye but impatient to move on to the next thing, he runs off from the girls, waving without turning. It's all about the next adventure.

Before we've even paused for breathe, Aron's dropped into a canyon, the boulder has crushed his arm, and he's realised, mid-swigging from his water-bottle, that he's "in deep doo-doo." And for the first time, the camera pans out from the ravine, out of the canyon, and there isn't any rock music on the sound-track. It's a great contrast to the first half hour of the flick.

What then follows is some superb acting from James Franco, as he portrays a man who veers from pragmatic, ingenious engineer to delusional, dehydrated hysteria. And Franco is matched point for point by Boyle's inventive use of the camera. From inside-the-water-bottle POV shots, to quick edits of Aron's delusional visions - the movie never loses pace or interest despite the constraints of basically shooting a guy in a ravine. (Admittedly, Boyle is helped by the fact that the real-life Ralston really did cam-cord himself, giving the screenwriters a neat device to break the silence and alter the POV.) In fact, far from being grim, 127 HOURS is often very funny indeed. And, most importantly, by making us enjoy Aron's company, and by making us see what he has to go home to, the movie makes us completely invest in his survival. As a result, when Aron finally has to break his arm and then cut through it to free himself, the audience gasped in horror at his pain, and cheered with joy when he finally escaped the trap. And when he finally saw a family in the distance, and the helicopter came for him, the feeling of relief and catharsis was palpable. I practically bounced out of the cinema on a natural high.

So, whether or not you typically like extreme-sport-survivor movies, you should definitely check out 127 HOURS. To use that most hackneyed of phrases, it really is a feel-good film of the best kind - a movie that earns its warm fuzzy glow by making you identify with its protagonist and taking you through what feels like authentic pain. The resulting film is full of energy, emotionally engaging, brilliantly acted, and technically imaginative. I think it's Danny Boyle's finest film to date, and certainly James Franco's best performance - combining the talent for comedy shown in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS with the ability to show real emotion seen in HOWL and MILK.

127 HOURS played Telluride and Toronto 2010. It opens in the US on November 5th 2010 and in the UK on January 7th 2011.

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL - not to my taste, but I can imagine Dane Cook fans having a great time

From, improbably, the director of PRETTY IN PINK, comes a gross-out romantic comedy. Jason Biggs (AMERICAN PIE) is typecast as the desperate loser whose girlfriend (Kate Hudson) dumps him. In a characteristically contrived set-up, he hires his best-friend - a sort of anti-HITCH - who takes girls on piss-poor dates so that they realise how nice they guys they just dumped were and ask to get back with them. Problem is, the anti-Hitch and the girl actually hit it off. What follows is a bi-polar movie. The first two-thirds are firmly in gross-out territory with lots of non-politically correct dating humour. In the final third, the movie loses its balls and flips into a typically schmaltzy rom-com. I don't particularly find Dane Cook's brand of whacky humour funny, and I certainly don't dig formulaic rom-com's so I pretty much hated this film. BUT I can perfectly envisage fans of Dane Cook really having a great time with this film. So it's basically an alpha-gamma review. This movie does what it does. It's not to all tastes, so think carefully before you go, and hopefully you'll have a good time either way!

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL is on release in Greece, Hungary, Russia, Thailand, the US, the Philippines, Israel, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Iceland, Turkey, Spain, New Zealand, South Korea, Estonia, Finland, Poland and the UK. It opens in Portugal on November 27th and in Sweden on December 5th.

LA Diary Day 4 - CLOVERFIELD - cinema verite my ass

No LA Diary on Day 3 - the closest I got to the flicks was dinner in the excellent restau. Blue Velvet. But on Day 4 a somewhat ill-advised trip to Mann's Chinese Theater at Hollywood & Highlands. Ill-advised because we turned up half way through the Clinton-Obama debate live from the Kodak theater which is part of the same complex. The mall was filled with anti-war protestors, a dog on a skateboard, and a good handful of outside broadcast TV trucks. There were also a scary amount of tooled-up rozzers* as well as two bedraggled musicians vainly trying to whip up some attention atop a Rock the Vote van. Among this motley crew were a goodly number of ordinary shoppers and voters standing in front of the large outdoor screen watching the debate live and cheering every soundbite. They were cheering on the possibility of change. They were standing amid the dying embers of a failed administration, a disastrous war in Iraq, fear of foreclosure, unemployment and uninsured illness. The Fear and Loathing was upon us.

In such a sickly political environment, horror and disaster movies have historically thrived. They allow us humble movie-goers to face our fears, embodied in randomised acts of terror and impotent protection agencies. CLOVERFIELD is a perfect exemplar of this. A big beastie stomps through Manhattan, knocking the head off the Statue of Liberty, chewing up Brooklyn Bridge and generally indulging in Godzilla-like craziness. The film-makers don't attempt to explain how the beastie came into being - and they wisely choose to show it only fleetingly. They do, however, skirt very close to the line in echoing iconic and disturbing 9/11 imagery. In an early scene, New Yorkers are seen stumbling through wreckage, white with plaster dust, scraps of paper tossed by the wind. Later, a heroine will be trapped in twin towers. Note that as daring as the film-makers are in echoing 9/11, the beastie remains considerate enough of studio financing schedules to terrorise beautiful people. Despite this, you have to give credit to the film-makers for spending some time to let us get to know the protagonists and to believe that they care enough about each other to risk danger to come to each other's aid.

CLOVERFIELD works fine as a post 9/11 update of the Godzilla story. Producer JJ Abrams and director Matt Reeves create a real sense of menace and fear if not outright scares. But the movie has a flaw: it gave me motion sickness. Now I get that director Matt Reeves was going for a gonzo hand-held reportage look. It's a laudable aim. But all this crap about "authenticity" and "credibility" is under-cut by his America's Next Top Model casting decisions. So, dear film-makers, cut the pretentious filming style already. Make a great movie that feels authentic and credible by all means. Cast people who look real, use a grungy shooting style, but you don't actually need to make me ill.

CLOVERFIELD is on release in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, South Korea, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, the Philippines, Germany, Israel and Canada. It opens in Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain, the UK, Belgium, France, Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Hungary and Finland in February. It opens in Turkey on March 21st and in Japan on April 5th.

*Giuseppe from EC2 asks, via e-mail, what "rozzers" are. They are policeman, but the implication is, corrupt policeman. Also known as The Fuzz, Pigs, The Filth and The Sweeney.