No. 357 : Wonka (2023)

 

Wonka at the IMDb

 

The original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, is the same age as me, having been released in 1971, as was I. We have both endured well and become well established favourites, with Willy possibly having more memes than myself.

I aways liked the film and even had time for the Tim Burton remake, but I wasn’t in any rush to catch up on this prequel which I felt, based on the marketing, seemed a bit slight and sanitised compared to the original. I did however dive into the figurative chocolate river when it was offered up as Christmas viewing on Sky at a family gathering.

 

I sat through the whole thing and have to say it was better than I thought. Not great by any standard, but a mild distraction or passable confection, if you will.

 

The film opens with Wonka, already in his trademark hat, with a few coins to his name which he manages to piss away in the forgettable opening song. He gains lodgings at Olivia Colman’s guest house – huge mistake- and soon finds himself in indebted servitude with some fellow guests including Jim Carter out of ‘Drunk in Time’.

 

Wonka has ambitions to open a sweet shop but is thwarted at every turn by three chocolate factory owners played in part by Matt Lucas and Johnston off ‘Peep Show’ who is clearly trying to execute ‘Project Zeus’ on the unsuspecting townsfolk. They are aided by a bribeable police man who gets fatter in every scene he’s in due to his chocolate addiction.

 

There are a couple of side quests including the origins of Wonka’s sassy sidekick and a mysterious present gifted to Wonka by his now dead mother which he’s never been able to open. With this being a prequel, the end result is never really in doubt but there are a few decent moments to make the ride to the destination worthwhile.

 

I would say that the songs are instantly forgettable, which was a shame as I had higher hopes when I saw Neil Hannon of The Devine Comedy was the songwriter. I think the film suffered by including a couple of songs from the original which put the new ones in the shade.

 

I did like Hugh Grant’s turn as an Oompa Loompa although the CGI was his scenes was obvious and distracting. Indeed, the use of CGI in general was poor with Wonka firing chocolates and sweets out of his hat at every turn – I get that the film is a fantasy but it just looked fake and a pale shadow of the practical effects from its predecessor.

 

Timothee Chalamet was decent as Wonka, but he didn’t have much of a singing voice nor the presence of someone like Gene Wilder to make the role memorable. There were recognisable faces down the cast list which is always fun, and there were plenty of call backs and sight gags to keep you on your toes. I liked the suggestion of from where the golden tickets idea came from, and the scenes with the late mother were sweet. Pro-tip though – if your dying mother leaves you a gift, just open the bloody thing! Pay attention Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 – this applies to you too!

Wonka is a decent family offering but I’d be surprised if it has half the legs of its predecessor, although I can see further instalments coming in the franchise – hopefully ‘Grampa Joe: Dole Cheat’ is up next! 

 

Best Bit:  Opening the long-held gift

 

‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.339 : Wildling (2018)

 

Wildling at the IMDb

Here’s a film that flirts with a few genres but ultimately is a bit unsatisfying and undefined.

Tiny tot Anna lives in a cabin in the woods. ‘Daddy’ brings her food but she’s not allowed to leave lest ‘the wildlings’ get her. They are described as children eating savages and Anna has to make do with peeking out her window throughout her childhood. As she enters puberty and has her first period ‘Daddy’ starts to give her injections that make her sick. Eventually she begs to be allowed to go to ‘the better place’ and ‘Daddy brings in his gun. He’s not up to the task and decides to shoot his own head off instead.

The now teen Anna is discovered and coaxed back to civilisation by Liv Tyler’s policewoman character, who’s more of a social worker than a cop. Strangely the social services let Liv take Anna home where she meets Liv’s brother, Ray.

The film then shifts from what appeared to be a kidnap and abuse story to one of someone trying to integrate into society having never experienced it before - a bit like ‘Encino Man’. We get the usual bitchy girls and school bullies and soon Anna blossoms and goes to a cool party with Ray where she gets a bit of kissy face - but wait! Her teeth start falling out and when she runs off to the woods she rips the throat out of a would be rapist.

It’s soon clear that we are in the realms of the supernatural with Anna being one of the wildlings that she was once taught to fear. As she slowly transforms she has to deal with hunters, her admirer and ‘Daddy’ who it turns out is as good at suicide as he was at parenting.

I liked the first hour of this film but it lost it’s way in a haze of ropey CGI effects and confused character development. It reminded me of the TV show ‘Grimm’ with supernatural goings on running parallel with everyday life. The town has a man with a wolf’s head hat walking about with no issues as well as a well armed posse of wildling hunters who seem to have a free rein to shoot up and burn anything they like. No wonder as sheriff Liv Tyler is as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane.

Bel Powley was pretty good in the main role of Anna, with her bulbous eyes and bewildered looks selling the character’s introduction into the real world. She was let down with the transformation effects which gave her a hairy back and a bad manicure. Later on she went full wolf, and it looked more animated than Wile E Coyote.

There were probably three films boiled into one here, with the first of the locked up girl being the most interesting although somewhat reminiscent of ‘Room’. Later on the high school element was a bit overly familiar with the transformation and hunt portion being faintly daft.

All in all it was a decent and entertaining offering with a few wrong foots sprinkled about to keep you guessing.

Best Bit : Opening 20 minutes ‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.334 : Where’s the Money (2017)

Where's the Money at the IMDb

Hmmm, for a film centred about higher education it’s disappointing that the interrogative statement that is the title hasn’t been furnished with a question mark. Still we’ve went over this old chestnut before with the question mark being considered unlucky in Hollywood. It begs the question therefore; how bad would this film have been if the correct punctuation was used?

Actually, it’s not that bad - it’s horrible, unfunny and morally dubious but I did get a few chuckles from the characters who were all desperate not to cause offence and be seen as racist. 

The film opens with some narration and an overview of L.A. and specifically South Central. Our hero, Del, works in a gym that his father and uncle started to keep kids away from crime. Sadly they didn’t practice what they preached and ended up in jail for a $1m bank robbery. Del is a bit hopeless and is constantly nagged by his Mom to fix an overhead air conditioner that isn’t properly secured. This is possibly the first use of Chekov’s air conditioner in a mainstream movie, so remember it for later.

Del’s Dad gets in touch to say that his Uncle is due to get out and he’s worried that he’ll grab the hidden bank job loot before he can. He tasks Del with recovering the cash, but alas the derelict house in which the money was hidden is now a frat house for a bunch of white college kids.

Del tries to get to the basement where the money is hidden by posing as a fire marshal but is costume is rumbled and he has to start another plan. There’s no suggestion that he should maybe get a job and report the money to the authorities, so instead he poses as a pledge to join the fraternity. The frat lads know that they need a token non-white, so Del stacks the deck in his favour by leading a revolt of all the minorities that he fails to join in with.

Del now has to go through a variety of initiation rituals to gain entry to the fraternity and the money laden basement. Will he get the hard to please girl and will the money be found - and kept?

The best part of this film was it’s approach to racism and social hang ups in general. The white characters dressed in KKK suits for the initiation, pointing out that their frat actually predated the KKK and their hats are less pointy. This led to some fun scenes in the ghetto where every character had a gat and said ‘motherfucker’. I don’t know if they were mocking stereotypes by having loads of them, but I don’t think so.

