No.246 : W.M.D (2013)

W.M.D. at the IMDb

You won’t of heard of this film, and I bet it doesn’t grace the C.V.s of its principals, but it’s out there and I sat through the whole 80 crappy minutes of it.

The film opens with a trio of soldiers walking is a desert which is supposed to be Iraq but looks suspiciously like California. One of them steps on a mine and after five minutes of chat they engineer a way to free him without the device going off. This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the film so it must have been shot to bump up the film’s run time or to show why our men may be damaged having served in a war zone. Or maybe they found an extra $5 in the budget and fancied a day out?

Anyway the film proper opens at a Baghdad military base on Thanksgiving, where the President is coming to visit. He isn’t named but he is dressed up like George W. Bush and references are made to his father also being President so if it’s not him it’s a pretty unoriginal new character!

The President makes a few glib jokes before a soldier pulls a gun and takes the President hostage. Unfortunately the fat and bomber jacket wearing ‘Secret Service Agents’ aren’t really on the ball and soon the President and four soldiers are holed up in the kitchen where the majority of the film takes place. The five are soon joined by a lady reporter and a cameraman and so begins a drawn out conversation where the rights and wrongs of the Gulf War are explored. If that sounds a bit dry, then that’s because it is.

The leader of the kidnappers, Garrison, is large and overbearing. As well as a loud, annoying and devoid of acting skills. He also has a semi-reluctant lady soldier with him as well as a dull one and a shouty random one. Like ‘The Rock’, from where much of the film is lifted, a rescue operation goes on whilst the President is interrogated and tortured by the soldiers who want answers for the motivations behind going to war and why their friends have been killed.

Will the President be saved and what sin will the media put on the events?

I really disliked this film and it was hard to see it through. It’s agenda was clear from the start and it was almost like liberal wish fulfillment with a Bush clone being made to atone for his sins. He gets his face fried, shoes thrown at him and is water boarded and you could almost hear the long haired liberals high fiving each other off camera. Take that Republicans!

The film closed with the tired old staple of various news outlets spinning the story as a Muslim atrocity while the stock ticker on screen shows share prices rising. It wasn’t subtle and definitely not objective. It was also very low budget, poorly acted and had no redeeming features whatsoever. One to avoid!

Best Bit : ‘How do you like your face cooked?’
‘W’ Rating - 2/23

No.245 : What Richard Did (2012)

What Richard Did at the IMDb

 If you regard knowing ‘What Richard Did’ as a spoiler, walk away now as it would be hard to discuss the film without mentioning the pivotal event. You’d probably guess anyway - it’s hardly going be that he cheated at Scrabble or something.

This is an Irish film from 2012 with an unknown cast and an almost drama-documentary approach to the storytelling. The characters all chat over each other and there is very little in the way of music, but you are drawn in and the film makes you feel like an onlooker to actual events.

The titular Richard is a young Irish rugby player. He has rich parents who own a beach house and he is the leader of his group of pals. They all look up to him and we see him carrying out good deeds such as taking a youngster under his wing and helping a girl on the verge of being date raped. These philanthropic traits are however seen in a different light later on when his skills at lying as used for less worthy goals and he is also seen to have weaknesses of his own.

The first half hour of the film is taken up with Richard and his friends heading to the beach house having bought a cargo of beer. You wonder what the point of it all is, as it trundles along with meandering scenes and largely pointless dialogue. It does well at setting the tension levels however as you are keen to know what it is that he did and when he’s going to do it - it’s Itchy and Scratchy heading to the fireworks  factory all over again!

Although handsome, fit and a friend to all we gradually get the idea that Richard maybe isn’t all he’s cracked up to with throwaway comments about people’s accents and bulimics suggesting he may be more of a dick than we initially thought. Things come to a head when he jealously sits at a party watching his new girlfriend chat to friends including a former boyfriend, and team mate of Richard, Conor.

