Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

It's my last post of the year, and I was going to review my five favourite films of 2014 - that seems to be the done thing, after all. Then, checking my facts, I realized that two of them were actually released in 2013, and while I'd probably seen enough new releases over the past year to make it to five, I could only remember one in addition to the original three and I'd absolutely loathed it. Oops.

Still, it's the week between Christmas and New Year, and so viewing material isn't exactly in short supply. After much deliberation, I decided it was time to open Pandora's box and revisit some classic childhood trauma in the form of 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which was so epically scary to me on first viewing that I haven't gone back to it in well over a quarter of a century. 

Before I did so, however, I made sure I had a backup movie lined up in case I didn't make it all the way through.

There may be people out there who remain unfamiliar with Roald Dahl's classic tale of a bunch of kids who receive an invite to the titular confectioner's mysterious factory; if so, take a look at the book, or alternatively feel free to hunt down this handy video primer produced by James Wan in 2004. It's basically the plot of every slasher movie ever made - a bunch of bad kids (plus one good one) land up trapped somewhere isolated with something nasty and none of them escape (except the good one).

I fucking love the fucking 70s.

The good

I was entertained by this one, very mildly. The sets were weird and lovely; so was Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The performances were adequate for the source material, and the songs were pleasant enough, with Pure Imagination being a particular highlight. I can't lie, though; there were no flashes of brilliance, and I wasn't absorbed by the story in the way I remember repeatedly losing myself in the book. It was an interesting reminder of the era I came from, though, and crucially, of how far we've all come since then.

The bad

As a kid, I could never understand why films and books never matched up entirely. I was incredibly ticked off, therefore, by things like the squirrels from the book being replaced by golden geese, or Gene Wilder's hair being blond instead of black, because it just wasn't right. 

Nowadays, I'm prepared to allow a little more leeway in these matters, but not at the expense of narrative coherency. I was baffled, therefore, by certain inclusions that Wikipedia confirms were never in the book. The character of Slugworth, for instance,seems to serve no real purpose other than to emphasize to an impressionable target audience that scars are scary, while an entire sequence where Charlie and his grandfather steal sips of an experimental drink suggests our young protagonist is no better than any other of the bad kids invited to the factory. True, it's briefly implied that this will carry consequences, but he still gets the grand prize rather than the threat of death or mutilation. 
 
Even if you're unfamiliar with the book, meanwhile, certain elements of the film are a bit of a mess. We have American Peter Ostrum as Charlie, therefore, living in a very European city (Munich, apparently) where almost everybody else has an English accent. I know it's a familiar tale with transatlantic production jobs, but it never gets any the less awkward, particularly with such quintessentially English source material.

On the other hand, the filmmakers did see fit to alter Dahl's vision, making the Oompa Loompas, Wonka's very own dwarven slave race, orange and green rather than black, which suggests that authenticity might not be everything it's cracked up to be.

And the much-vaunted cruelty? Yes, it's there, albeit only in the same way as in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. That said, when was the last time you saw one of those on TV, either?

The verdict

I have faced down my youthful fears. Interestingly, they had nothing to do with routine maimings for bad behaviour and everything to do with malfunctioning experimental vehicles covering people in thick white foam. 

All in all, it's been a thoroughly educational day.


 
 

Avengers Assemble (2012) plus assorted capsule reviews

A lot gets written about Christmas being the season of overindulgence, but it's usually food and drink to which the writers are referring. Me, I'm not very good at enforced happiness, even when the only person trying to enforce it is me, on myself. Either way, there's something about this time of year that makes me too twitchy to want to pig out or get plastered.

It's December 27th, though, and I've still overindulged and I still feel sick as a dog. I watched four films yesterday, and two or three on each of the two preceding days - I've honestly lost count. There were several Shreks, I know that, and the spin-off, Puss in Boots, and Muppet Christmas Carol, which was a little less fun and a whole lot preachier than I remembered. It's all been big-budget, big studio stuff and I'm feeling bloated and queasy from all the hypersaturated colours and smart one-liners. 

I'd sworn I was going to have a day of abstinence today, but having just checked the schedules I see that Watership Down is on, and one wafer-thin vintage British animation won't kill me, will it?

In the meantime, though, I'm left with a problem: with such an embarrassment of riches fresh in my mind -or possibly such a wealth of embarrassments - what am I going to write about today?

An early contender was The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists. It's Aardman, making it automatically reliable. The talented big-name cast put aside their egos and throw themselves wholeheartedly into their plasticene roles, with Hugh Grant at his most charming as the Pirate Captain and Imelda Staunton as a sort of steampunk Queen Victoria, a role she was surely born to play. The sight gags come as thick and fast as you'd expect, but the wordplay is equally witty, punctuated by an ebulliently eclectic soundtrack that can't help but raise the spirits. It's tremendous fun, just like pretty much the entirety of Aardman's output, but while this makes for a genuinely great time it leaves me with the feeling I'd essentially be re-writing my review of Flushed Away but with the names and dates changed.