The whites were constantly conferring over the correct language to use with Del gaining mileage by calling them out for their use of ‘slaves’ and ‘auctions’. The whites were all embarrassed and the blacks had a good laugh with their faux outrage. It was a bit one note however so it was good that they had a couple of gross out scenes to balance the political commentary - the man licking out a rat was lovely.

The big showdown at the end went as you’d guess and it seemed bizarre that they just shared out the cash with no worries about the prospect of life in a super-max prison if they were found out. There was some measure of redemption and bonding all round, but what about the poor insurance company who had the rightful claim to that cash? No wonder my Aviva shares are in the toilet!

Overall a decent fun take on contemporary attitudes to race where no one got offended and we all learned a bit about acceptance, tolerance and stealing money.

Best Bit : Stealing the Time Capsule -  14/23

 

No.328 : Wedding at Graceland (2019)

 

Wedding at Graceland at the IMDb

I thought I’d up the ante and look for a bit more sex and violence to spice up the blog. Where else to look than the Hallmark Channel and a sugary sweet collaboration with the Presley estate? To be fair there is none of that sex and violence stuff, but there was a quizzical look at one point when it was discovered that two wedding cakes had been ordered.

The film sets its stall out early on with lots of touristy shots of Memphis played over Elvis crooning ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. We see a statue of the great man and it’s clear that filming rights for Graceland come with strings attached. Still there’s nothing in the way of subterfuge or sly product placement here - basically it’s 90 minutes of ‘Why don’t you have your wedding in the Graceland chapel?’ with added minor peril.

The film stars Kellie Pickler who seemingly came 6th in a series of ‘American Idol’. She has a daughter (no mention of the father) and a boyfriend, Clay, who used to be her teen sweetheart. The pair used sing together but Kellie was shepherded away from that life to get a business degree by her overbearing father and now works in a bank. She is now back with Clay following a reunion in the film ‘Christmas at Graceland’ which I don’t intend looking up.

Clay takes Kellie and her daughter to Graceland to ‘drop off some documents’ but wouldn’t you just guess it, he’s there to propose! They seem to have an open door policy at Graceland as all their friends are hiding nearby to offer their congratulations. Also in attendance is Graceland’s wedding planner who tells them that the chapel is booked up for a year - but wait! They have a cancellation in 3 weeks - can our happy couple set up their wedding in time?

What follows is an hour of minor setbacks as the families jet in and don’t immediately get on. Kellie’s father ‘The Major’ doesn’t take to Clay and acts like a Major asshole. Both Moms want to take charge and once a wedding planner is engaged things start to spiral out of control. Can the happy couple make it up the aisle and will the day end up just perfect, with everyone happy? Yes.

This was a well made, sugar laced, travelogue for Memphis and for the excellent facilities available at the Graceland mansion - don’t forget the Graceland Chapel and Graceland Guest House either! It was good to see inside the mansion and even Pricilla showed up for one awkward scene where she gives her blessing to the union whilst looking like The Joker.

I didn’t recognise anyone on show apart from Rob Moran whom you’ll know from most of the Farrelly Brothers films. There was a big star guest at the end whom Clay snagged using his music industry connections - I was hoping for Michael Bolton but it turned out to be Lee Brice - me neither.

Obviously I’m not the target audience here, but it was decent fun with the mild peril of the vicar getting flu set against a nice sunny backdrop, with added Southern homilies. It was strange that money was never mentioned as an issue with the extra harpists and doves being dismissed as too much hassle rather than ’how much is this going to cost?’ It was however a fantasy piece and you could see the film doing well with the pissed up hen party crowd - 'that bitch mother in law knows that frosting isn’t right' - that kind of thing.

Best Bit : I used to be a Chaplin in the army…  ‘W’ rating 14/23

No.327 : When We First Met (2018)

 

When We First Met at the IMDb

Watching this film you may get the feeling that it’s Groundhog Day, not because it's is a funny and well crafted piece of original entertainment, but because it rehashes large portions of the Bill Murray classic. That’s not to say it just rips off ‘Groundhog day’ - it also rips off ‘Big’ and ‘Back to the Future’ too.

Still these films are all 30+ years old so let’s see if this modern take adds anything to the overly familiar genre. Adam Devine, who you’ll know from the ‘Pitch Perfect’ films as well as ‘Why Him?’ stars as Noah, a jazz bar pianist, who is attending the engagement party of Avery and Ethan. He remembers that three years ago he met Avery at a Halloween party and fell for her. He wasn’t able to seal the deal however, and the next day Avery met Ethan and his chance was lost.

He gets drunk and gets a ride home from Avery’s photographer flatmate, Carrie. The pair stop off at Noah’s jazz bar and he forlornly wishes in the antique photo booth that he had the chance to do things differently. Happily the photo booth seems to have been made by the same people who made Tom Hanks’ ‘Zoltar’ machine and Noah wakes up three years earlier on the day of the fateful Halloween party.

He spends a lot of time coming to terms with his situation but eventually chooses a different costume and approach towards Avery to get out of the friend zone and into the loving relationship he thinks is his destiny. As you will probably guess things don’t go to plan and after the party he wakes up in a now changed present to see where he is and what kind of relationship he has with the elusive Avery. As the present days flounder he retreats back to the photo booth to try again...and again.

Sometimes he’s rich and discontented - others see him branded a stalker, or with Avery but with her not loving him. Will his repeated trips back in forth in time lead to the problem being fixed or does his true route to happiness lie in a different direction?

This Netflix film was OK as a Sunday afternoon distraction but it offered nothing new and the outcome was no real surprise. The whole film was essentially that scene in ‘Groundhog Day’ where Bill Murray tries to fast forward his romance plans by remembering lots of details about Andie Macdowell’s life and creeping her out. No self respecting film will ever let the hero profit with such knowledge and, as ever, they demand that their character learn, grow and accept some truths before he can move on.

Of course there was no reason given for the magic in play and that’s fair enough, but acceptance came easy to Noah and at no point did he try to but Facebook shares or bet Leicester to win the league. Still, it said fantasy on the tin and that’s what you get.

I liked that they didn’t make the love rival an asshole, with Noah coming off the worst due to his manipulative machinations. The same scenes played out several times and it would have been good to have seen them from different perspectives, as it did come across as a bit dull and lazy.

There were no laughs or surprises, but the young and good looking cast seemed to be having fun and, if you don’t demand too much, you may get a slice for yourself.

Best Bit : Oh I’m Fat Now  ‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.326 : White Cargo (1942)

White Cargo at the IMDb

It’s the present day (well it was in 1942) and a young man is starting work at a rubber plantation in Africa. The office is clean and has air conditioning. 'It wasn’t always like this' says the aging boss as the film dissolves back to the frontier days of 1910.

 

A small group of British rubber workers manage a large plantation and many native workers as they fight the climate, lack of women and disease. The booze soaked doctor wanders about stealing folks’ whiskey and plantation manager Walter Pidgeon is being driven bonkers by the endless steam of young trainees sent to help, who all ask about the hunting and the friendliness of the natives.

