WORLD WAR Z

So here's a quick ten minute audio review of Brad Pitt's passion project, WORLD WAR Z, based on one my favourite novels of the past decade.  I went into this flick worried about the "troubled" nature of this project - budget over-runs, re-writes - and director Marc Forster's poor track record with big budget action flicks (QUANTUM OF SOLACE, m'lud).  To be sure, the tonal shift is obvious where Damon Lindelof takes over the writing, and this is a very different beast to the novel.  But overall, I really enjoyed it - in fact, it's arguably the best of the summer blockbusters to date. Tune in for more....

WORLD WAR Z has been rated PG-13 in the USA and has a running time of 116 minutes.

WORLD WAR Z is on release in the USA, Egypt, Hong Kong, the Philippines, South Africa, Australia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the UAE, Bulgaria, Canada, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Romania, Turkey, the UK and Vietnam. It opens on June 27th in Argentina, Austria, Cambodia, Chile, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Peru, Russia, Switzerland, the Ukraine, Brazil, Colombia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Panama. It opens on July 3rd in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Poland; on July 11th in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden; on July 19th in Finland; on August 2nd in Spain; on August 10th in Japan and on August 16th in Venezuela.

DRIVE ANGRY 3D

DRIVE ANGRY 3D is a brilliantly crass grind-house movie.  If you want to see a hot chick beat the crap out of a naked chick who's just been caught fucking the first chick's fiancé, then this is the movie for you. Or if you want to see a bad-ass smoking a cigar, fully clothed, fucking a naked woman in a motel room, while simultaneously shooting six assholes dead, then this is your flick!  The plot is ridiculous - obviously. Nic Cage plays a dude called John Milton (Paradise Lost, people!) who escapes Hell to chase down a cult-leader called Jonah (Billy Burke) and save his baby grand-daughter from having her head ripped off. Of course! He is helped by a smokin' hot waitress played by Amber Heard, and is in turn chased down by a mean guy called The Accountant dressed in a Men In Black style suit and played by William Fichtner. 

I'm not sure if it makes any sense to seriously review a movie who's every component justifies an exclamation mark, other than to say that director Patrick Lussier and writer Todd Farmer (MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D) have succeeded in making a movie as ridonkulous and vulgar as CRANK.  It's great as far as it goes and I really loved it for the first hour, but after that, the relentless car chases wore me down. Still, in this age of post-modern detached cynicism, you've got to love any movie that tries so hard to have a balls-out good time.  And, from a technical stand-point, in an era of retro-fitted piss-poor 3D, you've got to embrace DP Brian Pearson's wallowing in the schlock-entertainment factor of the medium.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE is on release in the UK, US, Bosnia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Philippines and Poland. It opens next week in Argentina, Egypt, the Czech Republic, Greece, Kazakhstan, Russia, Bulgaria, India and Armenia. It opens on March 25th in Uruguay, Belgium, France and Turkey. It opens in April in Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Panama, Venezuela and Singapore. It opens on May 13th in Iceland, on May 26th in Portugal and on August 6th in Japan.

THE HURT LOCKER - The horror

Hollywood loves a good war - the heroism, the pagentry, the tragedy, the acres of gleaming hardware, the loud explosions. This is the stuff of box office dreams. Never mind that many in Hollywood would consider themselves part of the liberal elite. The merchandise is often thinly veiled PR for the Armed Forces who lend out the armoured cars and planes to any movie with the right credentials. It has always struck me as ironic that an institution so intent on discriminating against homosexuals should have helped spawn movies that are so ra-ra pro-war that they trip into self-parody and camp. From TOP GUN to PEARL HARBOR, we all know that the girls are secondary to the guys and guns.

Of course, in Hollywood's soul, she is the last bastion of the liberal elite. There is, apparently, no contradiction in Clooney, Damon, diCaprio et al jetting round the world, belching out burnt jet fuel, to promote films persuading us to save the planet. And alongside the war-epics in which the US wins World War Two single-handedly (Enigma, anyone? Stalingrad?) there is another type of war film, typically made by independent film-makers or documentary-makers. These films look at micro-impact of war on the individual human being. The savagery of large-scale destruction is made understandable by seeing the degradation of an individual. Prime examples are CATCH-22, THE THIN RED LINE or, in a movie that brilliantly combined both big explosions AND a soul, APOCALYPSE NOW.