I ruled out Monsters Inc because I watched it in bed and wasn't in the mood for making notes. Besides, it's Pixar, which is basically Disney, which is basically evil. It is, however, Pixar at their most imaginative, picking up one of their old favourite themes of middle-aged male insecurity and setting it down in an almost entirely new world where monsters harvest children's screams in order to power their city. There's a lot of sentiment here, of course, but it's kept fairly low-key and balanced by solid performances from John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Steve Buscemi. The pacing feels less hectic than in many of Pixar's other efforts, and if the eventual conclusion is predictably reassuring, that doesn't mean it doesn't mean it fails to satisfy.

Then there was Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado, for which I got up at 6am, already secure in the knowledge I'd probably get up for it at 3am if that were the only way to catch it over the holiday period. I'll grant that it has its faults - I can't be wholly uncritical of any film that makes me enjoy the work of Elton John, for instance - but the sparkling dialogue and beautiful art win me over every time. This is one that always leaves me basking in a warm contented and slightly weepy fug, and I wouldn't miss it for all the world.

My final film yesterday, however, was also the most problematic, because it's the only one of the four that doesn't offer me a reliably good time. It's this one, therefore, that I'm going to tackle in a little more detail.

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I've been ambivalent about Marvel's Avengers Assemble since before I saw it on its release date at the cinema, and over two years later I still haven't made up my mind. The problem, I think, is that it unites a number of franchises about which I have very different feelings, and by the end of the movie absolutely none of those feelings have changed. So, dealing with them in order of personal preference...


I've never made any secret of my opinion that the original Iron Man is pretty much single-handedly responsible for the rehabilitation of the superhero movie. Not sure any more whether or not this is a good thing, but there you go. Any movie featuring Robert Downey Junior as Iron Man, therefore, is definitely something for me to get very excited about indeed.

Captain America: The First Avenger, meanwhile, failed to set my personal world alight, but I couldn't fault the storytelling or craftsmanship. It was a solid piece of moviemaking that I appreciated rather than actually liking, primarily because I like my comic book flicks with a little more humour. Any movie featuring Chris Evans as Captain America, therefore, merits a good-humoured nod and a vague vow to view it when I'm in the right mood and nothing else more interesting presents itself.

And then we have Thor, most of which I've mercifully forgotten although I do occasionally have traumatic flashbacks to the endless Natalie Portman reaction shots. Any movie featuring Chris Hemsworth as Thor, therefore, is to be avoided. Just so we're absolutely clear: I watched Rock of Ages rather than risk a second viewing of this one.

So, that's three key elements in the mix. There are others, though, such as the reliable sets of hands as the other three Avengers, including the first real appearance of Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye and the debut of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/the Hulk. Also of note is the script by Joss Whedon, who writes some of the sharpest dialogue around.

There's a plot, I think; a standard-issue superhero job with a glowy McGuffin and lots of fights with identikit bad guys. There's a villain, too, in the form of Tom Hiddleston's Loki, who's failed to become the king of Asgard and wants to have a go at subjugating the Earth. As with Con Air, however, it's about the journey rather than the destination; the one-liners, the explosions and the Spandex.

The good

It's cute, this movie. It's very cute indeed. There are nifty one-liners and fun little touches and second-long moments that make my inner fangirl squeal and swoon. There's the moment where the Iron Man suit makes its first appearance soundtracked to 80s rock, and my immediate thought was what a colossal wanker followed by a huge rush of affection for the character followed by an equally huge rush of affection for the whole damned movie. The people who made this film, I thought, know how it's meant to work.

The set design is generally great, too, with the Helicarrier deck and the Stark Tower Penthouse looking particularly fantastic. It all feels suitably real, even as the characters reduce it to rubble. Cinematography varies from serviceable to stunning; the concluding scenes after the set-piece battles have a proper comic book aesthetic that I really appreciated.

As might have been guessed from my earlier remarks, performances here are variable. We have a solid showing from Chris Evans, therefore, as the equally solid Captain America, whose immaculate hair deserves honourable mention on its own. Scarlett Johanssen does a great if slightly underwritten job as the Black Widow, just as Cobie Smulders does for Maria Hill. Robert Downey Junior sparkles as Iron Man, of course, offering flashes of a softer, more human side that receives a more thorough exploration in Iron Man III. The real revelation, however, is Mark Ruffalo, whose Bruce Banner provides the closest thing the movie has to a real heart. He does a fantastic job as the conflicted Banner, bringing out the best in the characters and actors around him and generally elevating the tone of the piece whenever he's onscreen.