After brooding outside the party for a while Richard confronts Conor and the two fight. After Conor gets a beating from Richard with the aid of his rugby mates, Richard gives him a final kick to the head before heading home. The next morning they learn that Conor has died of his injuries and the remainder of the film deals with the fallout. Will Richard come clean to the police or will he try to escape the consequences of his actions?

I enjoyed this moral drama and, although slightly ambiguous in its ending, I’m sure that the seeds peppered throughout the film pointed towards Richard’s character flaws dictating his final response. Although hanging on one event and decision the 85 minute film didn’t seem padded with a lot of effort put into the character development that ensured the subsequent revelations were well earned.

There were lots of scenes that ended abruptly or seemed to have little relevance but the compound effect of these was to make you feel like a voyeur peeping into the lives of others. The acting was top notch and Jack Reynor did a good job as Richard, making him likable but objectionable all at once.

At the end I don’t think there was much in the way of ambiguity and you could level accusations against the film of not having much to say. It is however an intense character piece and a great example of someone being built up and then slowly dismantled by his flaws.

‘W’ Rating 17/23
Best bit : Going for the 3 points!

No.236 : When Night is Falling (1995)

When Night Is Falling at the IMDb

Softcore lesbian action now - well it can’t all be Werewolves and Winters! This is a strange film to categorise - there is something there for those seeking mild titillation but it is also a love story and maybe a bit of wish fulfilment for those with their preferences nailed inside the closet.

The film sets its cards of the table from the start with two naked ladies cavorting underwater to some dreamy music as the titles roll. We don’t know who they are but it is probably just letting everyone know early doors what to expect and to double bolt the door  in case of unexpected visitors.

Our heroine, Camille, teaches myths at a buttoned down seminary college. She wears bland and unsexy clothing and even drives a grey Volvo - they may be trying to suggest she’s not much of a risk taker! She has a partner, who had the fish tank blown up on him in the first ‘Mission Impossible’ film, and the two hope to wed soon. He is out of town on business a lot but they hope to secure a job together at the college where they can work closely together teaching wholesome values to all the students.

Hopefully Camille is better at teaching than looking after her dog as it escapes from her home and is later found dead in an alley. She is suitably upset but bungs its body in the fridge and heads off to the laundrette. At this point she is so stuffy she wears a buttoned up cardigan to do her laundry, but still manages to catch the eye of Petra who gives her arm a suggestive rub when she hears of the dog’s demise. Camille is aghast and runs home, but we suspect she was a bit tempted to know her touchy friend a bit better.

Later on she discovers that she has switched laundry bags with Petra, but luckily she has her card so that they can exchange their smalls - oldest excuse in the book! Before the undie exchange can take place however, Camille and her partner Martin have an important interview with the stuffy college elders. Strangely Camille dresses from Petra’s laundry bag and chooses a top which has her knockers practically hanging out. It’s therefore surprising that the interview goes badly!

Camille then goes to exchange her clothes with Petra and discovers that she works in one of those S&M circuses that we’re always hearing about. Petra again tries it on but a weakening Camille says no once again. A clearly torn Camille must choose between her safe but dull partner and a life with a travelling circus with a hot and sexy lady lover. What will she do? Check the poster if you need a hint…

I quite liked this film and not for the reasons you are no doubt imagining. If you were looking for sexy thrills this tame effort with lipstick lesbians would hardly get you motoring, but it was quite touching and almost innocent in it’s attitudes towards lesbian love, which they make out as forbidden fruit rather than an accepted state of being. Still it was made in 1995.

The look of the film is strange; it looks like one of those Hallmark films with a fuzzy focus and a single camera - cheap in other words. They did try to mix it up however with a hang-gliding class shoehorned in for no other reason to run that old ‘I’m never doing it’ before a sharp cut to them soaring in the sky routine. I think even my talents at missing metaphor failed here as her taking a chance at one thing, which she enjoyed, may have been a foreshadowing to something else?

