Chapter 27, dir. J.P. Schaefer (2007)

NIKKI says:
This is one of those movies centering on an ugly topic that likes to think its edgy and daring. There's an element of daring to it, but only in that Jared Leto went to such extreme lengths to resemble Mark Chapman, and that much of it is filmed outside the Dakota building where Chapman shot John Lennon. It's a portrait of a disquieted mind, of a man who resented what he believed to be the "phoniness" inherent in Lennon's celebrity lifestyle that he convinced himself that killing the singer was absolutely necessary. The problem is, if you've read Jack Jones's book, Let Me Take You Down, or know anything really at all about Chapman, this movie doesn't cover any new ground. All it does is put us beside a visual representation of the man in the three days leading up to his horrible actions. I'm challenging myself to come up with a point for that, a reason for the film to exist?

It's the stuff of legend, is it not, that Chapman waited outside the Dakota for Lennon to emerge, to get his autograph? And when Lennon did emerge, he signed Chapman's record and went on his way, only to return with Chapman still there, this time primed to shoot? I believe most people are aware of the bits and pieces found in Chapman's apartment, and that he equated himself with Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. So, Chapter 27 is simply a visual representation of these very famous facts.

In the beginning of the movie, Leto as Chapman says he could tell us about his family life, but he just didn't want to. Yet, for me, that's where the story is. We all know what happened, I was interested in finding out why. We don't know much about Chapman at the end of this movie. We know he's damaged, but how did a respected, world-travelling aid worker residing in Hawaii get to this point in his life? Why did Salinger's book impact him so deeply? Where did his obsession with Lennon come from? Was his madness recognisable to anyone else in his life, his wife, his friends?

I feel like the film took the wrong focus. I commend Jared Leto on a brilliant performance, but I wonder to what end have his efforts led? I have no greater understanding of this act. I'm still aware Chapman was a bit mental, but I knew that going in and that's all I'm taking away.

2/5

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Director's Cut, dir. Steven Spielberg (1977)

NIKKI says:
Very happy to take a second look at this movie in its new Director's Cut edition. I like the movie. I get caught up in whimsy and the adventure of the whole thing, as I'm sure I'm supposed to. I really enjoy Richard Dreyfuss in all-out manic mode as the man who knows something is out there. But I found watching the movie for only the second time, that I felt bad to Dreyfuss's family who were really just abandoned while he went on his quest into the unknown. I can understand him perhaps leaving his wife behind, she who didn't fully support him in this thing he was going through. But his children?

The scene where Dreyfuss is in the bath, just losing his mind -- those kids really experience something there. That is a tragic moment for them as much as it is for their dad. I feel like Spielberg really did something great there, letting us see how this whole business was affecting the kids. But then the kids just leave and Dreyfuss never gives them a second thought.

I really struggled to fully be with Dreyfuss in those final moments where the aliens take him away. I know I was meant to feel good for him, and happy that his journey was about to take its inevitable next step. But I just sat there thinking -- what about the kids? If this whole thing was just so big that it blocked everything else out of his thinking, then the movie should have let us in on that. Or simply done away with the kids in the first place.

The other thing that bothers me -- why doesn't Dreyfuss take the mud and trees in through the door? Why doesn't he build the thing outside?

Ignoring those issues, it's a good movie. I don't know how much the original cut differs from the director's version, but this one we watched was well-paced and gripping when it needed to be, it had that glittery Spielberg innocence, and some dashes of great humour. It's Spielberg back when he was trying to tell stories instead of trying to change the world.

3/5

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, dir. Jake Kasdan (2007)

STEVE says:
There's a scene in Walk Hard where a young Dewey Cox is waiting in the wings with Buddy Holly as The Big Bopper performs Chantilly Lace. He's understandably nervous about following the Bopper, so Holly (a pointlessly cameoed Frankie Muniz) offers to go on next and take the heat, allowing Dewey to then follow. Moments later, the stage manager alerts everyone that Elvis (Jack White, for some reason) wants to get out early, so he'll be on after Holly, and Dewey will follow them all. I guess it's meant to be funny, and it was in a cute, obvious sort of way, but that's not the reason I bring it up.

See, before we watched Walk Hard, Nikki and I had just finished a 30 Rock marathon - eight or nine episodes back to back because we just couldn't turn it off - and I can't help thinking that maybe Walk Hard would have been funnier if it hadn't had to follow such a brilliantly put-together show.

Not likely, though, considering Walk Hard was co-written by "the guy who brought you Knocked Up and Superbad", Judd Apatow. The more movies I see advertised with "From the Guy Who Brought You" in relation to this guy, it seems less a selling point and more a condemnation.

I was very surprised to find that, for an Apatow movie, Walk Hard followed the proper screenplay structure, but I credit that to the other half of the writing team, director Jake Kasdan. Jake's dad, Lawrence Kasdan, is the guy responsible for writing The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat and Silverado, to name a few, and it seems some of that genius has rubbed off. Still and all, Apatow was involved here, and his vision extends about as far as Vern Troyer's dick, so instead of a hilarious take on the rock star biopic, Walk Hard ends up being a tepid spoof of only two such movies, Ray and Walk the Line - which, structurally speaking, were pretty much the same movie, anyway.

Was it funny? I gotta be honest, here... I don't remember laughing more than once, when Dewey and his band went to India and inadvertently met the Beatles. In yet another spot-the-celebrity scene, Jack Black did the worst Paul McCartney ever - with what sounded like an Irish accent - but Justin Long, Jason Schwartzman and the ever-trustworthy Paul Rudd played George, Ringo and John, respectively - and rather convincingly - as the tensions within the group began to flare.

With Apatow involved, I was expecting a poorly structured rock star cliche that drags on for longer than it has any right to - basically a rock-themed Talladega Nights - but Walk Hard, while by no means great, was nowhere near that bad. It couldn't be.