The Second Gulf War has been about as confused for Hollywood as it's been for the policymakers. No-one knows why we're at war in Iraq when the Taliban was sponsored by the Afghani government. No-one knows whether anyone actually ever thought there were Weapons of Mass Destruction. We know we won, four years ago, but it doesn't feel like victory. It's a war without clear-cut dates, campaigns and larger-than-life generals. It's not an epic invasion but a dog-fight from street to street, where insurgents blow up soldiers with Improvised Explosive Devices and our Heroic Boys in the Field are actually paid mercenaries accountable to no-one we vote for.

Clearly, the epic approach wasn't going to cut it. But what of Indie soul-searching? We've had some decent small films come out, each with a different take: GRACE IS GONE (grief); WAR INC (satire); IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (police procedural); REDACTED (fictional recreation). None of them have taken any money although garnering decent enough reviews. And now comes the feted THE HURT LOCKER, and the buzz has begun: is this a war film that WILL FINALLY TAKE SOME MONEY? Of course, no-one can actually say that (or maybe they can in Variety).

Before watching the film I thought it's chances of pulling off both good reviews and receipts were high. The writer is Mark Boal, and you don't get more credible than having been an embedded journalist in Iraq. The director, however, is no bleeding heart liberal but a woman who knows how to direct tense thrillers, Kathryn Bigelow of K-19 WIDOWMAKER fame. Could this be the perfect balance between action and intellect? I also liked the idea of telling the story of Iraq by focusing on a bomb-denotation squad, and showing the politics only incidentally, through the impact of the campaign on the three common soldiers at the heart of the film. The film didn't disappoint. It's tense, compelling and a rare case where flashy camerawork (four hand-held cameras working simulatenously) helped rather than distracted from the subject-matter. In watching Bigelow's movie you get an idea of the futility of the campaign, the danger the soldiers have to live with, and the inhospitable terrain. Not only is it technically well-made and genuinely tense - the movie is also very well acted by three relatively unknown character actors: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. It's worth watching, without a doubt. That's not to say it's one of the greatest war films, or even the best on the Second Gulf War. To my mind, nothing to date beats the visceral intensity and Gonzo brilliance of REDACTED. I also athought the marquee name cameos were distracting and that some of the dialogue was hackneyed. Still, overall, Bigelow and Boal have created a war film that shows, rather than tells, of the horror of war and the impossibility of going back. Kudos.

THE HURT LOCKER played Venice (where it was beaten in competition by THE WRESTLER) and Toronto 2008 and was released in Italy last year. It opened earlier this year in the USA, Indonesia and Iceland. It opens this weekend in Germany and Austria and on August 28th in the UK. It opens on September 17th in Portugal, on September 23rd in France and Norway; and on October 23rd in Estonia. It opens on January 8th 2010 in Taiwan.

DISTURBIA - Hitchock meets The OC

Oh, the marketing genius that combines the conceptual hook of a Hitchcock film with the pop-cultural references and hormonal teen angst of The OC! As distasteful as this REAR WINDOW remake may seem to us old cinephiles, Grinch-like critics are missing the point. Even as diluted and dumbed-down as this teen-thriller is, isn't it better that teens are getting their rocks off to Hitchcock-lite than to woeful spoofs like EPIC MOVIE?!

Clearly not one for adults or people who have any familiarity with the original, DISTURBIA is a reasonably well put together movie for the target demographic. Shia LaBeouf plays another troubled teen - he witnessed his father's accidental death and punched out a school teacher. As a result, he's under house arrest and resorts to spying on his suburban neighbours when mum (Carrie-Anne Moss) cancels cable. Lucky for him, the neighbours include hottie, Sarah Roehmer and for the first hour DISTURBIA plays like a goofy teen dating movie, complete with a charmingly inept side-kick played by the scene-stealing Aaron Yoo. In the final furlong, the screen-writers wake up to the fact that DISTURBIA is meant to be a thriller and put in some mildly tense scenes involving David Morse's serial killer next door.

Director D.J.Caruso handles the project with competence but no memorable visual signature. Christopher Landon's script may be derivative, but he is convincingly "down with the kids". Overall, a slick, undemanding movie that is not as completely dumb as most teen fare.

DISTURBIA is on release in the US, Australia, Argentina, Mexico and Russia. It opens in Icelasnd on May 18th; Malaysia, Singapore and Bulgaria on July 26th; Norway and Turkey on August 3rd; Denmark on August 10th; Germany, Italy on August 16th; Belgium, France, the Netherlands on August 23rd; Spain and Hungary on August 31st; the UK on September 7th; Brazil, Estonia and Finland on September 14th and in Sweden on September 21st.

