No. 355 : Weird : The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

 

Weird : The Al Yankovic Story at the IMDb

This film was offered up to me by Amazon who are obviously aware of my dubious tastes. I am not immune to the acquired taste of Weird Al and I can honestly say that ‘Hardware Store’ is a rock solid classic.

I was a bit reticent about Daniel Radcliffe playing Al in this parody bio-pic though. I’ve never rated him as an actor and I’m sure all of his career stems from the fall out from his stint as Harry Potter. It must be easy to get a film green lit when you have such an established fan base behind your star. He also seems unlikeable as a person and regardless of your position on the debate I think his behaviour against JK Rowling, who effectively gave him his entire career, is indefensible.

 

Still, we all like a laugh so let’s have a look. The film lost points for me right away when it was clear that our old friends the non-linear narrative and the unreliable narrator were being employed. The film opens with Al being rushed to surgery but as so often happens the narration guides us back to the subject’s childhood. This sees a young Al being held back with his parents with his Dad assaulting a door to door accordion salesman. I appreciate that this was done for laughs but when the film is a biopic it annoys me when stuff gets totally made up. How can you trust anything that’s said going forwards?

 

The film doesn’t concern itself with accuracy however with Al’s affair with Madonna and his dealing with Pablo Escobar covered in detail. There were a few laughs as Al’s fledging career is helped by Rainn Wilson’s ‘Dr Dememto’. His parody and polka-based songs soon take off and there is a knowing nod to his niche popularity when a star-spangled pool party has all the celebs, such as Devine and Pee-Wee Herman fawning over Al.

 

The film was produced by ‘Funny or Die’ and they clearly used some of their influence to get a load of guest stars who showed up for a single scene such as Jack Black, Michael McKean and Conan O’Brien who managed a very poor impression of Andy Warhol. The pool party was the best scene and it went downhill from there. Basically, as soon as Evan Rachel Wood’s Madonna shows up you should bail out.

 

The film sees Al rise to greatness and then succumb to the temptations of stardom. He overcomes Michael Jackson parodying his song ‘Eat it’ with the inferior ‘Beat it’ and manages to reconcile with his father. Will All see a happy ending, or will it be one awards show too many?

 

This film was OK, but I thought Radcliffe was miscast. They clearly used Al for the songs and Potter’s buff body didn’t really suit the wimpy character he was playing. I could see the argument that the casting added to the self-serving bio-pic nature of the film but he just looked like a British guy in a wig.

 

The format and narrative of the film was a lot like ‘Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story’ and it was about as 20% as good as that stone cold classic. It also borrowed heavily from Howard Stern's 'Private Parts' and again it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as that wonderful film.

 

Al himself shows up as a music executive who turns himself down for a contract and it almost seemed that the whole film was nothing but wish fulfilment on the part of the Polka Prince. I would have preferred more laughs and less self-reverential stuff barely disguised as satire. It was fun for the many cameos, but I came away learning little about the subject and having had too few laughs to justify my 100-minute investment.

 

Best Bit: The pool party.

‘W’ Rating: 13/23

No. 354 : Who Is Erin Carter? (TV) (2023)

 

Who is Erin Carter at the IMDb

If you are going to give your TV series an interrogative title it would probably makes sense that you ensure that after enduring 7 episodes your audience is likely to give a shit; but I didn’t.

This by the numbers and cliché-ridden Netflix drama could be seen as a harmless pastime but the lazy writing and terrible acting made it feel like a complete waste of time.

The timeline of the series jumps around a bit but basically you have a woman living with her husband and child in Barcelona – but there are secrets! Things start to unravel when she stumbles upon a supermarket robbery and takes down one of the baddies who recognises her. We’re meant to be impressed by her fighting skills, but the bad guy goes down like he’s in the WWF and all our girl does is some high-level shoving. One robber escapes and Erin is worried her cover may be blown.