2/5

NIKKI says:
Yet another Apatow-penned film people kept telling me was just HIL-arious that turned out to be funny in spots but mostly just annoying. I wasn't annoyed at the concept or the star, what bothered me was the lazy, hack-ish presentation. It's a rip-off of Ray and Walk the Line, two similar, equally boring and unfocused TV movies that somehow made the big screen. When you're going to parody such films and you have loads of better, more influential, more powerful films at your fingertips, why go for just these two? Is it because the audience you're aiming your movie at will only know these two movies?

What about The Buddy Holly Story? La Bamba, The Doors, Coal Miner's Daughter, Sid and Nancy? On NPR, the introduction to an interview with Reilly and Kasdan says the movie takes on "old music films", but but Kasdan and Reilly admit it's not movies they ripped off but famous stories about musicians. And that might be true, but where do Dewey's 22 children fit in? Which famous rock star killed his own brother? And then his father? What are we parodying exactly? A parody of rock-star biopics and no-one dies in a plane crash?

The movie is not really a parody of biopics, but a parody of rock styles in general. Dewey emulates everyone from Bob Dylan to Mac Davis. The Dewey Cox character develops as the times developed, and his style of music shifts and changes in a way mirrored by no actual musicians. It's a series of "hey wouldn't it be funny if" moments that don't pull together.

The film bothered me because it didn't know if it wanted to be a parody or an outright send-up. The broad, often stupid humour didn't fit, and worked only to bring the film down to a slapstick-y, funless level. It's a case, I reckon, where the joke is king. Dewey doesn't really have a story of his own. He has the obvious turn out of the spotlight and eventual comeback, and he learns that family is all that matters. But so what? If you're gonna put the effort in, you should have something to say. This movie just points out that a lot of music careers were fuelled by the same things, and that deaths of family members are just so funny. And?

2/5

Re-Cycle (aka. Gwai wik), dir. Pang Brothers (2006)

NIKKI says:
So, Oxide Pang says it's not an anti-abortion film. And while that makes me feel a bit better about the whole experience, I don't know if he's entirely telling the truth.

Consider: Angelica Lee runs through a giant red blubber hole full of aborted fetuses that she's told are "discarded" things along the same lines as her childhood toys. She is informed of this by a little girl who reveals herself to be Angelica's aborted baby. "It's not that I didn't love you," Angelica says to the little girl, holding her, and crying. And she resists following up that thought, but we're aware by this stage of the danger of discarding things.

The whole movie about the place things go when casually tossed aside. Is it irresponsible of the Pangs to compare childhood toys with aborted fetuses? The movie is about a woman who is forced to confront the supernatural world where her discarded things reside -- most prominently, her discarded story ideas. She's a novelist suffering writer's block brought on by the pressures of writing another blockbuster. She's not in the best frame of mind to create, and what she does write, she invariably deletes or tosses into her wastepaper basket. The basket begins to stir, and she starts seeing weird things like dark figures and a broken elevator.

Soon, she's in a fantasy world where dead bodies hang in trees and deformed human figures squirm, twitch and unnaturally bend, following her, stalking her. She must get to the a place called the Transit for safety, and must venture through this land of discarded things. She meets characters from books she hasn't finished writing, images and ideas left hanging when she's hit the delete key. There's even a giant pyramid of discarded books, from which other books fall and slide -- so many discarded ideas, she could have written hundreds of bestsellers.

The Ideas Hell is a fascinating concept. And that part of the film kept me interested. As a non-practicing fiction writer myself, I know the hell of ideas conceived and lost, invented and left to languish. I know the horrors of the blank page. I have the repertoire of excuses. And I felt genuinely creeped out at the prospect of my ideas living in me somewhere, waiting for their opportunity to develop and grow.

But is this the same as the babies my body waits to have? I just don't think it is. If Oxide Pang is truthful in that he meant nothing more by the fetus-bubble than simply as a plot device that causes issue for Angelica, then fair enough. But it's the part of the movie that struck me the most. I can't free myself of it. When you choose to say something like that in your movie, you have to be aware of the wider effects. It goes beyond story telling and starts to become something else. Too sensitive? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted my Pang movie to feature Angelica running from ghosts and bloody things, and not charging headlong into them.

It's an interesting idea. It's provocative, and absolutely beautiful to watch. It, too, makes me want to get some ideas out of my head, lest they fester and mould and start twitching.

2.5/5

STEVE says:
After watching the piss-weak remake of The Eye earlier this week, I was excited - nay, burning to see another horror movie from the Pang Brothers.

This, however, wasn't it.

Re-Cycle starts out as a conventional HK-horror flick - young female writer, haunted by visions, etc. - but then takes a quick, unexpected turn into the land of Dark Fantasy. There were elements of horror all the way through, but elements don't make the whole, and I was left with a bit of cinematic whiplash, which is maybe why I didn't get into this one so much.

The concept was great - the writer finds herself in the Land of the Discarded, confronted with things from her past ranging from toys and books she had as a child to characters from her own unfinished stories and her own aborted daughter - but it got very heavy in the end, almost a Pro-Life PSA, which, having been duped once already by the Horror/Dark Fantasy bait-and-switch, I wasn't at all into.

2.5/5

Alien Resurrection, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1997)

STEVE says:
Couple weeks ago, Claudius and I watched Alien. He was impressed enough to borrow the box set, but only got to watch Aliens and Alien 3 before heading back to Melbourne. (Not one of those who'll borrow something and hang on to it for six years, Claude returned the set before going back.)

So tonight, searching for something to watch, we decided to finish up the Quadrilogy (having now officially replaced tetralogy as the word for a series of four).

I like Alien Resurrection. Sure, it's nowhere near as awesome as the original, but what is? And maybe it's not as good as Alien 3, but it sure beats the pants off Aliens, in my opinion. In truth, it's probably somewhere between those two in its action-to-creepiness ratio, but has the distinction of being a Jeunet film, which in this case makes all the difference. I'm talking, here, about the weird eroticism inherent in Act Three, specifically in the scene where Ripley is taken to the Alien hive, and later when she confronts the Alien-Baby. Jeunet, you wacky Frenchman!