 

New man Langford is appalled by the sloppy operation and vows to set a good example by not drinking and shaving every day. His pith helmet and lack of language skills amuse the natives and his plant rearing skills leave a lot to be desired.

 

After half an hour of them floundering about we meet the star attraction - native woman  Tondelayo, played by Hedy Lamar. Tondelayo has a bit of a reputation, possibly as a Hollywood star blacked up as a native, as her hair and make up is always perfect despite the humid jungle conditions and the seeming lack of a hairdressers. Her English is poor and she refers to herself in the third person - ‘Tondelayo like silk and trinkets’. This quickly gets old but Langford is soon mesmerised by her bra top and willingness to please.

 

The other men at the plant, who look to have had their own share of encounters with the naughty native, try to warn him off but soon the pair are married. A few months pass and Tondelayo is bored - will she take ‘till death do us part’ literally and will Pidgeon’s local law mete out a fitting punishment for her? Maybe a trip back to the present day will reveal all!

 

I quite liked the first half hour of this film which saw a bunch of character actors all bicker and offer up a few laughs. Lamarr certainly brightened things up when she arrived but her annoying speech pattern and unlikely look took any realism out of the film and you just knew she was going to screw over the first sucker to give her the time of day.

 

Fair enough she was a cracker, and the jungle didn’t have a lot of options, but it seemed extreme for someone to offer her marriage despite her still asking for tat in the midst of a proposal. Still that’s women for you!

 

I liked Walter Pidgeon best as the Clark Gable like plant manager who was going slowly mad though the heat and tedium of his role. The familiar part of the dipso doc was well executed by Frank Morgan but I was less convinced by the love struck Richard Carlson.

 

The film had good locations and, although I doubt they navigated the Congo for the sets, there was a good sweaty and uncomfortable vibe about the whole affair. If they had made Tondelayo a bit more convincing it would have been a better film but I guess they knew their market and Hedy in a bra for an hour guaranteed success.

 

 

A fun oddity which will probably be buried forever more due to it’s use of black face and indigenous worker abuse - and rightly so!

 

Best Bit : Acclimatise! ‘W’ rating 14/23

 

No.309 : War (2007)

War at the IMDb

Jason Statham, with his hair at critical point, stars in this routine thriller which has more than a little ‘Face/Off’ about it.

For some unexplained reason Cockney sounding Jason is working the Asian Unit for the FBI in San Francisco - later on his black, balder  partner is introduced and some one says ‘You don’t look Asian’ whilst Statham is in the background with his gor blimey trousers on.

We open with a moody dockland showdown. Jason and his partner have tracked down ‘Rogue’ a top assassin who uses signature bullets - you’d think the first thing you’d do as an assassin would be not have a signature, but let’s go with it. Statham takes a hit but he’s saved when his partner shoots the bad guy in the face and into the water. Naturally the body isn’t recovered and that spells bad news for the partner when Rogue shows up at his house and kills everyone and burns it to the ground. Well, to be fair, he singes it a bit.

We then jump ‘3 years later’ and Jason’s obsession with Rouge has cost him his marriage. He has a new partner in the shape of David’s boyfriend off ‘Six Feet Under’ and a failing relationship with his child - and authority. The Triads and Yakuza are at war with the FBI in the middle. It gets a bit confused but it’s the usual gubbins about honour with two antique horse being the main point of debate. Can’t they have one each and give us an early night?

Rogue steps out of the shadows and blow me, it’s Jet Li. He’s been to Saul Rubinek’s plastic surgeon, but sadly not a coach in diction. He's all quiet and enigmatic, but comes across as a bit dull. Jason starts to close in on his man but Rogue’s loyalties aren’t clear. Whilst working for one faction he is also stirring things up for them too. Can Jason solve the riddle of Rogue’s true identity and are things as they seem?

This was an OK effort, but nothing memorable -my IMDb score tells me I’ve seen it before but I didn’t remember the big twist. If you think it’s strange that Jet Li is playing a baddie , it really isn’t.

I felt the whole production was poorly lit and too dark. They may have been going for atmospheric but it was hard to see what was going on a lot of the time. It did look like a Japanese co-production which meant the film seemed off kilter with lots of seemingly pointless exchanges taking place in Japenese. That’s fair enough, but when a film is designed by committee it never comes across as a cohesive piece of work.

There were plenty of shoot outs and sword fights but these were generally just padding between the big revelations. Fair play to them for subverting my expectations, (again) but it did all seem too far fetched - I didn’t know plastic surgeons could whack a foot off someone’s height too!

Statham’s character was really one dimensional and although he was given a 70’s muscle car to add some depth, he was more ‘John Prick’ than ‘John Wick’. Shouting at subordinates and beating up witnesses is so ‘The Sweeney’.

Overall this was a workmanlike thriller with a couple of decent twists but not enough to set it apart in a crowed genre.

Best Bit : ‘With Compliments’  W Rating 14/23

No.305 : Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead (2014)

Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead at the IMDb

‘Wormwood’ comes from the book of revelations in The Bible and is a star or an angel. I don’t know why they have the spelling ‘Wyrmwood’ here or even what it has to do with anything. I guess it’s just an ‘end of days’ type of thing.

This is an Australian effort that tries to add a few new twists to the zombie movie - ridiculous twists that don’t make a lick of sense, but twists all the same.

The film opens with three men in leftover costumes from Mad Max 2 running from a garage and taking on a horde of zombies. They attach chains to a truck and wheel it back indoors as they dispatch a lot of zombies in a fashion that says ‘we’ve paid for this head exploding software and we’re going to use it’!

We don’t really know what’s going on but don’t worry - it’s one of those films that start in the middle and then go back to the start. The three men, now without their helmets, discuss how they got to be where they are. The first chap who is an Aborigine, tells of seeing loads of shooting stars before his brother turned flesh eater. He shoots his legs off but he keeps on coming so he finishes him off.

Another chaps says he doesn’t have a story as he had just killed his wife and child with a nail gun. We then get a long flashback with him trying to escape the madness with his wife and child before he, you’ve guessed, kills them with a nail gun.

The guys go full ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ on the truck and soon it’s a vehicular death mobile, complete with a harpoon gun that was just lying around.

Elsewhere three ladies are having a photo shoot which involves one wearing skeleton makeup - how prophetic of them! Two go full zombie and the other has to take refuge before being rescued by the military. It’s not much of a rescue however, as they turn her over to a bad actor mad scientist who injects her with zombie blood. The science, as it is, has determined that only people with O negative blood are immune to the zombie virus. It’s not made overly clear but I think the injections are to see where the tipping point is. I could tell them that - 3pm on ITV, weekdays.

Our original heroes set off to save the girl, who is one of their sisters. What follows are endless zombie kills and the deaths of most of our heroes. Who will survive and will the zombie plague be halted?

This was an alright film which has little to set it apart from its many contemporaries. As often happens a few unique properties to the plague are added to differentiate the film from the rest. Here it is that the zombie blood is flammable, so much so that you can use it to power your car, which is handy given that petrol is now inert. There was no science behind this and I’m glad they didn’t try. It did allow for a couple of gory deaths including one chap who was left with a delicious looking tandoori face.