The bad

The problem with a film on this sort of scale is that by definition, maintaining the human dimension is always going to be a problem. Now, on a personal level I'd have been more than happy had the movie consisted primarily of our six protagonists bickering with one another, but I'm aware that the target audience prefers a little more action. And action we're given, in endless sequences of sparks and explosions and property destruction, big and loud and, as we head towards the end of the second hour, just a little bit tedious. Not a lot happens in the last half-hour that isn't telegraphed in the first, although it's all done with a fair degree of commitment and style, but when, early on, Captain America accuses Iron Man of being unwilling to sacrifice himself, we all know how it's going to go. This isn't a film people watch for the clever twists, it's one they watch to see superheroes hitting one another, and I suppose that's okay.

Less okay, however, is the way the film grinds to a halt whenever Thor and Loki are onscreen. Their dialogue is stilted and clumsy to the point of being embarrassing, and Thor in particular doesn't have the distinctive voice that marks out some of the other main players. Hemsworth looks perpetually ill-at-ease in a way that doesn't sit well with a character who's meant to be a charismatic leader, and if his performance is awkward I'm not sure he's the one who should be shouldering the blame for it. As Loki, meanwhile, Tom Hiddleston has become something of a fan favourite, but I found him somewhat anaemic - shouldn't a trickster god have more of a sense of mischief about him? His Loki is petty and spiteful but lacking in any genuine sense of menace, and there never seems to be any real sense of doubt as to whether the team of heroes will eventually prevail.

Resorting to cliché isn't always a bad thing, particularly when it comes to blockbuster movies. I did feel that Avengers Assemble was just a little bit too ready to dip into the Big Book of Superhero Movie Tropes, though, to the detriment of characterisation and occasionally common sense. The initial fight between Iron Man and Thor felt just that little bit too contrived, and quite a few gags culminated in punchlines that consisted of gratuitous violence. It's a shame, particularly in a film noted for sharp dialogue, and I did feel that the producers were afraid that in trying to produce a genuinely smart superhero movie, they might alienate a part of their core demographic.

The verdict

A fun superhero romp with some truly classy touches, including a genre-defining performance from Mark Ruffalo. Ultimately, though, Avengers Assemble lacks the courage to be more than just another action blockbuster; it's fun, yes, but only an unqualified good time if you're willing to disengage your brain for the duration.

 

 

 

Men In Black 3 (2012)

Mr. Beaupepys isn't a huge fan of the Men In Black franchise. I always used to take the piss out of him for it and call him a killjoy, although if I thought about it, I honestly couldn't have told you whether or not I'd ever seen the second instalment. I'd seen the first one, though, shortly after it came out, and I thought it was a slick, smart little action comedy with a neat concept and a cute, sparky chemistry between the two leads.

Then, a couple of years ago, they released Men In Black III. I was basically pleased about it in a quiet sort of way, and made a mental note to keep an eye out for it when they released the DVD. As it happened, though, I found myself unexpectedly entertaining a friend that month, and a cinema trip felt like the fun thing to do.

I wanted to see Rock of Ages, but to my bitter disappointment, the showtimes didn't fit our schedule. No biggy, though, because MiB III was out and there was no way it could be anything less than entertaining, could it?

I emerged from the auditorium spitting self-righteous feathers, and promptly stomped home to tell Mr. B that actually, he'd been right all along and how could I never have noticed that the entire franchise was a poisonous piece of racist tripe? And that, after an hour or two of simmering, was that. 

Fast forward a couple of years to sometime around the middle of last week, and I noticed they were showing it on TV. My inner masochist demanded to know not only whether it was as bad as I remembered, but whether the same applied to the entire trilogy. 

Mr. Beaupepys was singularly unimpressed by this.

To bring everybody up to speed, the Men In Black are elite members of a shadowy organization protecting the earth from the hundreds of alien immigrants who arrive there every year. Our protagonists are J (Will Smith), who goes from being a plucky new recruit to savvy senior agent over the course of the three films, and K (Tommy Lee Jones, and sometimes Josh Brolin), his taciturn, world-weary mentor.

By the start of the third film, J has truly found his feet within the agency, while K is stony-faced despite the death of the Chief of staff, Z. Everything changes, however, when the dangerous criminal Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clements) escapes from a top-security prison located on the moon. Back in the 1960s, K shot off Boris' arm, not to mention setting up a protective shield that wiped out every other member of his species, so it probably isn't that surprising that he's out for blood. When Boris manages to go back in time and kill K before any of this can happen, it's up to J to follow him to ensure the shield gets placed and the safety of the earth is assured.

The Good

I make a fairly frequent habit, when people disagree with me on cinematic matters, of asking myself whether other people actually saw the same film as I did. Sometimes, on particularly belligerent days, I even ask the other people - I put my hands on my hips and glare and everything.

This is the first time I've ever had to ask the question of myself, though, because watching MiB III last night I had an absolute blast. Sins I thought were unforgivable in the cinema seemed merely slightly ill-judged, and damned if it wasn't a pleasure to see an effects movie where the majority of the action took place in broad daylight. The film packs in rather more plot than the first two instalments put together, and succeeds in the tricky feat of remaining coherent despite a storyline centred around shifting timelines and alternate histories.