(Note: Five years later, this same plot would be used, almost beat-for-beat, in Jason X. Like they just took the script and replaced all "Alien" references with "Jason". It takes balls for the tenth movie in a ridiculously popular horror franchise to rip off the fourth movie in another, and I salute them for it.)

3/5

Nikki did not view.

Panic in the Streets, dir. Elia Kazan (1950)

NIKKI says:
After this and The Sweet Smell of Success, I think I only want to watch movies from the 1950s. This one is about a man trying to stop the spreading of the plague. Richard Widmark is a health services officer who has 48 hours to find the people responsible for the death of a grifter in New Orleans. The grifter was discovered with gunshot wounds to the chest, but he died from plague-like symptoms. Widmark wants the press left out of it lest a national scare is caused and the men he must track down disappear to Africa or somewhere and take their diseases with them.

Ooh, it's a tense one. Another before-its-time picture with rapid-fire, super-smart dialogue, and intensity to burn. Widmark is just great, and so is scary-tall Jack Palance as the heavy who'll do anything -- including tossing a dying man over a second floor banister -- to get away from the cops.

It's shot on location in New Orleans, too, with a great old-timey inside look at the city that no longer exists. I loved this one, and must watch more like it.

3.5/5

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (aka. L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo), dir. Dario Argento (1970)

NIKKI says:
Well, this officially becomes my second favourite Argento flick after the brilliantly awesome Profondo Rosso. The reason I loved this one so much? Because I understood everything that was going on. That's unusual with Argento. Often there's so much subtext going on, and concentration on frightening visuals that the plot gets left a bit behind. (I think Argento himself has said that plot and acting talent are the least focused on ingredients in his pictures.) Here, though, the film is plot-heavy with great actors and decidedly light on thrills and effects. It's clearly early Argento (his debut as a director, I believe), and its just great.

Tony Musante (the great and tragic Schibetta from Oz) plays a guy who witnesses a fairly harrowing murder inside an art gallery. He spends the rest of the film searching for the murdered in the black suit, hat, and gloves. The killer taunts him, kills others around him, and he must hunt deep in his memory to piece together just what he really saw at the museum.

The whole thing about memory and the mind playing tricks is fascinating. So, not only have you got Argento telling a story, he's doing it with a message. Just what do we see when we view events from afar? How can we ever be sure that what we're seeing is the truth? What is truth when it comes to reliance on memory and sharp-moving visuals? This is a really great exploration of those themes, and it's tense and scary when it needs to be, bloodthirsty at just the right moments, and packed with interesting characters.

It's truly one of his best movies. The development of the artist is so obvious in this one, down to the black gloves, the close-ups on the eyes, and the spurting blood. Old Dario is always the best, and this just proves that.

4/5

STEVE says:
On the back of the DVD packet, Argento is said to have "single-handedly created the Giallo genre". Just think about being the one who created a genre. That's pretty fucking cool. Romero and Zombies, Stoker and Vampires, Bava and Giallo. Sweet.

This claim, however, is almost immediately disputed on the commentary track by Alan Jones and Kim Newman. It's Mario Bava, they say, who created the genre, but Argento - and specifically this film - was the first to make use of it after all the rules were laid out.

Either way, I don't like to think of Giallo as a genre. I think of it as a style, like Film Noir, something that happened organically and only classified in retrospect.

Even if he didn't create it, Argento clearly knew how to use the style, and this movie has it in spades - unlike some of his later work in and out of the Giallo mold. At some stage Argento became less interested in story and more in shocking visuals, and I think Giallo - whether a genre or a style - was the poorer for it.

3.5/5

The Flock, dir. Andrew Lau (2007)

NIKKI says:
I just don't know what to say. I found The Flock interesting and chilling. I didn't find myself disliking the movie while it was on. But, I'm not sure I liked it all the same. Then again, it's not the kind of movie you walk away raving about. It's harrowing and brutal. In fact, that might be one thing I liked most about it -- it pulled few punches. Richard Gere wants Claire Danes to know just how horrible the world is that she's soon to enter, and in order for us to get what she's going through, the movie puts us through it, too. It can be hard to stomach, but it's refreshing to see a Hollywood movie do this. It reminded me of Se7en and 8mm in that way. Still, it's hard to like, and it might wrap things up a little too conveniently.

I enjoyed seeing Richard Gere as this horribly scarred man on a mission. It was a change of pace for him, and he was quietly frightening as a case worker for the department of human services who believes a recently kidnapped girl is the victim of one of the pedophiles he has to monitor.

Claire Danes was great, too, as his protege, who must learn the ropes in a matter of a few weeks. They were really good together. I've never really been into movie-actor Claire Danes and still can't help seeing her now and forever as Angela Chase. But in this I really saw what the big deal is about her. She reminds me of Gwyneth at times, though without the silver-spoon iciness that makes it hard to believe her as edgy and damaged (sorry Gwyneth, but still I love you anyway). Claire Danes just has a real stare in her eyes, a hardness about her, and she was able to play on that here.

The bad guys, though... bit too James Patterson, as Steve noted. The kidnapping ring resembled Kiss the Girls, and the twist was less a twist and more an inevitability. It was nonetheless disturbing. I think maybe the final scenes with the face-licking was slightly over the top, and the timing of all involved was rather convenient, but the point was made. There is an element to society that most of us would rather ignore than confront head-on. Gere's character, at one point, screams at a room full of sex offenders in therapy: "You made me waste my life!" And there's probably the most interesting layer of this story. Not only is the bad element out there, there are also people who spend their lives alongside them, whether tracking them, monitoring them, or assisting in their (so-called) reform.

This movie makes its point well. It's a hard road getting there, though. You might need to wash afterwards.

3/5

STEVE says:
Yeah, Nikki pretty much summed it up for us both, there: part Se7en, part 8mm, part Kiss the Girls and part Silence of the Lambs. I'm sure I could throw a few more titles in there if I looked at it again - but I don't want to, at least not for a while.