I wasn’t invested in any of the characters and the non-linear narrative jumped around so much that I stopped bothering to keep up. The zombies were the white faced with bloody clothes type and, to be fair, the make up was good as were the many splattery kills. The tone seemed to shift regularly with pain and anguish followed by slapstick and comedy. At one point a bitten chap asks for the medical box and opens it to reveal two bottles of beer. Oh those Aussies!

There wasn’t much of a story to speak of and the majority of the film was spent putting our characters in place and then bringing them together. The end revelations were extra daft and no attempt was made to explain the crisis or solutions offered to halt it. I guess if you sign up for all of the standard zombie tropes and some above average kills you won’t go away disappointed.

Best Bit : Family Day Out  ‘W’ Rating : 14/23

No.293 : Where the Red Fern Grows (2003)

Where the Red Fern Grows at the IMDb

This is our fourth ‘where’ film in a row - where will it end? Right here actually, but that’s what you get for Googling one ‘W’ word for film inspiration.

This is a Disney remake of an 1974 adaptation of the classic children’s book which I’d never heard of, before now. It had the mildest peril on record but was enjoyable family fun with just a hint of Christian values creeping in.

The film opens with aged city dweller Kris Kristofferson breaking up a back street dog fight. In truth it is a bit of woofing, but one ends up with ketchup on its leg and is saved from a good licking by the kindly Kris. We get a bit of narration as Kris tells us it has been ages since he had a dog. I hadn’t asked, but thanks for the update Kris.

We dissolve back to the Ozarks in 1933 when Kris was a young lad called Billy Coleman. Billy is of hillbilly stock and doesn’t wear shoes. He’s mad keen to get a pair of dogs so he can hunt raccoons, which are sought after for their coats which go for a high price back east.

Two local bad kids buy a choice pup that Billy had his eye on for $35. We know they are bad as they have money, slicked down hair and slag Billy for not having a dog. Billy moans to his shopkeeper grandfather who tells him that God will give him dogs but he needs to be met halfway. They never covered the dog distribution rules in my Sunday school class! Billy saves up the required $50 in double quick time, thanks to a ‘chores’ montage.

He walks the 12 miles to pick up the dogs and endures mild peril in the shape of some schoolyard bullies who slag off his bare feet. He soon makes it home and another montage sees the dogs get trained and grow to full size. More mild peril is overcome and soon Billy is at the district coon hunting championships. Can he win the day and the prize money that would allow the family to move to civilisation in Tulsa? What has the legend of the red fern, which grows between two graves, have to do with Billy and his two dogs? Eeeek!

I quite liked this mild and danger free offering. It was so damn nice you couldn’t help but enjoy it. I wasn’t so keen on the raccoon hunts with dozens of the critters chased up trees and skinned off camera. They do have the ‘no animals were harmed’ sign at the end but they can’t have enjoyed being chased all over the shop. I was glad at the end when the dogs were confronted by a mountain lion - not the tough guys now are we?!

There were a couple of familiar faces in Ned Beattie’s nice sheriff and Dabney Coleman’s even nicer shopkeeper. The only baddies were quickly seen off in what was quite a brutal manner. Don’t slag off my lack of dogs or you’ll die in a hatchet accident!

The Christian elements did permeate throughout, with songs about the lord and pleas to God that were answered. That’s all fine, but I do prefer my family schmaltz secular thanks very much Mr Disney.

If you like dogs, and don’t mind them dying at the end, then this could be the film you’ve been waiting for.

Best Bit : Nasty Kid Gets Axed  ‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.273 : War Machine (2017)

War Machine at the IMDb

If you pump ‘War Machine’ into Google Images the first hits are all for the Iron Man War Machine armour. This isn’t that. And that’s a pity as it would doubtlessly be more fun than this Brad Pitt vehicle. The film isn’t bad as such, just a bit preachy and it doesn’t really go anywhere.

Pitt plays fictitious general Glen McMahon who has been put in charge of the long running Afghan war. Not being too well schooled on the subject I thought this was a bio-pic but it looks like they made a guy up so the real guy couldn’t object.  Given they had gone to the effort to create a character it’s strange they went with one who didn’t do much or have much of a personality, apart from swearing and twitching a lot.

We meet Glen as he takes office and we are introduced to his local inner circle of troops and specialists. He thinks the war in Afghanistan can be won despite the many obstacles in his path not least political indifference and a not fit for purpose U.N. mandate.

Things start out positively but soon grind to a halt when President Obama avoids Glen’s bids for ‘face time’ and the troops of other nations are less keen to get on board. To mix things up Glen leaks his own report of how things could be done better and agrees to be shadowed by a reporter from ‘Rolling Stone’ who wants to profile him.

Glens plan to get more troops in the field to win the war gets a lukewarm reaction and he has to head to Europe to secure more support from his allies there. Can the war be won or will Glen’s dreams of victory and his own place in history be scuppered by some loose lips and Tilda Swinton doing a dodgy German accent?

This was a decent effort but it really wasn’t worth the two hours that I invested in it. Pitt is adequate but his heavy accent is distracting and it wanders all over the film. His character’s motivations aren’t clear and although he is portrayed as good man with the well being of his troops at his heart he also comes across as rash and gung ho.

Obama, who is only seen fleetingly, and Washington lackey Alan Ruck are seen as nay saying liberals but at the end of the day they are shown to be correct with Glen showing serious a lack of judgement on several fronts. If this was a bio-pic it could be forgiven for showing reality, but as it was in part a work of fiction you‘d have thought they would have made the character more defined.

They did juxtapose Glen’s political manoeuvring with scenes of the troops of the ground facing the hazards of dealing with an insurgent force. I wasn’t convinced by the troops’ gun drills or tactics and for the most part they looked liked actors playing dress up, which they were. The pivotal action that saw some dead civilians was decently done but with too much hand wringing at the end.

I guess part of the character they were showing was that whilst having strong convictions Glen didn’t have the strength to see them through. His dreams of being on the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’ betrayed his vanity and became his eventual undoing. As it was, Tilda’s character profile was correct and Glen was left on the lecture circuit with his work turned over to Russell Crowe to complete, or at least drag out a bit further.

On the whole was unsatisfying and uneven - basically he came, he saw, and that’s about it.

THE Tag Line - War Machine - What is it good for? About 6/10. 14/23



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No.265 : Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil (1993)

Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil at the IMDb

I haven’t seen any of the proceeding four entries in this franchise, so please forgive me if I miss any character references or throwbacks to earlier instalments. Having seen the film I don’t think I have missed much, and any character development employed looks to have been accidental at best.

I watched the film and then did my research - HUGE mistake! It has what appears to me to be a generous 2.7 rating on the IMDB and none of the cast have done any other work since. It was also straight to video and is slated in some places as being soft porn, which would have caused me to pass it by had I known. To be fair I did manage to work most of these things out for myself during my viewing.