A film like this will never be about the acting, of course, but Smith and Jones inhabit their roles with the same easy grace they inhabit the titular black suits. As the younger, less jaded 1960s K, Josh Brolin pulls off an impressive impersonation of Jones, while as Boris, Jemaine Clements exudes a genuine menace of which I wouldn't have believed him capable. 

Effects work ranges from serviceable to excellent, with the 60's era MiB tech and Boris' eyeless face particular highlights. There's real imagination at work here, and a genuine sense of joy - I particularly loved J's fall through time where the Chrysler building built itself around him. The whole thing is backed up by one of Danny Elfman's more restrained soundtracks, one which highlights the action rather than drowning it. In general, in fact, this was an exceptionally pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening, especially after the mindless bombast of the first sequel.

The Bad

I'm not going to claim I was justified in the hatred I felt after I first viewed this one, because I patently wasn't. A few areas, however, are undeniably problematic, most especially a scene set within a Chinese restaurant that panders to practically every ill-informed stereotype the 1970s sitcoms could imagine. Watching it in the cinema, I was appalled; sat more comfortably on my sofa at home, I couldn't help but cringe at how badly judged it was, especially in a film that made a point of confronting anti-black prejudice.

A few better female roles wouldn't have gone amiss, either. The original MiB boasted Linda Fiorentino's ballsy female mortuary attendant; here, we have Emma Thompson, who looks to be having a tremendously good time but fades into the background relatively early in proceedings - I would have loved to have seen a proper conclusion to her decades-long romance with K rather than having her vanish from the film's later segments.

The Verdict

A sweet, slick and surprisingly smart piece of entertainment eminently suitable for family viewing over the holidays. It's a shame it occasionally descends into racial cliche, but even this can't really prevent it from being a thoroughly good time.

Frank (2014)

WARNING: SPOILERS CONTAINED IN THE SECOND PART OF THIS REVIEW

I have fond memories of the kids' TV show No. 73, but they're fairly vague ones, probably because by the time it finished, I was still only eleven years old. I remember celebrity guests, a quiz game with a sandwich-making gimmick, and having quite a crush on the young Sandi Toksvig.

I also remember Chris Sievey's comic creation Frank Sidebottom, who made regular guest appearances. At first I found his nasal voice and papier mache head creepy to the point of being hard to watch, but his relentless cheerfulness soon won me over. A decade or two later I reacquainted myself with his music, and I was charmed all over again.

It was with great sadness, therefore, that I learned of Sievey's death in 2010 - another part of my childhood had been lost forever. I was sad for a little while in the way that you are about celebrities for whom you've had a vague fondness, but life goes on and a thousand other interesting things captured my attention instead. I heard they were making a movie about him, but didn't think much about it barring making a mental note to see it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Frank isn't a straight-up biopic, however; rather, it's an updated reimagining of the true story of screenwriter Jon Ronson's time spent as the keyboardist in Sidebottom's band. It hauls events right up to the present day, where frustrated songwriter Jon Burroughs (Domnhall Gleeson) is walking through his seaside hometown in search of inspiration. Witnessing a commotion on the beach, he goes to find out what's going on, only to find that the individual trying to drown himself is a keyboard player in a band that has a gig that evening. 

Even Jon himself isn't entirely sure how he lands up replacing the unfortunate individual, but it is this that earns him his spot in the Soronprfbs, along with Baraque, Nana, Don, Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the titular Frank (Michael Fassbender), who never removes his papier mache head. In the manner of pretty much every rock flick ever made, the rest of the movie concerns itself with the band's rise and eventual, spectacular fall.

The good

I've always had a lot of time for Jon Ronson, if only because he's responsible for teaching me that being a nervous wreck doesn't necessarily preclude the leading of a basically happy and fulfilled life. I love his books, and while I'm not sure whether The Men Who Stare At Goats was a good film, it'd take a very hard heart indeed to think it wasn't a good time. In Frank, he's constructed a trim, tidy piece of storytelling about some very untidy characters and he's made it look absolutely effortless. Funny and moving by turns, the film moves at a comfortable but brisk pace and ends at the exact right moment to provide maximum satisfaction.

A lot of people have been raving about Fassbender's performance inside the head, which isn't surprising, as it's the sort of thing people do usually like to rave about. Certainly, he does a great job of making Frank talented and likeable, a plausible leader of what sometimes feels less like a band and more like a cult in miniature. It isn't a one-man show, however - Domnhall Gleason is a superb everyman who never entirely understands the consequences of his actions, while Maggie Gyllenhaal steals every scene she's in as the surly Clara, who almost certainly does.

Musically, Frank feels unusually authentic; it took Mr. Beaupepys to point out to me that this was because the majority of the cast play their own instruments, lending a genuine sense of immediacy that plays well in the midst of all the interpersonal chaos on screen.

All in all, this is a really neat, satisfying piece of filmmaking that I think anybody could probably enjoy.