And that's not to say The Flock is derivative, necessarily - the themes in these movies will crop up again and again as this archetype is explored. You just don't expect to find so many of them in one place, is all.

3/5

Sweet Smell of Success, dir. Alexander Mackendrick (1957)

NIKKI says:
Further proof that they don't make them like they used to. You know, we're supposed to think we live in the age of liberation, but watching a movie like this one, you realise things weren't so stilted and stale back in the day. So, they couldn't outright say bad words on screen, instead creativity came into play, and the evil words and callous thoughts and true reflections of the time had to be delivered smartly and less obviously. Well, this movie takes even that a step further. It's clever, but relatively free of innuendo here -- this is 1957 and Sidney Falco, press agent, chastises the naive young Susan Hunsecker:

"Start thinking with your head instead of your hips... By the way, I got nothing against women thinking with their hips. That's their nature. Just like it's a man's nature to go out and hustle and get the things he wants."

Wow, really? I often forget how progressive movies were back then if you just knew where to look. This is up there with the best crime drama and film noir in that it takes a harsh look at men, women, New York City, and society at large. We look at the way starlets and politicians and people in the public eye are made or broken by the press -- it feels like a new thing. But it's origins are old. This is the story of columnists and press agents and the tearing down of a young man's reputation based on the personal views and desires of the columnist himself, and the need for recognition by the press agent. The seedy pair come together and they don't care who's lives they destroy. And by the time one of them decides he has a conscience, it might just be too late.

This is a classic in every sense. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis are on fire, trading jibes like racing tips. The writing is super-slick, the story builds expertly, and the fall out is devastating.

I said to Steve during that I just wanted to go live in old time-y New York where men wore suits all the time and the women were always coiffed, and there were cigarette girls and jazz clubs, and guys said things like "What me run a 50 yard dash with my legs cut off" instead of "watch me calm this guy down with my smooth, fast-talking". I miss the old days, especially the ones I only get to look at through some old filmmaker's lens.

4.5/5

Cactus, dir. Jasmine Yuen Carrucan (2008)

NIKKI says:
Tense and smart -- that's really all I was hoping for with this one. And it delivered. It's a road-movie in the grand old Aussie tradition of road-movies, with men on a mission through dust and desolation. No matter how much you isolate yourself, the movie tells us, threats abound both physical and psychological.

John kidnaps Eli and takes him on a dusty drive across country. Eli is not sure what he's done to deserve this treatment or just who it is John is delivering him to, but he seems to settle into the idea that someone has it in for him. And so, instead of wondering he starts to figure out a way to escape, His attempts are thwarted at every turn by John who Eli realises is not your average delivery man. John's car gives away the fact that he's a family man, so Eli begins to use that knowledge to get close to his kidnapper. The two begin to form a bizarre kind of kinship that plays itself out in deep conversations interspersed with incidences where John must remind Eli who's boss.

But the outback proves it's not hidden, that eyes are everywhere, and that as tough as you think you are, it's 10 times tougher. The plans of both men are soon thwarted, and shit really starts hitting the fan.

In the end, you just don't know who to root for. The movie plays with convention, screws with our conceptions of good guys and bad guys, and ups the ante as far as the whodunnits and whydunnits until the end. It's a decent little movie, with some amazing lead performances, great scenery, and clever writing. My favourite bit? You might think being bound and gagged in a dingy car in the middle of the Aussie outback is torture -- what if, at the same time, the Wiggles' "Hot Potato" is on the stereo ON REPEAT? Now what's torture?

3/5

STEVE says:
This was not the movie I expected it to be. I was hoping, I guess, for more of a Hitcher or Road Games type thriller. Instead, I got psychological drama and character study.

That said, it wasn't a bad movie, and I'd like to see more of its type. It was well-written and well-made overall, but it was not what I was in the mood for, so I'm rating it on a curve.

3/5

Right at Your Door, dir. Chris Gorak (2006)

NIKKI says:
Oh man... it was like I was trapped in my house, too, and the slightest movement might send up dust fumes that would make me cough up blood, like poor Lexi in the movie. Oh, it was creepy. But, so well done.

A series of dirty bombs go off in downtown Los Angeles and the city is closed off. Brad's wife, Lexi, has just left for the city on her way to work. When the bomb goes off and he looks out the window to see LA on fire, Brad acts on instinct -- he goes to find her. But it's not that simple. Cops are blocking the roads. They don't want anyone heading into the city. The word comes down that everyone in the outlying suburbs should seal their homes away from the toxic fumes and wait.

Brad wants so badly to find his wife and have her be safe that he can't bring himself to seal off his front door. With no sign of Lexi, he gives in and does what the radio tells him to do. And then Lexi returns.

Oh god! It's so harrowing what these two go through. And it's difficult to say any more about the film without giving the good stuff away. It's a great comment on how we react in crises and who we choose to trust, to follow, and pin our hopes on. It's also a great comment on relationships and their strengths and weaknesses when faced with difficulties. It's about panic and fear, it's about resistance and truth.

A really decent movie with some great writing, some shocking effects, and a central idea that might once have seemed far fetched, but now feels somewhat inevitable. Steve and I instinctively answered this movie's big question at the same time, and then I spent the rest of it wondering it I had been truthful. What, the movie dares you to answer, would you do?

4/5

A Clockwork Orgy, dir. Nic Cramer (1998)

NIKKI says:
We wanted our blog to be comprehensive, so we had to watch one of these at some stage. We were going to blog about Sex City, the adult flick based on Sin City, but it was so terrible we turned it off after about 10 minutes. Turning off a porno due to bad quality -- has that ever happened before?

Anyway... this one was alright. It was hilarious, actually, to see just how Nic Cramer and his cronies took the classic film and rejigged it for the adult world. He's gone all out, too. The costumes are great, and the girls use the same bizarro language Alex and the Droogs used in the original ("Viddy well" and "Welly, welly" and all that, and there's an attempt at a message involving women using their muscle to clean up the streets and get ahead.