After some cheap 90’s credits we open with a hooker taking her customer back to her room. Obviously it’s a movie hooker so young, beautiful and not covered in cold sores. “We agreed fifty bucks” says the mark - or was he the film’s accountant talking about the budget? - before he gets knocked on the head by the hooker’s boyfriend. This small scene captures the film in microcosm - the mark gets the hooker’s bra off for a gratuitous topless scene before it is magically back on when the boyfriend appears. I had to pause that several times to pick up on that continuity gaff!

Unfortunately the mark dies and our hapless couple drag his body up the street in a blanket. It looks like the fat John has lost weight in the interim, given how easily he’s pulled along, but you don’t really notice as you are wondering why they don’t bring the car to the body? Meanwhile an evangelist is in his limo impressing his secretary with his biblical knowledge. His car nearly hits that of the murder/hooker combo and a homeless man gets wiped out in the aftermath. The Minister goes to help, but the homeless man dies, but not before a yellow squiggle leaves the dead man’s body and enters his. This ‘special effect’ looks like someone with a magic marker drew straight onto the film. We guess that this is some sort of transference going on as our Reverend immediately starts taking an interest in his busty secretary.

Our body disposal pair are now in the countryside and their car has broken down. They chance across a nitwit who calls himself ‘The Collector’ and who chucks stuff in the fire to make it flame up just a bit. Our geniuses think he’s a bill collector and resolve to knock him over his head and take his cash. Well that plan has never failed before. Soon the pimp is dead and the hooker is under the control of The Collector who immediately changes his name to ‘Cain’.

Elsewhere a couple are planning a night out at the dance club. William (who was in the previous films, apparently) doesn’t want to go but is dragged along anyway. Cain has hexed the nightclub owner and changed the dance night to one of magic. William is dragged on stage for a trick and Cain realises he is a Warlock and takes him under his power.

Will Cain’s plan to harvest souls to allow Satan to return to earth come to fruition? Who has taken over the preacher? And whose top is coming off next?

I enjoyed this film in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Its cheap rubbish but it knows it, and plays to its strengths of titillation and risible acting.

Star of the show is David Huffman as Cain who is hammier than a bacon sandwich. At one point the nightclub owner says ‘You don’t look like a rock star’ and he stands there, the spitting image of Ronnie James Dio. Every line is wonderfully delivered with accompanying hand gestures clear and present. At least they will have saved on the catering budget as he chewed the scenery in every shot. Amazingly he hasn’t worked since!

The three main ladies clearly weren’t cast for their acting abilities as each stumbled through their admittedly terrible dialogue before getting into their ‘love’ scene. These were all shot like 90’s power ballad pop videos with mood lighting, billowing curtains and a rock soundtrack. The scenes went beyond what would be normal and it looked like the producers decided to cut their losses and go for the soft core porn market. Or at least the market of people too ashamed to buy porn but want to get it through the back door with ‘horror’ films such as this.

The big denouement was shot in the dark so I’m not 100% sure what went down but there was a head chopped off somewhere. Further sequels followed so this effort must have made its money back, or at least the director found enough spare change to get a few more ladies disrobed.

I did like the special effects, especially the soul delivery which was a fried egg drawn onto the screen flying into Cain’s cloak. You don’t get that in the big blockbusters.

Overall one for a quiet night in when you are concerned someone may be looking for porn in your Amazon Prime viewing history. Right, where’s Part 6.

Best Bit : Disembowelled night club boss keeps cigar in mouth throughout + 4 others.
W Rating 14/23

No.255 : Which Way Is Up? (1977)

Which Way is Up? at the IMDb

Richard Pryor takes on three roles in this 1977 comedy which is about as un-PC as you can imagine. Not only would it never be made today, being caught with a copy would probably see you get time in jail!

Still we are a broad church here at the ‘W’ Movie Quest so let’s see we if we can be offended.

The film opens in the run down shack that Pryor shares with his wife and extended family. He wakes up all horny but his wife isn’t in the mood. No problem as he tries to pry her legs apart in a scene that could be used in a ‘rape within marriage is still rape’ information film. The wife is saved when a young boy wanders in looking for his breakfast. Meanwhile elsewhere in the house Pryor’s father is getting some noisy sex in - luckily for Pryor he plays both roles!

Pryor plays Leroy Jones, a hapless everyman who works in the fields of California picking oranges. Their work is interrupted when a union march passes and when they ask for someone to volunteer to lead the orange pickers - Pryor lands the role when he falls off his ladder into the union leader’s arms. This doesn’t go well with the white farmers who run Pryor off for trying to unionise the workers - some of the language they use is just plain racist!

Our hero heads to the city and his brief foray into workers’ rights holds him in good stead with the local co-operative who give him a job as a painter. Pryor dispels any racial stereotypes by immediately slacking off the job and chasing a leggy lady who is impressed with his union credentials. After some downright stalking she gives in and lets Pryor into her bed - on one condition; he never sleeps with another woman, even his wife. This lady has class!

He sets up home with the lady and gets a couple of promotions when he interrupts an assassination attempt. Is ‘The Man’ seeing something in Pryor and will the man with the shiny ring be as menacing as is being implied?

Despite a couple of laughs this film fell flat after an hour and totally lost it’s way. It follows the same path as ‘The Jerk’ which followed it two years later, with an idiot rising up the ranks due to happenstance. I thought it was going to have Pryor make a difference and have some say in workers’ rights but the last section was nothing but him trying to have sex with the wife of the man who had sex with his long abandoned wife. Again the rival lover was played by Pryor in a thinner moustache - the man has range! - so the message seemed to be that all the woman, even the pastor’s wife, can't get enough of our man!

The language and slurs - both racial and sexual - certainly dated the film and while no one took offense it would cause ‘Points of View’ to explode if it were shown today - and rightly so. The good people at Blogger would shut me down if I repeated even half what was yelled throughout the film and although I did laugh, it was only in an ironic and uncomfortable way.

The film ends with a sort of lesson with Richard’s rise up the career ranks costing him on a personal and emotional level so much so he didn’t know which way up was any more. That said if he kept his dick in his shorts he’d be a lot happier regardless of what ‘The Man’ had planned.

I did laugh without reservation or justification at the thin coffin laid on for the man who was run over by a steamroller. Everything else is condemned outright!

Best Bit : Piano lessons at church
‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.254 : Walter (2015)

Walter at the IMDb

No it isn’t a repeat - we’re not the BBC here at the W movie quest you know! This film is a totally different proposition from the ‘Walter’ we reviewed back in Blog 177 Blog 177  - there are no bum wiping for one, so that’s a good start.

This film was released in 2015 and opens with a familiar feeling voice over giving us a bit of insight and back-story to hurry things along. Walter, or Wally to his friends, is a bit of a misfit who has multiple wake up alarms and a job as a ticket ripper at the local multi-plex. We witness his fastidious rituals as he gets ready for the day and meet his over attentive mother who is constantly nagging him to eat more scrambled egg.

As Walter walks to his bus we learn that he thinks he is the son of God and it is his role to judge people to determine if they are going to heaven or hell. He wisely keeps this talent to himself especially with his colleagues who include the lovely Kendall who Walter fancies, and Vince, a by-the-numbers asshole.