The bad

You might have been sensing a but coming up in the previous paragraphs, and you'd be right. 

But, dammit, why does the film's structure have to depend so heavily on the Magically Mentally Ill? Some of us have to live with this shit every day, and all it does is poison our lives and exhaust our loved ones and piss all over our chances of attaining more than a passable imitation of an acceptable level of normality. True, some people with mental illness achieve miraculous things, but who's to say what they might have achieved without it?

By all accounts, Chris Sievey was as sane as a brick; would it have been so very hard to construct a narrative where his fictional counterpart was, too? As an added bonus, had this been the case we'd have been spared the sight of a half-bald, mumbling Fassbender doing what looked like some fairly transparent Oscar-baiting. Sure, it makes for a nice myth, but Ronson at least is smarter than that; I'm sure he could have come up with something less trite and almost certainly more interesting.

Bonus snipe: all those cute Twitter graphics are currently great for reminding us we're in the present day, but within the space of the next decade or so, I'd lay money on them making it look like a bit of a period piece.

The verdict

A likeable and very well-constructed film that disappoints with its eventual descent into cliché. Still worth a watch, but reading about the life of the real Frank Sidebottom is probably going to ultimately be more satisfying.

Spawn (1997) and Death Becomes Her (1992)

If you know anything at all about the two movies in the title, you might be wondering why I decided to review them together. The simple answer is that I saw both of them yesterday and realized I couldn't find much to say about either, so I thought I might as well be dismissively cursory about them both and get this finished before work so I wouldn't be spending my afternoon slaving over a hot PC.

Spawn, therefore, is an adaptation of the Todd McFarlane comic books; it tells the story of a top-flight mercenary assassinated by his boss in order to lead the armies of Hell. Spawn has horribly burned skin, but makes up for it with kickass armour and a remarkable sense of morality for someone who formerly killed for pay. Spawn also has a very, very cute dog.

Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents Robert Zemeckis' attempt to capture the glory and box office revenue of the Back to the Future trilogy. It stars Bruce Willis as a nerdy cosmetic surgeon, and Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as the women who fight over him. Both the Streep and Hawn characters are desperate to maintain their youth, to the extent that they're prepared to drink an immortality potion that allows them to regain their youthful looks unless, say, they're horribly injured in an accident. Or an "accident".

The good

Spawn first: Spawn has a very, very cute dog.

Death Becomes Her: As the witch in charge of the immortality potion, Isabella Rossellini looks very, very good in very, very few clothes.

The bad

How was I bored by thee, Spawn? Let me count the ways. Or, y'know, let me not, because that would take too long. The film was incoherent, adolescent dreck specifically designed to cater to the sort of kids who cheer on the kids who go on gun rampages in America's schools every year or so. I'm not mentioning the acting because there wasn't a lot of it going on, except for John Leguizamo's satanic clown, who irritated me even more than the young lovers from Rock of Ages. I'm having trouble writing more than this, because the rest of the film was just that forgettable.

Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents a little more of a wasted opportunity - there were interesting themes, and a great cast who were obviously committed enough to the project to be prepared to abandon their dignity. In the end, though, any wider observations on human vanity and shallowness were abandoned in favour of a gleeful focus on having awful things happen to the two equally awful female protagonists. The movie hates everyone, but damned if it doesn't hate women most especially. Oh, and pro tip? If you have to write a scene that features an obese person overeating (because what else do obese people do?), you should probably be aware that we don't miss our mouths quite that much. That's, ah, kind of the reason we're obese.

The verdict

Probably shouldn't have done such a rush job on these; don't care. Normal service will resume on Saturday, when I'll hopefully be tackling something a bit less shit.

Con Air (1997)

I'd actually not been planning on writing an entry this side of the weekend because of technical difficulties; namely, I couldn't un-weld my backside from the sofa even after I got a working monitor on the computer again. Besides, I've been mainlining Elementary lately and I haven't been in a particularly film-y mood. Flaky? Certainly. Filmy? Not so much.

 Then last night came around and I found myself frantically channel-hopping to escape the creeping menace of something or other about Canterbury Cathedral. As I scrolled down the listings, I noticed Con Air and I thought well, why not? I'd seen it once before at Mr. Beaupepys' request, and he was right - it really had been a surprisingly good time.

I should explain: I don't really do action movies, and most particularly not late 90s action movies. Let us not forget, this was the era of Armageddon, and the time before Michael Bay's name was the punchline to a joke nobody wanted to hear. There was a lot of overly violent, overly macho dreck being made, and at the time I was stuck living with a charmless oaf who wanted to watch it all. Con Air had managed to slip under my radar thanks, if I recall correctly, to no small amount of effort on my part, and I spent a decade and a half perfectly happy about this state of affairs.

Until Mr. Beaupepys managed to sell it to me as Steve Buscemi's finest hour, at which point, feeble-minded fangirl that I am, I did a U-turn faster than your political or sexual simile of choice.