What cover you ask? Well, a long flashback shows her at police training college and quickly kicked out when she beats up an annoying fellow cadet. The predictable shady man from black ops invites her to join his division and within five minutes she’s infiltrated a gang and helping with a bullion robbery. You’d think someone with more that a week at training college would be a better option, but a quick training montage puts that concern to bed.

The robbery goes tits up with one woman bank robber seemingly getting killed leaving her annoying daughter at a loose end. Erin confirms her recruitment was a total arse up when she flees to Spain with the child and sets up a new life.

Unfortunately, the supermarket robbers, who wear the same animal masks as at the bullion robbery – they must have gotten a job lot, - know Erin was the rat in the crew and soon the mysterious ‘Mr Big’ is after her.

Fortunately, Erin has a gullible husband and a helper in the shape of Emilio, who is a cop and who is happy to get involved in Erin’s manipulative schemes. Elsewhere a local bitch is making Erin’s school teacher ambitions difficult, but fortunately local businessman Duggie Henshall is on hand to exert some influence. I don’t think Henshall ever got over being outsmarted by Supercrew in ‘Common as Muck’ as he’s absolutely dreadful here. He looks like someone reading lines in a language he doesn’t understand who’s also late for a dental appointment. It gets worse when you get the predictable big reveal!

The meagre plot is spread wafer thin over the 7 episodes with the annoying daughter’s visions and drawings of people in animal masks and her behavioural issues being a complete bore. You do get the lovely Susannah Fielding from ‘This Time’ – A-ha – but she is given precious little to do apart from being a busy body at Erin's school. 

The whole farrago is meant to be like a female Jason Bourne with our heroine displaying mad skills – in truth the fighting and action are very poor and lacks the visceral punch of those movies. There is one decent car crash, but you can tell the budget went on that as the flashback sequences in ‘England’ show a sun baked paradise where they forgot to put down road markings – a bit like Barcelona really!

Evan Amhad does OK in the lead with poor material, but she didn’t convince whatsoever as a pocket dynamo superspy with multiple layers and a complicated past. She is better than her husband Jordi whoever, who looks like he wandered onto set looking for a lost dog.

The whole production seems by the numbers with no doubt a Spanish language version shot at the same time. There are a lot of subtitled sequences and it looks like an international audience was the plan from the start. I’m sure this made fiscal sense for the bean counters at Netflix but the result is an unsatisfying offering that will doubtlessly play equally bad in all markets.

The finale was unsatisfying, not least because it suggests a sequel may be in the works. If you want a Lady Bourne straight from Wish.com this may be the offering that you seek, but otherwise I’d suggest the answer to the question posted by the title is ‘couldn’t care less’.

Best Bit: The police car chase was ridiculous but a good smash up at the end.

‘W’ Rating: 9/23

No. 353 : World Trade Center (2006)

World Trade Center (2006) at the IMDb

 

 * I watched this film and wrote a review for my new Michael Shannon Blog 'Michael Shannon and On and On' which will debut sometime soon. Check back here later and I'll link it when it goes live. It would be a disservice to my one follower to not add a review here on the W movies blog, so I have adapted it for this audience with the more Shannon-centric comments removed.

***************************************************************************

Five years after the devastating events of 9/11 director Oliver Stone assembled a star studded cast to try and tell some of the stories behind the disaster. It would be churlish to criticise it too much as it is well intentioned and celebrates worthy people, but you may find it a bit mawkish and sentimental.

The film centres on Nicholas Cage’s Port Authority cop John. After the attacks take place – mostly off camera; we see only a shadow of a hijacked plane – Cage is sent down to the site to assist in the rescue effort. He comes over as a bit cautious and fusses about looking for equipment as the towers burn and fall. I’m not sure what was being conveyed here – was he playing it safe and by the book or was he fearful of walking in to near certain death? His choices are quickly made for him however, when a tower collapses and he and his men dive into a lift entrance that quickly collapses. Most of the men are killed immediately, with another shooting himself in what I trust was a true incident, as it seemed a bit unconvincing in the film.