The gag here is that Alexandra the Droog is a violent sex-addict who must be cured of her affliction. She's caught, jailed, and then forced to watch hours and hours of gross-out porn in order to get her head right. Meanwhile, her fellow Droogs must bust her out of captivity, all the while continuing their rampage against the perverted on the streets.

It was fun. Kaitlyn Ashley gave one of the craziest, bravest porno performances I've ever seen. You know, I don't know if I agree with the end -- I felt like the men these girls were challenging ended up getting too much enjoyment out of the whole thing. But, I guess that's porn for you.

2.5/5

Run Fatboy Run, dir. David Schwimmer (2007)

NIKKI says:
The Pegg group, for me, is a bit like the Gervais group -- anything they do, I will watch; anywhere they go, I will follow; anytime they wish to slum in less than stellar productions, I will support them while patiently waiting for them to get their collective acts together.

That last one mostly applies here -- just as we watched Ricky in Night at the Museum, so we watched Pegg in Run, Fatboy, Run. It looked like a cute movie, even from the trailers, but I kinda thought wedgie jokes were beyond such a creative genius as Simon Pegg. Still, I put that thought aside, hoping scenes of Pegg pulling his britches from his ass-cheeks were purposely placed in those trailers to reach the Lowest Common Denominator crowd -- you know, the people who buy movie tickets. Well, there's a lot of that kind of humour in here -- wedgie jokes join blister-popping gags, cock jokes, bad-hair jokes, rash jokes, humping-a-mannequin jokes, you name it.

But then it's really not Pegg's movie. From the sounds of it, it's another comedian's movie that Pegg stepped in on for reasons I'm not too familiar with. And then David Schwimmer directs, and while he starred in one of the funniest shows in TV for 10 years, he's not the most skilled comedy director. The timing feels all over the place with this one.

On the plus side, I guess it's a cute movie with a cute story. I don't know what possessed the Pegg group to put their energies into it. It just doesn't seem like their sort of thing. The story, at its heart, is rather generic. It's even been done before in a movie called Running. I laughed a few times, but I don't think it'll ever get a revisit.

So, here I wait for Paul, which Pegg wrote with Nick Frost about two guys travelling the USA together, and The World's End, new from Pegg and Edgar Wright. Then we'll be back on track, and any and all wedgie jokes might serve a deeper purpose.

2/5

The Eye, dir. Xavier Palud, David Moreau (2008)

NIKKI says:
I don't know what drew me to watch it -- could be my desire to see every horror movie ever made; could be my need to be culturally aware about every damn movie-related thing; could be that addiction to shite I need to see someone about. Whatever the case, there was no way I wasn't watching this. And even though it had no chance of living up to its Chinese predecessor, it wasn't as bad as some American horror remakes, like The Ring. It was still lame.

I expected it to be lamer, especially with Gothika "writer" Sebastian Gutierrez responsible for the screenplay. Gutierrez also wrote Snakes on a Plane which was utter trash as well. He tries here to stick to the original, and while there are some major plot disconnections for me, he's not the reason this doesn't work. That issues hangs on Moreau and Palud who clearly have little idea how to scare an audience. I don't get why guys like these who have been given the chance to direct a scary movie don't go out and research scary movies. They needn't go that far even -- just hire out the original Eye and DO EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID. Instead, those ultra-creepy scene from the original are watered way down with stupid CGI ghosts effects and absolutely zero tension.

If you've seen the original -- remember the dead guy in the elevator? Why was that so frightening in the original, but borderline funny here? Do the Chinese just have a better sense of overall atmosphere when it comes to films like this? Remember the school scene with the calligraphy? "Get out of my chair!" Oh my god! That scene is probably the scariest I've ever seen on film. Why can't the remake replicate that? Does putting Jessica Alba (or any well-known, mainstream actress) just negate the scary? Does a US setting add a been-there-seen-that quality to such flicks?

Let's explore... Calligraphy chair, as well as the girl under the sink in Tale of Two Sisters, Sadako coming out of the TV in Ringu, the little boy in the banister in Ju-on -- these are all officially my most memorable movie moments for sheer freak-out factor. Like, not just the creeps or the chills or a slight jump, but heart-pounding, vomit-inducing, CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE kinda stuff. Coincidence that they're all from Asian horror flicks? I really don't think so.

The Asians just do it better. It's the only conclusion I can come to. It's like Italians and red wine. They just do it better. They can't help it. Although, the Asian horror flick fest of awesome has dried up over the past few years. Are there new Pangs out there? Have I just not found them?

2/5

STEVE says:

It took two directors to screw up the work of the Pang Brothers. I like that kind of symmetry.

This movie followed the original almost shot for shot, and still managed to be piss-weak. There oughta be some kind of award for that.

Palud, Moreau: How do you fuck up that elevator scene?

It's like this every time. Why do we keep watching these remakes? I blame Nikki. But mark my words - there's no way in HELL I'll be watching Quarantine...

2/5

Thursday's Game, dir. Robert Moore (1974)

NIKKI says:
You know, sometimes the afternoon is just the right amount of ripe for an old TV movie. This one is so deeply reminiscent of later Rob Reiner relationship dramas like When Harry Met Sally and The Story of Us that you can perhaps see where Reiner, who shows up in this, might have received some inspiration. The movie hinges on its boys-night-out premise, but it's really about men, and what they experience as they get older. It's a men-have-feelings-too kinda movie, and the writing is sharp, just what it needs to be to make a movie like this work.

Gene Wilder and Bob Newhart play two members of poker group that meets every Thursday. When the game breaks up, instead of giving up their night out, Bob and Gene decide to keep news of the break-up from their wives and continue getting together each Thursday for drinks, dinner, and whatever else takes their fancy. They start to build a strong friendship. Thursday becomes the night to unwind, and to unload their frustrations, intimidations, and general feelings.