The story isn't anything particularly novel: Nic Cage plays Cameron Poe, a basically decent sort of guy who accidentally kills a man whilst trying to defend his pregnant wife. Sent to prison, he spends his considerable amounts of free time working on his body and mind, and writing letters to the daughter he's never had the chance to meet. Time passes montage-style (inevitably) and eventually he finds himself on a plane that will bring him home just in time for the little girl's birthday. Poe is a parolee and considered low risk, but he's surrounded by rapists and multiple murderers.

Do I really have to tell you what happens next? Probably not, but I will anyway. The prisoners get loose, mayhem ensues and it's up to Poe to try and save the day and get home with his daughter's birthday present intact.

The good

Damned if all popcorn flicks shouldn't be like this. Con Air is big, brash and utterly unafraid of ticking every single box in The Big Book Of Action Movie Clichés. There's something joyous in its total lack of pretension; it knows it caters to a demographic that wants explosions, one-liners and sweaty men in white vests, and it delivers all of these in abundance with a side order of extra gusto.

And that cast! Look at it! We have Nic Cage from before he became a walking talking self-parody, and John Malkovich from shortly before his disappearance into his own head. John Cusack and Colm Meaney provide able ground support as a State Trooper and FBI man respectively, while Steve Buscemi, as mentioned before, steals the film and runs away with it, giggling hysterically, as Garland Greene, a bona fide psycho killer with an unexpectedly sociable side.

There's a lot of shifting allegiances and motivations at play here; it's not exactly David Mamet, but a certain level attention is required if you want to keep track of everything. If you do. This isn't a film that makes petulant demands on your concentration, and it's happy to keep you secure in your warm and snuggly testosterone coccoon if you just want to sit back and enjoy the explosions, one-liners and vests. It's not overly serious, it's not overly meaningful, and it's just forgettable enough to be a pleasant surprise if you re-watch once every couple of years.

All of which is great, but not completely unexpected. The thing that struck me on re-watching Con Air with my critic's head on, however, is how incredibly right-minded it is. The good guys and the bad guys both come in various colours, and sometimes they're even the same people; midway through the film the plane picks up a trans character, and nobody seems to give it a second thought. Movies of this genre tend to use stereotypes as shorthand, making it really refreshing to find one that treats all its characters as people rather than placeholders. 

The bad

Just a couple of minor gripes here - this is another one of these ones that's so much fun that I don't particularly want to nitpick. There's a chase sequence in the last act that feels extraneous, though, just tipping the movie over the edge of popcorn perfection towards being too long and too loud.

More female roles would have been nice, too - all Poe's wife and daughter get to do is stand around like a pair of startled blonde deer, and we never get any real sense of who they are or why he's fighting for them. That said, Rachel Ticotin's prison guard Sally Bishop is one of the film's more subtly-written characters; she's tough but not invulnerable, and her scenes with Danny Trejo's rapist Johnny 23 are some of the most tense in the film. They culminate in a victory that offers genuine emotional satisfaction. 

The verdict

Sometimes you want Michelin-starred dining, but sometimes you just want a hamburger and fries. Unashamedly meaty (and with just the right amount of cheese), Con Air is the burger to satisfy your basest cravings without leaving behind even the faintest hint of a bad taste. 

Skeletons (2011)

Going to skip the preamble this time, because today's film is far more interesting than the relationship I have with it. Suffice it to say that it's one of these fascinating little curios I occasionally find when I'm searching through iPlayer; I first ran into it a good few months ago, and when I started writing about films it was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to bring to a (marginally) wider audience. I've succeeded, too - when I re-watched it yesterday, Mr. Beaupepys watched it along with me. He was impressed, I think, although my expression of maniacal enthusiasm might have influenced him, or possibly the rifle I'd pointed at his head.

Anyway, Skeletons. It's a low-budget, low-special-effects comic fantasy about Davis (Ed Gaughan) and Bennett (Andrew Buckley), a pair of psychic detectives in the employ of the mysterious Colonel (Jason Isaacs). They travel the country, mostly on foot, identifying the houses of their clients by pen-and-ink drawings and then donning leather aprons and entering said clients' inner lives via their bedroom closets. For Bennett, it's just another day at the office, but Davis lives and breathes his job. He spends his downtime in the derelict trawler that serves as his home, endlessly revisiting scenes from his childhood, much to the concern of those who care about him.

It sounds like the setup for yet another generic horror movie, doesn't it, or at least a psychic variant on the Men in Black franchise. That was certainly what I assumed I was getting prior to watching the film for the first time.  What I found, however, was stranger, smarter and much, much sweeter...

The good

In case it wasn't already obvious, I was really, really impressed with Skeletons. There's an understated beauty to almost every aspect of it - the cinematography (all those lovely framing shots of the investigators walking to their destinations), the performances (Andrew Buckley's Bennett is one of the most flat-out likeable movie characters I've seen in years, while Danish actress Paprika Steen shone as worried client Jane) and a script as humane as it is intelligent.