Walter seems happy in his ordered life but things take a turn when he is confronted by Greg, a ghost whom only Walter can see. Greg is in limbo and demands to be judged so that he can move on. Walter is disturbed as he can’t sense Greg and this causes him to delve into his own past to try and rationalise his life. He seeks therapy from William H. Macy, in a throwaway ‘one day on set’ performance and gets involved in the impending marriage of Neve Campbell who has some role in Walter's past. Can he find peace and salvation and stop being so annoying?

This was an OK film but one that borrows heavily from others and won’t last long in the memory. The interactions with the ‘ghost’, especially the long shots showing there was no one there, were very reminiscent of the superior ‘Ghost Town’ and none of the characters had anything close to the personalities of Gervais and Kinnear. To be fair the ghost aspect was almost a subplot as the main focus was on the relationship of Walter and Jim.

Jim was a fireman whom may have been Walter’s father but was certainly there for his formative years. As the film progresses we learn that Jim died in hospital and may have known nurse Neve a bit more that is ethical. His death and possible infidelity left Walter and his mother emotionally scarred so that both developed extreme personalities. Walter took on a ‘Son of ‘God’ fixation whilst Mom cooked a lot of eggs. As you’d expect a bit of redemption is on the menu but I wasn’t convinced of the journey that supposedly shook the pair of them from their long term ruts.

The film’s main issue is that Walter, played by Andrew J. West isn’t likable and as the film nears its conclusion you don’t feel like you are rooting for him. You could argue that his difficult character was the main point and focus of the film, but similarly is a O.C.D. ridden socially awkward misfit your idea of a night’s entertainment? Mine neither.

The film was well put together with a lot of nice directorial touches but the predictable indie soundtrack and good looking people inevitably finding happiness seemed a bit flat and negating.

If I had to judge, and I do, I’d say ‘Send it to hell!’.

Best Bit : American Beauty homage/rip off
‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.231 : Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

Where the Green Ants Dream at the IMDb

 This was German director Werner Herzog’s first film in English although the copy I saw was dubbed in German and had English subtitles - long way for a short cut!

The film is all filmed on location in Australia and deals with the cultural clash between some native Aborigines and a mining conglomerate who want to extract uranium from land the Aborigines see as sacred. Although an environmental warning, the film is also a parable of sorts and although the subject matter may seem a bit dry it was interesting enough to keep me engaged.

From the off you get a fair idea of where the film’s sympathies lie with a long tracking shot of piles of debris left over from previous excavations. It’s clear that a mess has been made of large swathes of the country and to reinforce this there is stock footage of extreme weather which either indicates climate change or an angry God - I’m going with the latter!

Mining engineer Bruce Spence (Gyro Captain out of the ‘Mad Max’ films) is in his office dealing with an old lady who seems somewhat out of place in the middle of the Outback. She has lost her dog in the mines and asks if it can be found. Bruce fobs her off, but she is a persistent old bird and her quest continues throughout the film, running parallel with the main narrative. I’m pretty sure the lost dog is a metaphor for something, lost innocence maybe, but it’s not made clear and as regular readers will attest, nuance isn’t my strongest suit.

Anyway, the new mine needs some bore holes and progress is halted when some Aborigines show up and block the bulldozers. The workers are keen to shove them off but Bruce, perhaps fearing bad publicity, engages with them to see what it would take to move them on. He has all the right permits but the Aborigines claim ancient title to the lands where, they claim, the green ants dream. In their folklore if the green ants are awoken the world will end. Frankly I was hoping this would happen but seemingly the budget wouldn’t stretch to it.

The mining bosses come in with a raft of offers but all are turned down. Bruce starts to see what he’s up against when he encounters another group in a supermarket huddled round the spot where a favoured tree once grew that was cut down for the store. The bosses decide to seduce the tribal leaders with a trip to the big city and shower them in tat such as a digital watch that no one can turn off - another metaphor?

On the trip home the Aborigines are impressed with a large aeroplane and a goodwill offer is made to supply such a machine to the Aborigines despite them having no airport or conceivable use for it. With this sweetener in place the action transfers to the court room where ancient claims are weighed against the law of the land. Will the miners be sent on their way and the Aborigines left with their land’s mineral wealth intact? What to do you think?!

I quite enjoyed this film but it was too indistinct in what it was trying to be. A factual drama? Part documentary? Social commentary? Fantasy parable? I’ve no idea. Lots of stuff was laid on thick with the evil suits clearly trying to screw with the local heroes. There were a lot of metaphors such as a lift that kept breaking down, perhaps suggesting that progress wasn’t all it was meant to be. I never figured out the relevance of the lost dog although the big green plane was a bit more obvious.

Bruce Spence was the only actor I knew in the film and he did a decent job of holding it together. Most of the Aboriginal cast were not actors but they all had great faces and presences. Things like their drinking problems were touched on but for the most part they were the innocents being treated badly by corporate interests and progress in general.

The film was pretty clear where its sympathies lay and this was shown via Bruce’s character who starts off seeing the Aborigines as a nuisance before gradually going more and more native himself. The politics were not of the subtle variety and there was a lot of mystical stuff going on, such as a key artefact being presented to the court that we, the viewer, weren’t allowed to see but overall there was enough to like to justify a recommendation - just.

Best Bit : Pit vigil with Pal
‘W’ Score 14/23

No.230 : Wicked Little Things (2006)

Wicked Little Things at the IMDb

 Child abuse and retribution now - it’s like Operation Yew tree : The Movie!

The film opens with scenes young kids being forced to work down a mine as the credits roll past. You might think they would be no good at digging coal but their presence is qualified by someone looking for a small kid to squeeze into a narrow fissure to lay some dynamite. This would seem an exceptional task and you’d think some Irish navvies would be better suited to the whole mining game. Still, if you go that route you miss out on the hole ‘Village of the Damned’ vibe later on.

We soon jump to the present day and a young Mum and her two daughters are heading out into the sticks. They stop at a grocery store and get warned off by the less than convincing shop keeper but they plough on regardless. All those missing person signs are no doubt just some local colour. We learn the lady is a widow and the family are moving into her husband’s remote ancestral home. The house is a total crap hole and has all the usual features of slamming doors and things that go aaarrrggghhh! in the night.

The youngest daughter Emma, played by a 10 year old Chloë Grace Moretz - Hit Girl from ‘Kick Ass’ - adapts best and soon makes a friend whom the Mum assumes to be her latest imaginary chum. The older daughter hooks up with some local youths and is getting her tonsils tickled in no time fast. Things don’t stay happy for long however, as the acting talent free neighbour shows up to warn of the dark forces in the woods. The family dismiss him as a nutter, but we the viewer witness him leaving a pig out for a horde of carnivorous children to scoff.

The family also have issues with the local landowner who wants them off the property so he can build a luxury resort, but evidence is the cellar suggests he may have inherited money earned off the blood of others.

As night falls, Hit Girl goes missing and an ill advised trip to the old mine leads to a confrontation with a horde of spade wielding, pasty faced psychopaths in matching hats. Can the family be saved and the cursed lifted?

I quite enjoyed this predictable slice of horror hokum. There was no real mystery going on - we knew it was killer kids from the start and so it panned out. No effort was made to explain the reason for their continued existence although that ‘in the woods’ staple of animal carcasses hanging from the trees was trotted out. To be fair they did look a bit sinister in the misty forest with each dressed like Damien in the first ‘Omen’ film - nice of the slave driver mine owners to get them all matching hats!