DOWN IN THE VALLEY - great performances, great movie

DOWN IN THE VALLEY is a fascinating movie that tackles issues of personal identity, contact between families and outsiders, and relationships across the ages. It does so in a manner that is far more convincing and affecting than recent movies such as THE KING, and (I am laughing at mentioning this in the same review) PRIME. Set in contemporary California, the movie tells the story of a thirtysomething drifter called Harlan (Edward Norton), who comes across as a throw-back to the days of the Wild West. By chance he meets a teenage girl called Tobe (played by Evan Rachel Wood), who causally invites this strange, other-wordly man to the beach. Despite the uneasiness we feel at the age gap, it is clear from the early scenes of the movie that it is Tobe who is making all the running, although it is telling about Harlan's grip on reality that he never thinks to check how old she actually is - at least on camera. In addition, it is a mark of Edward Norton's talent that while he can incite the audience's unease at much that Harlan does, we never think of him as a stock-sexual predator. In fact, in many scenes between Tobe and Harlan - riding on horseback, or just sitting in the bath together - they just look plain innocent and love.

The relationship between Tobe and Harlan reminds me of a current hit song in the UK, whose chorus plays: "Show some love, you ain't that tough: fill my little world right up, right up." Both Tobe and Harlan are characters who live is small, isolated worlds. Harlan has no friends to speak of, no job, and no real home. He spends his time play-acting old Western movies in his motel room and writing letters that serve as vehicles for defining his persona rather than actual attempts at communication. Tobe meanwhile has a kid brother who she loves but is faintly irritated by and an absentee father. So when these characters meet, with nothing to distract them from this new all-consuming love, things reach a pitch intensity that is almost bound to be unstable. The intensity of love where there once was an emotional vacuum is echoed in Harlan's relationship with Tobe's younger brother, Lonnie. Lonnie is a poor, lonely kid who knows that he is not his father's biological son, and also that he lacks "gumption" and other qualities that would make his father, Wade (played by David Morse), look upon him kindly. When Harlan shows him attention and tells him he is an okay kid, it is as though Lonnie suddenly has something to believe in, and that faith is ever-enduring.

Other than the universally fantastic acting, other things to note about DOWN IN THE VALLEY are the evocative sound-track and photography, by DP Enrique Chediak. He beautifully contrasts the "road to nowhere" rat-race of crowded highways, day and night, with Harlan's horseback rides on the edge of the city. The topography of the Valley is used to great effort - notably when Harlan's takes a vantage point on the traffic below, and in scenes at dusk near the end of the movie, when Lonnie and Harlan are walking near the camp-fire. At times, you can just sit back and just soak up the photography with the wistful score, and let the action roll on - almost as an afterthought.

Which is what some viewers may want to do. Some of the people I saw this movie with complained that the screenplay took the characters to extreme places that seemed not at all in keeping with what we knew about them. However, I have to respectfully disagree. I think the script is at pains to point out the conflicting feelings that Tobe has about Harlan, and also, given what we know, fully explains Lonnie's unswerving devotion to him. In addition, the movie opens itself up to criticism by referencing a number of cinematic greats, not least TAXI DRIVER. Referencing the greats is always risky, because you remind the audience of films which they are likely to think "better" than what they are currently watching. Worse still, it can just seem lazy. However, I think that these cinematic references are justified, as they throw up the pop-culture references that make up Harlan's psyche.

To my mind, DOWN IN THE VALLEY is one of the most original and interesting movies that I have seen all year. You have to buy in to the underlying concept but I believe that once you do this, everything that Harlan, Tobe, Lonnie and Wade do seems in character. Best of all, there is a certain thrill in seeing such an all-round quality product - from the acting to the sound to the photography to the editing. Go check it out!

DOWN IN THE VALLEY showed at Cannes 2005 and went on release in France in February and the US in May 2006. It is currently on release in the UK. I do not know of a release date for Germany, Austria or Australia.

16 BLOCKS - superior crime thriller

16 BLOCKS is a crime thriller starring Bruce Willis and Mos Def. The concept is that Willis is an alcoholic, passed-it, cop who has been charged with delivering a witness 16 blocks away to a trial in New York. The witness - Mos Def - is going to testify against a bunch of dirty cops, who naturally try and smoke him as he travels to the court-house. That's pretty much it, and as the movie opened I got rather nervous. It seemed rather conventional. Bruce Willis doing what he does well and Mos Def using a bizarre accent. However, as the movie progressed I got sucked in and the reason is this. It is very will directed (by Richard Donner who did the original Superman) and really well written. It contains a lot more dialogue than one would expect for a movie of this genre - it's really rather talky - and that is a nice change. So I can recommed 16 BLOCKS wholeheartedly - it's superior popcorn and perfect for both mind and heart.

16 BLOCKS is already showing in the US, France, Germany, Austria and the UK.