Cage and his colleague Michael Pena survive, but both are trapped by their legs. The remainder of the film documents their bid to survive as they comfort and cajole each other to stay awake and listen out for a rescue. As they do so we enter their minds and see flashbacks of better times. They also have visions of Jesus and imagined conversations with their wives. These scenes took me out of the moment somewhat and although they may be accurate to the men involved, it just seemed daft when a vision of Jesus came down to offer salvation. At least he brought a bottle of heavenly water with him.

Whilst our guys struggle with their predicament, the film intercuts with real life events, with stock footage from the day interwoven with scenes of the wives and family back home awaiting to hear of their men’s fate. The women in this film are poorly served with Pena’s partner, a pregnant Maggie Gyllenhaal, being annoying throughout and Cage’s Maria Bello having weird eyes. IMDb says her eyes were colourised for the film and it is poorly done and distracting.

We also get a couple of side stories with Michael Shannon's ex-marine accountant going back to the good fight and Frank Whaley's alcoholic character putting a plug in the jug so that he can offer medical assistance to the injured.

The trapped men are located and, after some digging and more bonding, both are eventually freed from their tomb. We then jump forward two years to see that they have done well in their rehabilitation with baby naming and marital difficulties seemingly resolved.

The films does well not to ponder on the political aspects of the events and focuses more on individual stories. This gives the production some heart, but it also makes it feel somewhat unsubstantial when it covers world changing events. The performances are mixed with a lot of shouting and screaming taking the place of real acting. Your sympathies lie with Cage and Pena from the start and the outcome was never really in doubt. The backstories and family dramas were decent but I didn’t like the wives much and some of the dialogue was too on the nose to be believable.

Overall I’d give the film a pass as it deals with tragic and emotional material well, but I never truly bought into the characters we were offered and their annoying families only served to distance me from the heart of the story. There was a lot to cover in a two hour film and I think ultimately it was a worthy but unsatisfying effort.

Best Bit : The building collapse was well realised and the sets were excellent.

'W' Rating 15/23

No. 352 : Willy's Wonderland (2021)

 

Willy's Wonderland at the IMDb

I found this soon to be cult classic on Amazon Prime and have to say that, despite myself, I actually quite enjoyed it. The film stars Nicholas Cage and appears to be from his ‘filmed in an afternoon to pay the tax bill’ phase. Its budget is listed as a lowly $5m and it was sponsored by the Malaysian film industry to the tune of 30%, which is confirmed by the credits list that suggest most of the post production was carried out overseas.

With a foreign backer to appease the film took the bold decision to have its star have literally no lines of dialogue whatsoever - I imagine that saved plenty on the dubbing costs alone. Apart from a few grunts Cage has nothing to say at all, and if the intention was ‘mysterious’ it came across as ‘constipated’.

Cage plays ’The Janitor’ a drifter, who for unexplained reasons, has a high end sports car. He drives through a small town when he hits a spike trap on the road causing a low end come to a stop - no budget for a big smash here. We quickly learn that this is small town movie cliché number one, with corrupt officials and police putting their well used plan into action. Cage doesn’t have the money for car repairs but a local businessman makes him a strange offer - clean up the abandoned fun house overnight and the $1000 repairs will be covered. Sounds like a good deal? HUGE mistake.

Whilst Cage gets his mops and brushes organised, we have a side plot with a bunch of high school kids who are plotting to burn down the titular fun house. These are your typical teen slasher fodder and I don’t think a single one registered with me. 

Despite having no lines, Cage does show character depth - he drinks a can of energy drink every hour and plays pinball, even when fighting off a hoard of rampaging animatronic characters. Yes, the fun house is inhabited by 8 mascots all of whom have murderous intent. In a large info dump from the sheriff, we learn that the fun house was owned and staffed by a bunch of child killers. When the game was up they carried out a ritual suicide which caused their spirits to inhabit the mechanical fun house hosts, like you do.