It's that last part that I liked best, I think - the way the film trusts the audience to have the brains to work things out for themselves. It throws us more or less straight into the investigators' lives without bothering with exposition, and when they start using professional jargon we're left to make educated guesses as to what, say, glow-chasing might be. Some points are eventually made explicit; most aren't, and that's okay - the main focus here is on the characters, and no matter how interesting their occupation might be, we like them first and foremost as people.

One final special mention goes to the soundtrack, which suggests a mood without ever being intrusive. It varies between slightly melancholic European café music and more alien, exotic Bulgarian choral themes, doing exactly as much as is necessary but never distracting us from the business at hand.

The bad

I don't really have much negative to say about this one; I thought it was a joy and a treasure, and that huge credit has to go to all involved.

That said, its intelligence might be less of a plus point if you're at the end of a long working day and just want to switch your brain off. Skeletons doesn't demand your full concentration but it certainly makes a polite request for it, and there's a certain level of intellectual effort required to keep up with what's happening. It is a film to be savoured, and if you take the time to do so, it's a profoundly rewarding experience.

The verdicts

A definite favourite within the Beaupepys house, this is a beautiful little story, beautifully told. Think of it as a less ostentatious Faberge egg, perhaps, or better still, a real egg, because what could be more simple and perfect than that?

How to Be a Serial Killer (2008)

After the last entry, I'd set today aside to review a festive movie I actually enjoy. At some point between then and now, however, Mr. Beaupepys approached, saying he'd found something interesting for us to watch and that I wouldn't have heard of it. I didn't believe him, of course, because not much slips under my radar, but on this occasion he was right: I really didn't know anything at all about How to Be a Serial Killer.

It turns out that the trick to it is self-discipline, mostly, although sticktoitiveness is also key.

Seriously, though, if a title like that doesn't pique your curiosity, are you entirely sure you're not already dead?

Shot as a mockumentary (mostly), the film is quick to introduce our two protagonists: video store clerk Bart (Matthew Gray Gubler) and customer Mike (Dameon Clarke). Having watched Bart put up with a torrent of verbal abuse from the only other customer in the store, Mike approaches the counter and asks Bart one question: If you could do absolutely anything to him, what would you do? It takes a while for Bart to respond, but his eventual answer leads Mike, the titular serial killer, to take him on as his pupil. From that point onwards, both parties embark on a personal journey that we, the viewers, are privileged to share.

The good

These days, I watch most films with my notepad in hand so I can jot down anything I want to bring up when I write about them. Normally, I land up with about a page of notes, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. This time, however, I was so engaged in the onscreen action that I didn't even manage half a page. From start to finish, How to Be a Serial Killer was an absolute blast. 

Credit for this has to go to the two leads, both of whom strike just the right note for this sort of dark comedy. Dameon Clarke shines as Mike, in the showier of the two roles - hardly surprising, given that his resume includes a truly excellent turn as Handsome Jack, one of the main villains of the acclaimed Borderlands video game franchise. With his relaxed charisma and sharp social conscience, Mike is a model citizen in every respect other than the obvious, and while I never exactly rooted for him against his victims, I certainly found myself hoping he'd somehow get away with his crimes. Particularly enjoyable are the fantasy segments that act as chapter headers to the story, as Mike imagines himself a self-help guru delivering a talk to a packed theatre of acolytes. These give Clarke the chance to really cut loose, and even now, I'm giggling at the memory.

As his pupil, Matthew Gray Gubler has arguably the more difficult part to play - we expect murderers to be somehow unhinged, after all, but what could send an ordinary person wandering down that dark path? Gubler imbues Bart with a sort of puppyish enthusiasm that suggests he might have willingly followed any leader, had they just given him the attention he needed to blossom - I found myself reminded, at the unlikeliest of moments, of Emmett from the Lego Movie.

Let's not kid ourselves here: this is definitely the Clarke and Gubler show, although they're aided by writer-director Luke Ricci's riotously playful script. This is a proper, balls-out black comedy that might want us to like its main players but never, ever begs us for sympathy on their behalf, and I cannot tell you quite how refreshing I found this.

Morally speaking, the film is solid, at least until you consider that most of said morality is being dispensed by somebody who slaughters people for kicks. Not a new concept, but an interesting one, and very effective indeed when played for laughs. 

The bad

As I've already stated, there's a lot to love in this one - so much, in fact, that I'm inclined to ignore such flaws as it possesses. There's no getting around it, however: structurally, How to Be a Serial Killer is a mess. Parts of it are played out in mockumentary format, parts as straight narrative and parts as fantasy sequences, but we're never given any clue as to which is which or why they're happening. Worse, the same music plays throughout, leaving me initially confused as to which thread was carrying the primary narrative and then mildly frustrated by the sheer sloppiness of it.