Wilder is concerned about finding and keeping work, he is worried about his son, and confused about his relationship. He is the focus of the film, and it's his exploration of middle-aged manhood we become most interested in. Does marriage and work mean a man must endure an amount of loneliness, or should one be happy all the time? Newhart, conversely, is wealthy, yet concerned that he may have outgrown his older-woman wife.

The discussions the men have are touching and honest. It's funny, confronting, and seems kinda before its time way back in 1974, when women were the ones taking greater control of their lives. A bit of a male answer to the feminist revolution. It's a good movie. Reiner should remake it.

3/5

The Good Night, dir. Jake Paltrow (2007)

NIKKI says:

Sometimes I wish that you could just hit the sack and never wake up. If your favorite song never ended, or your best book never closed, if the emotions mustered from these things would just go on and on, who wouldn't want to stay asleep? The guy who discovers that perpetual dream, he's my man.

There are some really truthful moments in this film, particularly between Gary and Dora, as they hit the wall in their life together that reveals to each just how boring and selfish the other can be. Dora responds by taking some time away from the relationship. Gary responds by trying to find a way to permanently live inside his dreams where the perfect woman waits to arouse him every time he falls asleep.

Their diverging paths are the best thing about this movie, which is essentially an absurdist take on reality, living life to the fullest, and recognising the good around us.

The movie was written and directed by Gwyneth's brother, Jake Paltrow, and if this is anything to go by, he's a writer with some strange and interesting ideas. There's a lot of artistry in this film, a lot of small and clever details that strengthen character and plot development. The Danny DeVito character is particularly affecting, especially near the end of the film when his true existence is revealed to Gary. Paltrow has a great ability to create complete characters, with idiosyncrasies and nuanced behaviour. This could have been a film that was all ideas, instead it's a full story about people at personal crossroads who go to extreme lengths to recapture the meaning in their lives.

I don't know if I agreed with the ending, but it definitely made me think about dreams and reality, and how each ultimately affects the other.

3/5

Sleuth, dir. Kenneth Branagh (2007)

NIKKI says:
It's saying a lot that the original is 138 minutes, while this remake is barely 85. The 1972 Sleuth is considered one of the greatest British thrillers of all time, with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier battling wits in their horrible games of psychological oneupmanship. Here, the wit is rather sparse, making way for a lot of yelling and screaming and overthetopness. There's a max of three "games", and each is sillier and less thrilling than the one before. As far as remakes, or re-imaginings go, I cannot decide just what the point of this was. Let's take a famous thriller, cut all the meat out of it, give the characters a somewhat futuristic setting, add a bit of homoeroticism and a lot of uses of the word "cunt", and see what happens.

Well, nothing really. The short running time means there's very little time to develop characters and believable twists. When Jude Law walks back into Michael Caine's life in disguise, it's hard not to feel that Caine is such an easy dupe not to realise what's going on. In turn, when Caine flips the tables again on Law, it's almost preposterous that Law doesn't see the game playing out right in front of him.

These actors could have really done something with a clever script, yet Pinter's veritable flip-book is so weak that while they're acting their hearts out, they're not saying anything of particular interest. It's a Sleuth best-of that reveals its hand far too early, and before you realise you're supposed to care, it's way too late.

2/5

STEVE says:

Man, I don't even know what to say. I didn't enjoy the original so much, and this wasn't a whole lot better.

It might work better as a play, although I don't see how. There are only two people in the cast, so when a third character shows up after one of the original two is disposed of, it doesn't take much to figure that it's the same guy in prosthetic teeth and a belly-pillow.

And this is the part I just don't get: Are we, as the audience, supposed to know it's the character in disguise? One can't help but think so because Jude Law is Jude Law, no matter what you do to him. So if we can tell, why the hell can't Michael Caine?

No. I didn't dig the first one, I didn't dig this one, and I likely won't dig it again when Jude Law comes back in 35 years to play Andrew to Freddy Highmore's Milo.

2/5

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, dir. Terry Gilliam (1998)

P2, dir. Franck Khalfoun (2007)

NIKKI says:
Girl gets chased around parking garage for 90 minutes. I'm pretty much ready to give that ago based solely on those few words. This one also has the name Alexandre Aja attached, he of the horrendous High Tension and the not-so-awful Hills Have Eyes remake. So, good premise plus reasonable pedigree equals potentially good horror/thriller.

Well, it was okay. There were some major scares, and the lead actress, Rachel Nichols, was very good. I felt for her all the way through. She pulled off the woman-in-distress thing really well. I jumped when she stabbed Wes Bentley with a fork, and then when hit him over the head, and in the end when she gets her final grrl-power revenge on him.

But when she wasn't on screen, I didn't so much care. Wes Bentley's garage attendant psycho was straight out of a Psych 101 textbook. "You're not a slut," he tells Rachel, over and over. And tells her that he's "doing all this for her". But we don't really know what he expects to happen when the sun comes up and its a brand new day. He's left bloody corpses about, destroyed an elevator, turned his office into a crime scene -- did he think he and Rachel were just going to live in the garage forever? Was he planning to kill her?

It's a bit up in the air. And Bentley's screaming signify his mental state was so over the top it became distracting. I like psychos who quietly go about their psycho-ness. This guy was screaming so loud you could barely understand what he was saying. I expected more tension, more thrills. But really, it was just a matter of holding on 'til the 75 mark when you knew it was time for Rachel to fight back and kick ass, which she does very well.

Some good horror scenes involving a flooded elevator, a wall-ramming, and some axe-wielding. But bad horror scenes involving a second wall-ramming, the old fingernail snapping backwards, and the brutal slaughter of a dog.

All in all... 2.5/5

Be Kind Rewind, dir. Michel Gondry (2008)

NIKKI says:
I liked it, but I should have loved it. Michel Gondry is an amazing mind, and a brilliant artist, and I thought his crazy stamp on a film that involves Jack Black and Mos Def remaking Ghostbusters would just be awesome. But it's a bunch of ideas hobbled together to create a film about the bonds of community. I don't know if that needed to be the ultimate message in a film that posits human ingenuity and artistry as the rightful successors to big-business and technology. But maybe I missed the point -- there seemed to be a lot of them.