There were the usual couple of unearned scares and a ridiculous scene where a man is killed on an upper floor and all those below let the blood drip down all over their faces for no apparent reason. There was a decent bit of menace and a couple of grisly kills but nothing too imaginative or horrific.

The main cast were fine but the kook in the woods character was terrible and he was more of a mystery as to how he got cast than mysterious.

There were no real surprises offered and no new ground tread. If you catch this on a dark Halloween night you might get the odd scare but for the most part it was as scary as a 8 year old’s birthday party which is scary enough for me!

Best Bit : There’s strange things goin’ on in them woods!
‘W’ Score - 14/23

No.226 : Why Stop Now? (2012)

Why Stop Now? at the IMDb

There’s no question mark on this movie’s poster but it appears on the title card at the end, and that’s good enough for us!

That poster is all wrong - it also contains the sub-title ‘A funny thing happened on the way to rehab’ and that’s patently false advertising!

Jesse Eisenberg plays Eli, a piano playing prodigy who looks after his drug addled mother while battling with demons of his own. The film opens with his arriving at an important audition for a select school with a cut hand. His teacher tries to calm him down from his hyper state and we are taken back a day to see how we arrived at this situation.

Things start at a teenage party where we witness Jesse’s social awkwardness amongst his peers and especially girls. He manages to impress with some virtuoso piano playing before spewing up - you hardly ever get that with Richard Clayderman! He has some chat with a girl who clearly likes him before heading off home to his demanding mother.

Mum is due to check into rehab the next day and Jesse sees this as a way to get her off his hands so that he can start a new life at his fancy school. Things fall apart however when Mum’s pee tests positive for nothing meaning she can’t get the state sponsored care she needs. A nurse tells her that if she can get high and ‘fail’ the drugs test she can get into the facility and Jesse can get on with his plans.

From here things start to fall apart in a predictable manner. Mother and son try to buy drugs but the dealers are out of stock. Jesse’s command of Spanish allows a deal to be set up but can the drugs be sourced, the mother committed , the girl won and audition passed?

This was an OK ‘one crazy day’ type film but I never felt invested in Jesse’s frantic and random character. I got that he was at least as mixed up as his Mom but it was hard to care when his annoying mannerisms and selfish behaviour were all that we were offered. There was a degree of redemption reached but he still came across as a dick who was making bad choices. I mean who would agree to go and broker a drug deal for some random and dangerous dealers?

That said the dealers were very nice and would no doubt be chased out of business in five minutes in the real world. One was the ‘Sheeeeit’ guy from ‘The Wire’ and he didn’t even do his line! Melissa Leo was pretty good as the hippy Mom but the potential girl friend was as wet as an otter’s pocket and clearly not worth the effort.

The piano playing was good and having the final scenes set amongst a Revolutionary War re-enactment added a bit of colour, but over all this was a bit dull with no laughs at all. Why Stop Now? Because we all got bored after half an hour!

‘W’ Score 14/23
Best Bit - Party Puking Recital

No.212 : When in Rome (2010)

When in Rome at the IMDb

I’d never heard of this 2010 rom-com until it appeared on Netflix, which was a surprise given its stellar cast and the fact that I’m a sucker for formulaic rubbish like this.

The flat faced Kristen Bell stars as Beth, a museum curator who has been unlucky in love. Her more impulsive sister, played by the naked one off ‘Broken Flowers’, plans to get married in Rome after a two week romance with an Italian. This is something of an issue as Beth has a big exhibition planned but after promising her bitch boss ( a show me the cheque Anjelica Huston) that things will go smoothly, she jets off.

The wedding is a great success with the stapes of the mistranslations, comedy vicar and cultural misunderstandings all present and correct. Beth, in a dress that writes cheques her chest can’t cash, meets the lovely Nick (Josh Duhamel - remember him from ‘Win a Date with Tad Hamilton’ - No.205? ) and it seems far too predictable that the two will hook up at the end. Better put some flimsy obstacles in the way then!

With love still being resisted a drunken Beth wanders into a handy fountain that promises love to anyone who leaves a coin there and pockets a fistful of change. When I do this it’s stealing but for Beth it’s to stop people being hurt by love. Tell that to the judge. She pulls out four coins and a poker chip and immediately through some lightning flashes the five depositors immediately fall in love with Kristen.

Fortunately four out of the five appear to be American tourists so it makes it a bit simpler when the action moves back to New York. Obviously there is a bit of vagueness about the exact owners of the coins so we don’t know what is real love and what is fountain induced love.

Once back to her life Beth discovers that she’s suddenly very popular. It may be her tight running gear, but soon she has five blokes all battling for her attention. The most annoying of these is GOB off ‘Arrested Development’ who is a cheesy Italian artist with a secret - he does have a decent line in murals though. She also has Napoleon Dynamite (still with Pablo!) as a street magician and Danny DeVito as a sausage magnet who looks like he’s eaten his whole stock. Filling to roster is Dax Shepard whom we know from ‘Employee of the Month’ and ‘Idiocracy’ as a self loving athlete whom she ends up marrying in real life - lovely.

The fifth coin is a poker chip which comes from Nick and although Beth has feelings for him she can’t act as it would be immoral to use the fountain’s magic to trap him - or could it be true love?

This was a very by the numbers rom-com but it was enjoyable with lots of attractive people clearly having a good time in Rome and New York. The plot was ridiculous but everyone just got on with it and didn’t try to have the lead sectioned as she babbled on about magic fountains.

The four guys pursuing Kristen clearly didn’t have a chance but it all worked out well with a bit of redemption doled out for each. It wasn’t laugh out loud funny but there were a couple of smirks, not least when people like Don Johnson showed up for a couple of scenes and no doubt a nice holiday in Rome.

The pace was kept to a good tempo and although everything was telegraphed from the start there were a couple of well managed obstacles put in love’s path to ensure the 90 minutes run time was padded out.

Of course this was never going to be a classic but as a throwaway piece of fluff it was a good effort and an enjoyable guilty pleasure.

Best Bit : Always a sucker for a bad translation subtitles gag.
‘W’ Score 14/23

No.210 : Welcome to Me (2014)

Welcome to Me at the IMDb

You now what they should make more films about? Yes, you guessed it - women’s issues - and if I was being greedy I’d go specifically for women with mental health issues - how can that fail to be interesting and uplifting?

To be fair, ‘Welcome to Me’ wasn’t half bad but I was a bit ‘Give it a rest Love’ long before the end.

Kristen Wiig plays the main character, Alice, who is a bit of a misfit who spends her days watching old VHS tapes of ‘Oprah’, mouthing along to the self help message bestowed in each. The rest of her day is taken up with buying her lottery ticket (remember that!) and seeing her patronising psychiatrist Daryl played, in his douche bag mode, by Tim Robbins.