One more thing about the music: I thought it sounded like a bunch of cheap library tracks from the late 80s. Mr. Beaupepys thought it sounded as though it came from a cheesy porn movie. There's the possibility that we're both right here, given that my cinematic knowledge only extends so far in certain directions, but the point I'm trying to make is that a film this good deserves a far, far better soundtrack. It's a minor thing, but I honestly believe that little things like these are all that held it back from cult classic status.

Oh, and while I'm quibbling: video store clerk? In 2008? Really?

The verdict

Confident, mischievous and eminently quotable, this is one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year - heck, in plenty of years it would have clinched the #1 shot. Flawed but forgivably so, this one deserves a far wider audience, so why not try and track it down? 

 

Scrooged (1988)

I've always been inordinately attached to the 1980s, even though I was only 13 by the time they finished. They're the years whose music I return to for comfort listening, the years which spark an instant wistful nostalgia. Sure, I didn't see many movies back then (I was too small and too easily terrified), but the film posters from the video shop have stuck with me even when I wholeheartedly wished they hadn't. 

Films in the 80s were a minefield to be navigated, because some tiny aspect would always linger far too long, tormenting me in the dead of night. As a consequence, there's plenty of highly-populist stuff from that period I still haven't seen. Gremlins, for instance, that's a good example. Or  E.T., because the second it stopped seeming mind-fryingly scary it suddenly became nauseatingly oversentimental. On the other hand, the so-called classic family films I have seen from the period? Ghostbusters was shockingly overrated, and while the first and third instalments of the Indiana Jones were serviceable enough, Temple of Doom remains one of the great cinematic embarrassments of our lifetime. 

Films I watched at Christmas in the 80s were Grease, the Sound of Music and endless James Bond repeats, safe and serviceable and reassuring in their firm position on each side of the gender divide. Nothing liable to scare the horses here, no sir, and the only incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge onscreen would have been the Alistair Sim one.

Scrooged, on the other hand, is very much a re-telling for its own era, with all the flash and excess this implies. It's the story of ruthless TV network executive Frank Cross (Bill Murray), producer of such festive gems as The Night The Reindeer Died. This year, Cross' star attraction is a live-action version of the Dickens classic, featuring gymnast Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim.

Cross loves Christmas, because it's the one time of year when the entire nation comes together to sit down and watch TV in unison - this is important, given that his boss Preston Rhinelander (Robert Mitchum) is warning him not to neglect the cat and dog demographic. Christmas, for him, is bank. For those around him, though, it's a time for receiving cheap monogrammed towels and running the risk of a vicious tongue-lashing and/or unemployment.

We all know how it goes from here, as Cross is visited by three spirits - David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a psychotically sparkly Ghost of Christmas Present and a Ghost of Christmas Future portrayed as nothing so much but a cowled TV screen. Does Frank learn to love Christmas, does he make out with his long-lost love and does his secretary's mute son learn to speak? Sorry, people; spoilers forbid.

The good

I'd feel so much more confident commenting on this one if I had any idea what director Richard Donner was trying to achieve. In the nicest possible way, Scrooged actually works quite well as a slightly hallucinatory character study of an overly-paid man and his nervous breakdown. Heck, if I was feeling particularly charitable I could suggest it might even be an allegory for the way the manic consumerism of the 80s gradually segued into the desperately earnest goodwill of the 90s. It's loud, it's bold and it has a certain dreamlike disjointedness that could sort of hold up under non-literal interpretation. If I was feeling charitable.

Oh, and if you like the sort of Danny Elfman soundtrack that sounds like the prizewinner in a Danny Elfman Soundtrack Soundalike contest, this may just be your lucky day.

The bad

Okay, so, disclaimer time: I watched Scrooged under the influence of some sort of vague achy fluey virus thing, and at time of writing it still hasn't gone away. Loud noises, bright colours, casual violence and jump shocks, therefore, don't currently feature on my list of favourite things. The film features all of these in abundance; in fact, it features them in a rather greater abundance than might reasonably be expected for a Christmas flick - it eclipses even darker genre examples such as Bad Santa and Death to Smoochy.

Unlike these two films, too, we're never certain as to quite where the heart of Scrooged might lie. Even at his moment of conversion, Frank Cross is still violently, near-rabidly aggressive; true, he's now been touched by the spirit of Christmas, but one gets the impression that all that's happened is that his negative energies have been directed elsewhere. Granted, his girlfriend Claire seems too dopey to notice much of anything at all, but in her position I'd unquestionably still be putting in a call to the local mental health services team before running for the border. With the possible exception of secretary Grace (Alfre Woodard), nobody comes out of this one looking anything other than crass, idiotic or both.

I could probably continue ranting, but what's the point? There's plenty of better films out there, so I'd rather spend my time and attention on them instead.

The verdict

Everything I ever managed to repress about the 1980s - If anybody wants me I'll be sulking over my old favourite double bill of Biggles: Adventures in Time and Innerspace. This should tell you everything about Scrooged that you could possibly need to know.