I did feel sorry for the boyfriend who had no chance when the sexy Petra came on the scene. He was given a gentle landing with the promise of some romance in the pipeline for himself, but over all he was reduced to being a peeping Tom squinting into a circus wagon - we’ve all been there!

The agenda was clear from the start and whilst no one was jeering the fledgling lovers all the stuffed shirts who represented society were suitably outraged. If the film was trying for controversy it failed however, as you ended up thinking ‘good for them’ rather than society was doomed.

The sex scenes were few and not too graphic and although 27 year old Camille’s change in allegiance wasn’t believable it was better than the ‘dead’ dog and the circus ringmaster who had all the showmanship of John Major.

Overall a fun and heart-warming distraction which rose above its budget limitations to produce something worthwhile and memorable.

Best Bit : Oh I’ve hurt my knee - better take all your clothes off…

‘W’ Rating 16/23

No. 145 : Werewolf of London (1935)

Werewolf of London at the IMDb

Having recently reviewed one of the most recent werewolf films let’s have a look at one of the earliest. ‘Werewolf of London’ dates from 1935, several years before Lon Chaney Jnr. made the monster famous in ‘The Wolf Man’. This effort is very dated and seems more like a comedy than the horror that the dramatic score suggests. It doesn’t even have Warren Zevon on the soundtrack - what a rip off!

We open on a sun baked ‘Tibet’ which looks suspiciously like that California desert where they always film ‘Star Trek’. On checking I found that the whole effort was shot in California so let’s hope for some authentic London touches later on. Anyway, our hero is an adventurer botanist who is in Tibet to locate a rare flower that only blossoms by moon light. He manages to find one in a valley where no one has ever emerged from but gets bitten by a man in a mask for his troubles.

Back in London our hero, Dr Glendon, holds a society bash and is met by a mysterious Dr Yogami who needs some of the flowers to help some werewolf men who are terrorising London. Clearly seeing him as a nutter Glendon sends him n his way but gets a bit concerned when his hands go hairy - mother always warned me about that. He finds that the juice of the plant stops the onset of wolfiness but is in trouble when an unseen robber steals the last of the blooms.

The next full moon Glendon transforms and after scaring a society lady chooses to kill a well dressed street walker instead. The police are obviously baffled and choose to ignore the young detective who guesses the wolf related problem at once. Glendon reads up on his situation and sees that he’s most likely to kill the one he loves most and so chooses to move away to a remote boarding house run by a nice drunk lady. After another killing he returns home to get some more flowers, only to be met by Yogami who has a similar need for the blooms. We learn the two have met in the past and soon realise that there is only one way this is going to end.

Although by no means a classic there is a lot to like in this film. It’s very of it’s pre-war day with the ladies knowing their place and everyone being very mannered except for the working classes who are all drunks. There are only two killings, both off screen, and both victims ‘deserved it’, one being a prostitute and the other an adulteress. The werewolf itself is extremely non scary with the costume consisting on some hairy gloves and a wig. The transformations are done in a very rudimentary fashion with cuts visible as our man passes some pillars, growing more hairy at each shot. Later on match cuts are used but these look too obvious to be convincing.

The wolf man himself is a strange creature, choosing to put on his coat, scarf and cap before heading out on a blood frenzy - doesn’t he realise that he’s got a fur coat on? He’s also a bit wimpy getting beaten up by an upper class twit - I guess they had to show these common wolf types their place. ‘London’ looked OK and they wisely kept away from any landmarks. The streets are all fog and carriage lamps and there are enough English character actors peppered about to keep things somewhat on topic.

Most of the acting is dreadful with a lot of dramatic pauses where the actors struggle to remember their lines or at least utter the fanciful dialogue they’ve been given. Worst of the bunch was Warner Oland as the enigmatic Dr Yogami whose slow delivery accounts for about half of the film’s 70 minute running time. He is better known as cinema’s Charlie Chan, a stereotype far more suited to abilities.