We learn that Alice hasn't been taking her medication and has become estranged from her family and society in general. As unlikely plotting would have it things quickly change when she wins over $80 million on the lottery. Using her un-medicated wisdom she moves into an Indian casino with her friend and starts to watch the infomercials on TV. After visiting the set of one Alice decides to spend her fortune on making her own TV talk show with the help of Cyclops out of the X-men and his hairy brother whom she starts banging for good measure.

Alice’s show ‘Welcome to Me’ looks exceedingly dull and self absorbed but after a predictable montage it becomes an unlikely hit with the clichés of mounting Youtube hits and ‘going viral’ rolled out to suggest the show is hitting a nerve with the public - hey maybe we’re all a bit weird and are outsiders too!

With success within her grasp can Alice continue with her venture as the money starts to run out and will resuming her medication be a good idea?

I quite enjoyed this film but given the cast available I felt it fell short of my expectations. Wiig is convincing as the oddball Alice but I was never endeared to her character or her innocent outpourings of wisdom. I think we were meant to see a universal truth in what she rattled on about but I just found it all a bit tiresome.

There were some good touches like having actors act out scenes from her life on her show but others,  like a week of having animals castrated, seemed weak and unlikely to endear her to the public as was being suggested.

The cast who included the underused Joan Cusack and Jennifer Jason Leigh had little to do as Wiig took centre stage and let no one else have a look in. Still it was a brave performance and by that I mean she takes all her clothes off.

For me there weren't enough laughs to class this as a comedy and as a commentary on mental health and social inclusion it didn't convince. It’s not a complete waste of time, but like Alice’s own show it was too unfocused and half baked to be truly satisfying.


14/23 Best Bit : Where is this casino?

No.205 : Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! (2004)

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! at the IMDb

There aren’t enough films with exclamation marks in their titles - off hand I can only thing of ‘Sink the Bismarck!’ and the crappy Michael Winner comedy ‘Bullseye!’. Any more out there?

The exclamation mark here is a bit misleading as there is no real excitement or urgency in this forgettable romantic comedy.

The titular Tad is a Hollywood leading man with image problems. His running about with starlets is alienating his audience and his agent., Nathan Lane, decides that a charity date competition is the best way to get him back on track. Meanwhile the staff at a small town grocery store are gushing over how lovely Tad is. The manager, Topher Grace, is keen on one of the check out girls but is too shy to make a move. The object of Topher’s affections, Kate Bosworth, is unaware of her admirer despite everyone else knowing they are a good match.

Kate enters the Tad contest and, of course, she wins. She’s jetted off to LA with Topher telling her to save her ‘carnal gift’. The date goes well and, although there is no foo-foo, Tad is clearly taken with the small town girl. Later back at the store Topher is readying his move when Tad shows up - he’s only smitten and has decided to up sticks and move to the West Virginia backwater and pursue the lovely lass.

What follows is a predictable game as the two men try to woo the lovely Kate with slight dirty tricks employed but there is no nastiness and the outcome is never in doubt.

This is a hard film to really dislike as a group of attractive people have fun in the sun. It’s just not very substantial with the paper thin characters bumbling towards an inevitable climax. There is no threat or danger with Tad being underwritten and ill defined in his motivations. He seems a decent bloke but there are suggestions he’s a bit sneaky - like him stealing Topher’s tiresome ‘six smiles’ routine - but overall you have no idea if he’s good or bad. Josh Duhamel is fine as Tad to begin with, but once he decants to the small town he loses credibility - smiler Kate or all those hookers and drugs? Come on!

We are expected to root for Topher’s wishy washy store manager but he’s such a wimp that you don’t really care. He does have some good scenes with the slutty bar tender played by Kathryn Hahn, who seems a far better choice than the bland and harmless Kate Bosworth whom everyone else is falling over themselves for.

The cast was filled out with the always great but underused Gary Cole and Nathan Lane as the excitable agent.

Overall you’ll do a lot worse but there is not a lot to recommend this predictable slice of fluff.

THE Tag Line : Six Smiles Out of Ten 14/23

No.196 : Wake of the Red Witch (1948)

Wake of the Red Witch at the IMDb

Sorry fans of the supernatural there is no actual witch in this film - it’s the name of a boat - albeit a boat with a grudge! It also has John Wayne and the best rubber octopus fight you’re ever likely to see so it must be great right? Mmmmm…

Wayne stars as Captain Ralls. We know he’s a bit loopy from the off when he punishes men caught fighting by making them have a big fight. That’ll learn them. You do have to be sympathetic though as the ship commanded by Wayne is a stock footageship and a poor one at that - every time we see it in an establishing shot it’s doing the same turn - he must have been going around in circles for years!

Anyway it’s the 1860s and Wayne is running a cargo of $5 million of gold bullion. No sooner has he welcomed a new officer on board that he decides to crash the ship and tell a tale to the board of enquiry. Suspicious insurance types will thinks he’s after a payoff or plans to go back and salvage the gold when no one is looking but c’mon - it’s John Wayne!

Narration is taken up by his new officer Sam Rosen who has a thin moustache and is easily lead. The scallywag sailors hire a boat and sail about a while trying to shake off the insurance men who don’t believe the false co-ordinates the rascals gave for the wrecked ship’s location. After buying a treasure map at a bar, as you do, the lads arrive at a remote island inhabited by some pearl divers and a couple of dubious Frenchies.

We soon learn in narration and flashback that the trap is nothing of the sort and Wayne has orchestrated things to get back to the island and reclaim his girl, We learn that seven years before Wayne fought a big octopus for a box of pearls and in return was given the captaincy of the Red Witch. He’s rather have the girl however and despite losing her to the nasty Frenchman decides to win her back. Sadly she snuffs it and although his first mate gets a squeeze of another lady in a big frock Wayne agrees to go back to the wreck of The Red Witch to get the gold - can he find the cargo or does a greater prize await him?

This was an over long and needlessly complex bit of nonsense but I actually quite enjoyed it. It made no concessions to John Wayne being cast as a maverick seafarer and he certainly didn’t bother with any accent or characterisation - he is John Wayne after all. Although set in the South Seas it looks like Wayne never left the studio with one memorable scene showing him walking by a projection of men who appeared to be watching a projection of Islanders in their canoes. Not so much you can see the joins as the joins are all there is to see!

The characters were as you’d expect - villainous and broadly sketched. The evil French overlord had no redeeming features although for some reason he was sad when Wayne was mistakenly thought dead despite trying to kill him throughout. The best bit was of course the underwater octopus fight. Wayne was really fat and puffed his way down about ten feet to retrieve a chest that the locals had failed to capture for many years. Not satisfied with this he jumps back and rolls about with the beast in a scene terrifying to anyone with a phobia of vulcanised products.

The ladies had nothing much to do apart from look pretty and Gail Russell certainly managed this im a series of low cut tops. Seemingly she and Wayne hooked up after this film and you can see he got a better return than the audience! The finale which sees Wayne in a massive diver’s suit plundering the wreck is good for a few laughs as every gold bar lifted causes it to see-saw violently - who stored them exactly in the middle! The slightly shock ending added an extra tick and overall this was a fun outing with a couple of standout scenes that could have been lifted straight from the Marx Brothers.

Best Bit : Put that tentacle there John
‘W’ Rating 14/23