The robots were the best bit of the film with a good mix of creepy and exaggerated clown features with various animals and creatures depicted like a crocodile, woodland nymph and the titular Willy the stoat himself. As you’d expect the bad guys gamely line up for individual battle with Cage whilst their contemporaries take out the kids. We learn that the townsfolk lure in strangers to appease the bad guy spirits, lest they once again return to the town to seek their prey there. They should have called Cage in the first place, because as The Janitor, he quickly cleans house.

I was setting up to dislike this film. The opening has a lot of fast edits and has a washed out sepia tone. The gimmick of having Cage not speaking quickly wears thin and there are a lot of awkward scenes were a line of dialogue would move things on, whereas we get Cage looking awkwardly for a way out instead. His character and motivation are wafer thin but the fight scenes are decent and brutal with no time wasted with complicated explanations or justifications. The teens could have been wearing t-shirts marked ‘Fodder’ and their fates would have been no less obvious. Down the cast you’ll recognise no one apart from the lady sheriff who has a few decent credits, but was trying too hard to channel Darlene out of ‘Ozark’ to be effective here.

Overall this was a throwaway piece of nonsense that had just enough to keep me interested. The violence is fun and extreme and it demands nothing in terms of your attention or powers of deduction. The animatronics were well realised although it was clear that it was people in costumes for the fights and they weren’t as tough as invulnerable as the locals would have you believe. Guess you just need to hire the right janitor to take out the trash!

Best Bit : Need a new t-shirt

'W' Rating 15/23

No. 351 : Wrath of Man (2021)

 

Wrath of Man at the IMDb

I saw a trailer for a new Guy Ritchie film starring Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett and Eddie Marsan called ‘Operation Fortune’ that looked a lot of fun. I was surprised to see it pop up on Amazon Prime, but it turned out it wasn’t the fun caper film from the trailer but a heist movie involving the same people. It’s almost like they finished one film early and decided to bash out another seeing as they had all the crew assembled. If my assumption of this cookie cutter approach is correct, one film would have to be the poorer cousin; but which one is it? It’s this one!

Jason plays his usual character - bald and gruff ex-special forces with a mysterious past - who on this outing is called ‘H’ - they may have been trying for a Steps sub-plot, but it wasn’t really developed. The film opens with a heist which we see from the security van’s crew’s perspective. Something goes awry and we hear that two guards and a civilian have been shot from the police radios - remember that for later.

We then meet Jason who is applying for a job at the security firm three months later. He’s told of the previous robbery and is taken through his paces by ‘Bullet’, the senior guard at the firm. Jason barely scrapes a 70% pass mark at the evaluation, but we suspect that he has more in his locker. True to form his van is soon held up, but Jason shoots up all the bad guys without drawing sweat or changing his facial expression. Company rules say that any incident involving a fatality means those involved should get a desk job, but the boss tells flunky Eddie Marsan that Jason should be promoted instead - he does have top billing, after all.

Meanwhile we meet up with the troupe of bad guys run by ‘Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan. He’s getting on a bit so he gets some help from Clint junior, Scott Eastwood. Scott has a bit of a cloudy eye, so we know from the start that he’s a total psychopath. The robbers are ex-military and are keen for a big score and target Jason’s depot on Black Friday when there will be $150 million cash on hand - haven’t these people heard of credit cards?

The narrative jumps back and forth in time with captions appearing regularly - at one point we are five months back and then it’s ‘3 weeks later’ from then or now? It does get a bit confusing. There are also chapter titles which define the 3 acts, which just come across as pretentious in a film with low aspirations, such as this. Just remember Jason has a soppy son he dotes on and that there’s a mole in the security network who is almost definitely the one you think it is from the start.