Many of the familiar werewolf conventions are missing with no silver bullets in sight although he does go to visit wolves in the zoo - a scene laterreprised in ‘An American Werewolf in London’. The film doesn’t scare in the slightest but as an oddity it’s quite interesting both in terms of the genre and of the period as a whole. The class divide shown is unimaginable today in terms of the portrayal of the working classes and their expendability. The toffs on the other hand are a bunch of party going gadabouts, so no change there then!

Best Bit : Boarding house banter
‘W’ Rating 13/23

No. 136 : Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009)

Winter of Frozen Dreams at the IMDb

This film was always going to have to do well to shake off the shackles of that pretentious title, something it singularly fails to do. It opens with a caption ‘Based on a true story’ which is always a kiss of death for me - either it’s true or it’s not anything else is just a confused muddle that leaves you none the wiser at the end.

The film sets its agenda early on with the lead, Thora Birch being convicted for murder. We then go back to 1977 with the narrative jumping around like a kangaroo on acid. A man tells the police of a dead body and they quickly dig the bashed up corpse from the snow. We then jump again with the dead guy running around with hookers. Then he’s dead again and the cops lead by the always dependable Keith Carradine looking for someone to pin the crime on.

In truth the non-linear story is well handled and while the film is no ‘Pulp Fiction’ or ‘Memento’ they at least make an effort to jazz up what is essentially quite a straightforward story. Thora plays a complex role of a hooker who has two names and dates at least two blokes will carrying on her business. One is a bit simple and is persuaded to take out a life insurance policy benefiting the tart. The other is our murder victim who in flash back rewrites his will giving our girl all his stuff. Clearly she has persuasive talents but her motivations aren’t totally clear and enough is unseen to give us doubts as to who exactly did what and to whom.

The detective angle is pretty lazily handled with no actual detecting of note going on. Basically the cops wander around picking up the pieces and sleep in stake out cars. The end clearly is no surprise as it finishes where it started to you have to wonder was the journey worth the effort? The answer is clearly ‘No’. The captions at the end which gives an update on the main protagonist assumes that we should care for her situation and frankly I didn’t. Her character is so unsympathetic and poorly defined that I couldn’t care if she got the gas chamber or a slap on the wrists.

The 1977 setting was well realised with some hideous fashions and haircuts but it takes more than a few pairs of flairs to immerse you in another age. Birch is pretty unconvincing as the femme fatale who has the men queuing up you give her all their possessions and her main beau is so wishy-washy that you’re willing him to keep seasoning his chilli to make sure.

The film has a bleak out look throughout and allied to it’s snowy backdrop this is certainly no spirit raiser. At the end of the film I was unsure where it’s loyalties lay - our girl is clearly a cow but was she a victim herself? The captions suggest that she may be but as long as she stays in the clink there’ll be no chance of a sequel and that suits me fine.

Best Bit : Mmmm chilli
‘W’ Rating : 5/23

No.131 : Walk Like A Man (1987)

Walk Like a Man at the IMDb


We have done some bottom feeding to keep the ‘W’ quest alive but we lowered our already non existent standards to sit through this pile o’ shite.

The film opens in an unconvincing snow covered wilderness with a gold prospector trying to get his family to safety before the weather closes in. We can tell from the off that his older son is a right bastard as he kicks the dogs when setting up the sled. As the family travel through the rather pleasant looking wilderness the bad son knocks his baby brother off the sled so he can have a comfy ride.

Luckily for the baby, and not for the audience, a pack of wolves find the tot and rather than eat it they raise it as their own. 28 years later a conservationist is in the woods studying wolves and she comes across the now grown baby who managed to knock himself out an a log cabin. Amazingly the boy hasn’t been declared legally dead and his $30 million inheritance is still waiting for him. This isn’t good news for his now grown sibling, Christopher Lloyd who has pissed away his share of the cash.