The video/pawn shop versus the big DVD retailer -- that's the movie I thought I was seeing. Then again, that's the movie I thought I was seeing after the movie about communities embracing their history, which was before the movie about the magnestised weirdo erasing all the films and the silly pair who think remaking the movies and putting them back on the shelves will be sufficient to keep their boss happy. Now that last bit, that's funny. But all the other stuff pops in and pops out depending on convenience, and it becomes somewhat of a goopy mess. Can the movie be about ALL those things? It can, but here, it's kind of not -- the silly pair from the beginning are different guys at the end, but I don't really know why. I could have my mind changed should a DVD commentary inform me of just what Gondry thought he was doing specifically.

Still, I laughed a lot. I loved the film recreation scenes, particularly The Lion King, and I laughed as ever at Jack Black doing his shtick, which I know should be old-hat to me now, but just seems to get funnier.

I expected majestic masterpiece, and got sporadically great film with no real thread. I think I was disappointed, but I'm so thrilled Gondry is in this world that I struggle to be impartial here. I should be annoyed that it was messy. Instead, I'm rather blind to its issues because that montage of film remaking was just so fucking great.

(Edited to add: I've just learned that the Fats Waller connection here is to do with Waller's part in old-school rent parties in which musicians would jam for neighbourhood friends in order to raise money for rent. Gondry appears to have Jack and Mos doing the same thing, only with movies. That's interesting, only it might be yet another piece of the puzzle that doesn't really fit.)

3/5

STEVE says:

This became a case of Too Much Hype for Too Little Substance.

The premise hinges on the audience believing there's still a video shop out there that hasn't embraced DVD - in an age where even that technology is being asked to step aside for the shiny new Blu-Ray - and it just didn't sit well with me. It was hard to really get into it from the very beginning. 

Eternal Sunshine is always going to stand out among my Top 10, and there were flashes of that sort of brilliance here. The in-camera montage is beyond description, but that's about it. The rest of the movie is only so-so.

2.5/5

The Walker, dir. Paul Schrader (2007)

NIKKI says:
"Hell, I even thought that the people elected the president." So says Carter Page III, son of a popular political figure who now "walks" rich wives from place to place, including a regular canasta game. He's well-bred and runs in all the right circles, but he's aware of the truthlessness of Washington, DC, and the games played to get the movers and shakers what they want.

So, Carter is tested when he becomes involved in a cover-up. He chooses to lie to help a friend escape scandal. Kristin Scott Thomas finds a friend dead in his apartment, and to avoid the political fall-out from embroilment in such an event, Carter decides to tell the authorities that he found the body thus becoming a suspect in the murder itself.

Carter must use his ingenuity, influence, and intelligence to solve the crime and get himself out of deep water. The film has him do that very slowly, with very little intrigue. I just didn't find myself caring all that much about these rich folks in peril. And anyone who doesn't guess that the wives are not all on the level would be horribly naive. It's not new to tell me, either, that Washington is corrupt and sexist. It's not particularly enthralling to watch the ultra-rich complaining about the very thing that gives them their power. I understand, for the most part, what Paul Schrader was doing with the Page character as the centrepiece here, but I found the film too slow to really get into it.

It is a lazy portrait of wall furnishings, more than it is a charged story about people and environment. Woody Harrelson, however, is brilliant, and evermore proves himself one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood.

2.5/5

STEVE says:

I'm watching this, and I get this weird deja vu thing going on. I know I haven't seen it before, but there's a feeling I can't shake, a feeling like I'm treading very familiar water.

And then it hits me. I'ts American Gigolo. Here's the synopsis from the back of the DVD:

"Julian Kay is on the prowl and looking for someone to please. Boyish and sensual, he speaks five or six languages, and is equally comfortable as a chauffeur for a wealthy middle-aged matron, and as a translator/companion for the lonely wife of an executive. He is the American Gigolo. But Julian's love-for-sale lifestyle turns deadly when a client is murdered and Julian becomes the prime suspect."

Now here's the synopsis for The Walker:

"Set in Washington, D.C., The Walker follows Carter Page, a popular socialite who serves as confident companion and card partner on the brink of a scandal, he covers for her. Suddenly, he finds himself the chief suspect in a criminal investigation, and this well-connected man-about-town becomes an outcast, hounded by the police and forced to hunt down the true culprit in order to clear his name."

I know it's all part of the Candide archetype, with some Achilles and Circe thrown in, and it probably wouldn't have struck me if Paul Schrader hadn't written and directed them both.

I'm left wondering if I'd have enjoyed The Walker more if that had been the case.

2/5

The Bucket List, dir. Rob Reiner (2007)

STEVE says:
So Lyndall says to me, she says, "Please don't do something so cliched as to review Independence Day tonight -- did I just spoil your idea?"

Now I'm about as patriotic as I am religious (six-of-one, in my opinion), and, no, I hadn't considered watching Independence Day (I shudder to think), but she got me thinking about watching something not necessarily patriotic, but something representative of America.

Easy Rider leaped to mind. What better represents the US than a couple of redneck Texans blasting Captain America to hell?

But we had The Bucket List at the house and it was due back -- overdue, likely -- so we decided to have a look at that instead.

Not a bad choice. Nicholson and Freeman are both reliable actors, if not great -- only because they seem be the same guy every time you see them, but they do it well so I'm not complaining. I expected the movie to be a little more saccharine than it was, actually, and the fact that it wasn't boosts it an extra half-point. The idea of two guys, both dying of cancer, going around the world in a last-ditch effort to do all the things they never got to do is the kind of thing that usually sends me right into a diabetic coma. But Nicholson and Freeman made the premise easier to swallow (or distracted me from it, I'm not sure which), and I found myself enjoying the movie in spite of myself.