This was a half decent offering, and if you are of mind to stick on a mindless Jason Statham film you won’t be disappointed. This isn’t one of his light-hearted efforts where he drops a couple of zingers, this is the brow furrowed and no shit taken Jason with plenty of double taps and needless blood letting.

The non-linear narrative is easy enough to follow, mainly because every ‘twist’ was signposted brighter than a Christmas tree. We know Jason is on the path of vengeance - the title is your clue - and it didn’t take much mental agility to work our where he’d been wronged and who needed shooting to sort things out.

The characters are all wafer thin, but it did seem pointless to kill off virtually every one of them. I know it makes the baddie a bit more ‘boo hiss’ if he kills a few people we have investment in, but sadly the investment was nil, with the interest rate even lower.

Donovan had very little to do and it looked like a lot of the principals did their work in a few days when it suited their schedules. The film lacked any of the glamour or budget of what ‘Operation Fortune’ promises and clearly this effort will be seen as the runt of the litter. For a film like this to succeed you need to really care about the character and his motivation. Here Statham’s character didn’t make any sense, nor did his involvement in the initial heist. ‘We need you to tell us if the truck goes left or right’ says the mysterious overlord on the phone. Given the ambush was set up on the right it didn’t really matter what Statham called in, as that was their only chance of success anyway. Why Jason and his son stopped for a front row burrito was just illogical.

Anyway , slice and dice it anyway you like this was an unsatisfying revenge flick that had some decent gun play and a few familiar faces looking for an easy pay day. It was competently made but totally forgettable and a lesser Statham, if there is such a thing.

Best Bit : Jason drops his burritos ‘W’ Rating : 10/23

No.350 : Wildlife (2018)

Wildlife at the IMDb

It’s Montana in 1960 and all is not going well with Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan’s marriage. They are Jerry and  Jeanette and they have a teenage  son Joe. Clearly the writer got stuck on the ’J’s page in his ’name your character’ book.

Wild forest fires are burning across the state meaning the air quality is poor and the kids are receiving fire training. Jerry works at a golf course but is quickly dismissed, with Joe present, for gambling with the guests. We learn he has trouble keeping jobs, meaning that the family is always on the move.

We see him with a couple of beers, so it’s clear he’s immediately become an inveterate drunk. He refuses menial jobs, meaning that Jeanette has to get a job teaching swimming and Joe one after school at a photography studio. He’s happy to do this as it means he doesn’t have to play football which he dislikes but his father expects.

Jerry has a few breakdowns and speeches Willy Loman style, and rashly accepts a dangerous, low paid, job putting out the fires. Jeanette is aghast at first but soon starts to act up and walking out with an older, wealthier man whom she met when she taught him to swim. She takes Joe to meet him and the boy sees him giving Mom a special goodnight kiss. He also sees his ass when he stops over one night.

Joe develops a friendship with a girl classmate, but when Jerry returns and Jeanette announces she’s leaving, he has to witness the final throes of their marriage. What can be salvaged from the wreckage? And will Joe be scarred by the messy break-up of his parents?

This film started out well and for the first half hour I was quite engaged. Gyllenhaal is always watchable and the film suffers when he exits stage left for the middle third. His struggles with authority and keeping a job were interesting and it’s a shame his character wasn’t developed more. Instead the main focus was on their son Joe who, although well played by  Ed Oxenbould (see The Visit), he was a bit dull. Part of his character was that he was a late developer, but he spent a lot of the film staring with a quivering bottom lip.

I think the idea was that he was powerless to intervene as his parents' marriage and, by proxy, his life disintegrated. The raging fires were a strong metaphor and it was no surprise when erstwhile fire-fighter Jerry became a crazy fire starter when trying to sort out his problems.