The wolf boy is invited into the family home and a predictable series of scrapes follow where the brother first tries to kill him and then tries to declare him incompetent so he can get the cash. As this is going on wolfie is being taught to talk by the conservationist who may be falling for him too. As the court date approaches we have to wonder if the wolf boy will get the money or whether it will go to the nasty conniving brother and his drunk wife.

I appreciate we’ve called a few films out as being the worst ever and really dreadful but this one really takes the biscuit. It is so unfunny you’ll cringe at the efforts at humour and the three acts are so defined it’s a surprise they didn’t put up caption cards. Howie Mandel, who now presents ‘Deal or no Deal’ in America and frankly this film is one offer he should have refused. He doesn’t utter a word for the first 45 minutes and that’s a blessing as when he talks it as a simpleton trying to elicit sympathy from an audience long since tired at his ‘antics’.

The innocent abroad angle is played to death with our man humorously trying to learn how to use an escalator and toys. The passers-by are amused by the antics while we watching hide behind our fingers at the embarrassment on show. The love angle with the conservationist is horrendous and when she tells him that teaching him has taught her more about herself I defy you not to barf.

Howie Mandel is shocking in the lead with his physical comedy basically amounting to crawling around. It gets worse when he talks, uttering crappy dialogue like..a..poorly…programmed…robot. Christopher Lloyd is also poor as the villain who exudes all the menace of a small plum. If he was a bastard as suggested why doesn’t he get a hit man? Instead he relies on a pisspoor lawyer who lets surprise witnesses talk for way too long in court.


I’ve nothing against bad films that tried their best but this lazy predictable and unfunny rubbish is just plain insulting.

Best Bit : Ongoing neighbour’s wrecked driveway gag.
‘W’ Rating : 2/23

No. 124 : Waterloo (1970)

Waterloo at the IMDb

Here’s a real epic of a film that’s probably passed you by. I was surprised the film had never come up on my horizon given that it cost millions and had a top notch cast. I’m not alone however as the IMDb has less than 2,000 votes for a film that had a claim to be the most expensive ever made when it came out in 1970. We’ll get to the reasons for the film’s apparent anonymity later but first let’s do a quick plot summary.

Of course you’ve heard of The battle of Waterloo and quite possibly you’ve been through the battlefield if you’ve ever flown Ryanair to Brussels. I thought I had a good idea of what went on, but the film does a good job of illuminating a subject that may have been condensed down to ‘Wellington beat Napoleon’ in many people’s minds.

The film opens with Rod Steiger’s Napoleon in a hard place. His campaigns have ended in failure and his generals ask that he surrenders. We can hear his inner thoughts and eventually he agrees to sign the declaration and be exiled to Elba. Within a year however he escapes and returns to France with a thousand men and an ambition to reconquer Europe. Elsewhere the Duke of Wellington (Christopher Plummer) is enjoying the high life and entertaining Virginia McKellar.

Napoleon is met by a French army charged with returning him to Paris in a cage but they are quickly persuaded to join his quest by his shouty oration and shiny boots. As his army swells he becomes a threat to the British and Prussians and they resolve to beat his fledgling army before it becomes too great a threat. As the armies mass at Waterloo we get an insight into the tactics and inner thoughts of the battlefield commanders.

The last hour of the film deals almost exclusively with the battle and, although the result is a foregone conclusion if you ever picked up a history book, the closeness and viciousness of the confrontation immerse you in the battle and sways your loyalties throughout.

This film has some of the best battle scenes I‘ve seen with their scale and detail defying belief. Apparently the Russian military was roped in to provide the army as well as circus horse riders who earn their Roubles with some spectacular falls. The overhead shots show the marvellous scale of the battle with literally hundreds of horsemen attacking thousands of troops formed in battle squares. Even at a distance you can make out every smoking gun and falling rider and the number ‘that must have hurt’ moments are immeasurable.