On a side note, I must point out the scene where the two are riding pillion on a motorcycle, Nicholson behind Freeman, and I smiled silently to myself, thinking again of Easy Rider, specifically the scene where Nicholson is riding with Captain America. See, Morgan Freeman used to be on an educational TV show back in the day, called The Electric Company. On the show, he played a character named Easy Reader. So you see...

I'm giving The Bucket List a 3/5.

NIKKI says:
It just seemed like the perfect movie to cry to. Plus, while Steve feared the premise of two guys going about doing everything they want to do before they die, I crave such stories -- if one of them had've been a teacher with adoring students, I may have passed out from gleeful anticipation.

It was okay. Short and sweet were the words I think I used when it ended. It didn't pad out its premise, or overstay its welcome. It was quite simply about living a full life. There's nothing wrong with that. Steve's right that it held off on the sugar, which I think sets it apart from other movies like it. There's no big crying scenes, no watching the old guy get spottier as he loses consciousness. It didn't yank at the heart strings. I enjoyed that.

I also got into the discussions the guys were having. Morgan Freeman ever wise, and Jack ever wise-cracking. They were fun to watch. Were they any other actors, perhaps they wouldn't have been so endearing.

So, it was inoffensive fun, without the Tuesdays with Morrie melodrama.

3/5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, dir. Nicholas Stoller (2008)

STEVE says:
Oh my God, it's the end-times! Here is a movie with Judd Apatow's name on it that I not only did not completely abhor, but managed to come away from liking. And not "kind of" liking, but liking in the way that I'll likely buy it, and definitely watch it again in the future.

This is right up there with those prophecies about the devil ice-skating to work, or ice being served in the drinks in the cocktail lounges of Hell. I never thought it was possible.

Someone once wrote of Pauly Shore's Bio-Dome, "bodily function jokes rescued from Jim Carrey's wastebasket masquerade as a script," and that's pretty much how I've felt about the Apatow-produced movies in the past. It seems, though, that someone in that camp has learned how to write, and that someone is Jason Segel. Rather than string a series of sketches together to serve a single-joke premise (Superbad, Knocked Up, Taledega Nights, Anchorman, etc.), Segel wisely uses his talents to tell a story. A bold move, and one I hope catches on.

I really did suspect I'd hate this movie, or at the very least find it "dumb but funny", which is just as irritating, but there was nothing to hate here. Each scene was built on the last; each joke helped build character (and even the "dumb" jokes were smarter than any of the shite that passes for humour in Superbad), and all the characters - including the cheating Sarah Marshall and her Eurotrash rocker boyfriend - were likable. If not for his name in the credits, I'd argue that Apatow had anything at all to do with this.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Do you know how long it's been since I watched the same movie twice in one day? The last time I think was back in 1998, when I saw Good Will Hunting back-to-back at the Capri. I think saw Go twice in one day, too.

Over ten years ago.

Well, today it happened with Forgetting Sarah Marshall of all movies. I finished it up, free of Steve, who was against watching it for reasons you read about above. I wasn't so against it, though I did expect to absolutely loathe the thing. I was drawn to it for two reasons: Because people I respected were saying how brilliant it was; and because I like to see as many films as I can before they arrive in the store -- I like to be informed (but I'm still not watching Fool's Gold). It started, and I started to hate it. Then it kept going, and I started to love it in ridiculous ways.

Where did this movie come from, and what gives it the right to be an Apatow Production and almost scare me away?

So many scenes I wanted Steve to see, so I risked doing that thing we hate where someone makes us check out little snippets of movies because it might make us like it... I showed him Billy Baldwin as David Caruso in a bad TV crime show. And the scene in which our hero confesses he wants to do a Dracula musical with puppets. If anything was going to get Steve interested, it was that.

And then I told him the whole situation with Apatow and Jason Segel (the writer/star here) was like Kevin Smith putting Affleck in his movies back in the day, and then Affleck writes a movie and wins an Oscar, while Smith's movies still reek with pretentiousness and problems. (We like them, but they suck.) Segel was a break-out writer, who could actually write.

Steve was skeptical, but watched it, and felt as I did. His review mirrors my exact feelings. This is just a really good movie. It's well-written, well-structured. It's funny, it makes sense, it's free of meaningless random gags, it's emotional, heartfelt, and realistic. And it has puppets. I adored it as much the second time as the first. And here's something cool -- I'd have no qualms watching it again.

4/5

The Prestige, dir. Christopher Nolan (2006)

Lipstick (aka. Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy), dir. Peter Werner (2006)

NIKKI says:
If Australian DVD makers had not altered this film's titles from the provocative and interesting Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy to the boring Lipstick, I wouldn't have waited so long to watch it. As it is, it looks like chick-lit on film -- I look at that picture of Sarah Chalke, view the title with the cityscape background and I think, "She's out to find a man. Oh yay."

But this is about a far from standard girlie fare as you can get. With its original title, everything is pretty much laid out -- someone's getting their breasts removed and they're not taking it lightly.

I cried a lot. Sarah Chalke plays real-life Geralyn Lucas, a writer for 20/20, who, at 27, finds out she has breast cancer. Her best chance of survival means a double mastectomy. The film opens with Lucas on her way to a strip club to perhaps ascertain some understanding of the lure of women's breasts and what it might mean for her to lose hers. The film carries on in a similar vain -- Lucas is looking for answers. Should she go ahead with the radical surgery or simply have a lumpectomy, which would mean keeping her breasts but risking a return of the cancer? Will she be altered by breast removal? Will her husband love her? Will her friend know her? Will she know herself?

The movie sends her through all kinds of emotions -- anger, bitterness, jealousy, as well as humour, loneliness, sadness, and eventual empowerment. This is not a sob-story, by any means. It's not a film that wants you to feel sorry for its protagonist. It's point is to realistically show what this woman went through, and how she came out the other side.

3.5/5

Steve did not view.