I didn’t buy into Jeanette’s character arc, who went from doting Mom to drunk floozy almost overnight. Of course she was responding to Jerry’s recklessness in taking the fire fighting job but it didn’t ring true that she’s have the ancient Warren in her bed, with her son in the house, mere days after Jerry left the scene. Mulligan was decent as Jeanette and carried the 60’s fashions well but she was poorly served by  lazy writing and unbelievable character developments.

The film has a kind of  coda at the end where Mom comes back for a visit and the family is briefly reunited. This didn’t really resolve any issues but at least they got the photo for the poster.

Overall this was a decent period examination of a failed marriage but it was ultimately unsatisfying and more than a little dull.

Best Bit : Dinner at Warren’s  ‘W’ Rating 12/23

 

 

No.349 : Welcome to Marwen (2018)

 

Welcome to Marwen at the IMDb

It’s strange how you don’t review any films about a person living a fantasy life and then two come along at once.  Our previous effort ‘Who You Think I Am’ concerned a woman inventing an online personality, this one is about a man who invents a whole world so that he can escape his demons.

I was surprised when this film was offered up on Netflix as I’d never heard of it before despite being a fan of its star, Steve Carell. It’s also directed by ‘Back to the Future’ helmer Robert Zemeckis so it seemed strange that it wasn’t better known, by me at least.

Having seen the film it’s easy to see why the film sunk without trace at the box office. There is a lot to like, but tonally it’s a mess and there are long scenes that are difficult to watch through embarrassment, awkwardness or just plain boredom.

The film is based on a true story of an artist named Mark who was severely beaten by a gang of yobbos who didn’t like his proclivity of wearing hi-heels. He loses his memory and ability to draw and relies on friends and a carer to get through the day. He also retreats into a fantasy world where he becomes his action figure ‘Hogie’ and fights the Nazis in his own model town of Marwen.

The film goes into complete ‘Toy Story’ mode to show Hogie’s adventures which mirror the events of Mark’s own life. His attackers are the Nazis and his troupe of lady resistance fighters are his friends and a favourite porn star.

Mark’s attackers are due to be sentenced and Mark has to speak at their sentencing hearing to ensure the impact they caused on his life is recognised and they receive the appropriate jail time. He also has an upcoming show for the photos he takes of his models, with both events adding to his stress. Things look up however  when a new neighbour, Nicol, moves in and takes an interest in Mark’s hobby.

Will he find peace and love and can Hogie defeat both the Nazis and the Belgian witch who haunts his endeavours?

This was a worthy film that showed the bravery of the main character in surmounting the obstacles placed before him. I can’t say I enjoyed it though. The narrative device of having the toys acting out World War 2 scenes that ran parallel with Mark’s own life was misjudged and took you in and out of the real story with monotonous regularity.

The animation was excellent, with the real cast being morphed into their action figure avatars. I liked how things like the buttons and  zips being too big for the tiny clothes were shown along with their articulated joints. The toys scenes went on too long for me, with a time travel episode lasting ten minutes during which my attention waned. I think you need to have either a kids’ film or a moving redemption drama - to have both squeezed into one film made it a hard watch.

Carell was good, not ‘Foxcatcher’ good, but he did well with difficult material. He must have thought another Oscar nomination was in the offing when he got the script for a brain damaged transvestite, but unfortunately his turn wasn’t enough to keep all the plates spinning. For your money you also get a single scene with ‘Russian carer’ Brienne of Tarth who was dreadful, and the chubby nurse off ‘Nurse Jackie’ who was the chubby friend.

There were good sequences in the film and it was a triumph of the human spirit that deserved to be told. Some scenes were very difficult to endure however, like when Mark had his breakdowns or proposed marriage and there was constant yelling and screaming to endure.

It must have been a hard film to market with the opening animated sequence having a couple of swears so that we knew that this wasn’t for the kids. I’m not sure who it was for really, as it covers a few genres but doesn’t really succeed in any.

A brave effort, but not something I’d recommend or consider as entertainment.

Best Bit :  Trial Speech ‘W’ Rating 10/23