What the film lacks however is a soul. As a battle re-enactment it is peerless but apart from that there isn’t too much happening. Wellington is pretty faceless with no reaction given when one General announces that his leg has been shot off. He is also close to Ian ‘The Saint’ Ogilvy but barely bats an eye when he gets blown up. The single female on show is hardly seen and for the most part this is a Boys’ Own adventure.

On the French side Rod Steiger does a good job with Napoleon, a part which must be hard to make your own. We don’t get much of a sense of his motivation and the charisma he’d have needed to lead thousands of men to their deaths is lacking. His tormented inner monologue gives us some sense of the man but for the most part you’re wondering how he got the job. For your money you also get a whale of an Orson Welles appearance but given he has two minutes of screen time I imagine his presence was more important on the poster than on the screen.

It is a good film and one I enjoyed but if the script had as much energy as the battle scenes this would be up there with the David Lean classics.

Best Bit : An hour of good honest bloodshed
‘W’ Rating 15/23

No. 113 : Weapons (2007)

Weapons at the IMDb

If you think society is on a downward spiral don’t watch ‘Weapons’ as it’ll have you jumping off a bridge. This is a nasty film with brutal murders and a general nihilistic vibe.

The film opens promisingly with long shot of a juicy burger which is then picked up by a man who seems to be enjoying it. But wait! As often happens someone appears behind him and blows his head off with a shot gun. This scene was really well done and the special effects are great even in super slow motion, but it is really shocking and sets a tone that prevails throughout the film.

The film is like ‘Pulp Fiction’ in that we get several interwoven stories with events seen at different times and from differing perspectives. Of course it culminates with us arriving back at the burger bar to find out why the man’s dinner was so rudely interrupted 80 minutes earlier.

We meet various stoner losers who drink red juice and worry about who may have been disrespecting them. One chap straight out of juvie heads over to the basketball court to shoot someone but as he isn’t about he has a game only for one of his pals to be shot in an unrelated attack. We learn this shooting was over someone’s sister who may have been raped and we flashback to a party to see what transpired there.

The film is well made and the performances are uniformly good but I just couldn’t care about any of them. The characters are all awful people who smoke dope and listen to rap music that sounds like its escaped from Satan’s arse. There is the obvious metaphor in place that not all weapons are of the shot gun variety and gossip and backstabbing can be just as lethal - as can fire extinguishers which was demonstrated in one eye watering scene.

Of the cast the only name I knew was Paul Dano who was the preacher in ‘There will be Blood’ and the mute in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. He had the best role as the needy perv with the video camera but he didn’t fully convince as a bad boy in a crowd of low life scum bags.

It’s not a film I disliked but I’d be reluctant to recommend it given that it’s so nasty and depressing.

Best Bit : Are you going to eat those fries?
‘W’ Rating 13/23

No. 109 : White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

White Men Can't Jump at the IMDb


This is another well known ‘W’ film that I was slow to get around to as the subject matter didn’t appeal. Basketball, buddy comedies and da hood are never popular with me but I enjoyed this more than expected.

Woody Harrelson plays Billy Hoyle a disgraced ex-basketball pro who now tries to hustle a few bucks playing the hoops. He’s basically a prototype Roy Munson who would follow in ‘Kingpin’ in just five years time. Woody’s first score involves taking $60 off Wesley Snipes’ character who thought he was the one doing the hustling.

Being impressed at the new talent Wesley suggests the pair team up using the black mens’ misconception that ‘white men can’t jump’ to relieve them of their cash. Things go well with a few small scores but when a big one goes wrong Billy finds out that Snipes wasn’t on his team after all. With a fall out averted by the intervention of their ladies the guys agree to team up for the city two man basketball tournament which they win. With things looking good the pair’s rivalry surfaces again with Wesley taking all the prize cash after a rash bet.

On the home front things are looking shaky with Woody’s wife Rosie Perez having a secret drinking problem as well as an ambition to get on the TV show ‘Jeopardy’. Elsewhere gangsters are after Woody for the loses incurred when he failed to throw a big match and Wesley’s wife needs to move out of the crime ridden neighbourhood.

With these tangled threads coming together the guys agree to team up once more to take on their biggest rivals in a big cash game

I enjoyed the first hour of this film quite a lot but my interest tapered off rapidly and by the end I was glad to see it end. The two leads do a good job as the squabbling no hopers but after a while their constant bickering becomes grating. Woody is especially annoying for an extended scene where he goads rival players into playing badly. The hoops action is well done and seems authentic but it’s hard to hang a 100 minute movie on a few three pointers.

Rosie Perez does ok as the drunk wannabe game show star but it’s hard too see what Woody sees in her constant carping and shouting. The ‘buddy’ aspect is well done and it’s easy to see why the pair were teamed up again as different characters in the less successful ‘Money Train’.

I’m sure this film has a cult following in the basketball and jive talkin’ communities but alas it doesn’t offer enough for me to sign up to either cause. Worth a look but it’s more off the back board than a slam dunk.

Best Bit : Rosie gets in Jeopardy
‘W’ Rating 12/13

No. 108 : Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Wet Hot American Summer at the IMDb

Here’s a ‘W’ branded fish that jumped into my boat so to speak. Despite a stellar cast I’d never heard of this 2001 comedy before it was listed on the Onion AV Club’s ‘Worst baby sitter list’. I’m surprised that it doesn’t enjoy a higher profile given its cast and off beat humour but hopefully this review, on the always popular 100 ‘W’ movies list, will give it the boost needed to escape its relative obscurity. Well failure loves company so I’m sure we’ll get along just fine!

The film takes place over the last day of summer for summer camp Firewood. The counsellors are your usual bunch of nerds, jocks and horny teens with the campers being the required virgins, losers and show offs. From this predictable starting point things are skewed from the off with every preconceived notion addressed and quickly dispelled.

The slice of life approach denies the film much characterisation but you get plenty of funny scenes were a set up is taken apart with some unexpected mirth. For example a coach gives the rag tag camp baseball team a stirring speech before they concede the game as being pointless given the well drilled and equipped opponents who show up. Similarly a pair of councillors who are discovered to be gay are gifted a nice chaise longe rather than get the predictable baiting.

If these set ‘em up and then wrong foot you scenarios sound a bit right on you could be right and to be honest the film gets a bit predictable in its unpredictability. That said there are still some funny scenes including a couple where a negligent councillor brutally kills the witnesses to wrongful deaths that occurred while he was making out with chicks.

The cast of this 2001 film were largely unknown but today this would be a major release. For your money you get Niles Crane, Brian Fontana (Anchorman), Elizabeth Banks (Knocked Up), Janeane Garofalo (Mystery Men) and Amy Poehler (Blades of Glory). Most only have small parts but they all add up to a decent ensemble piece that deconstructs one of those American institutions, like the prom and the make out party, that we Brits can only dream about.

The film has a wafer thin plot about a piece of Skylab hitting the camp talent show but basically it is a series of sketches demonstrating how mental and horny everyone is. My favourites were the randy chef who takes advice from a tin of vegetables before making love to a fridge and Fantana’s sex mad and murderous councillor.

The film is a bit uneven and you have no empathy for any of the characters at all but it does generate a few laughs and is at least a bit different and subversive.


Best Bit : Witness Disposal
‘W’ Rating : 16/23

No. 106 : Wristcutters : A Love Story (2006)

Wristcutters : A Love Story at the IMDb


In these bleak economic times we all need a boost now and again but you certainly won’t get it watching this macabre downer!

The film opens with a young man getting out of bed and tidying up his bomb site of a flat. With everything now tidied up we see him in the bathroom having slashed his wrists and bleeding to death. At least he’s somewhat considerate to the next tenant!

He awakes in another world fully aware that he’s killed himself and knowing that he’s now in an after life reserved for suicide victims. The place is just like home but a bit bleaker with the colours washed out and no one allowed to smile. He gets a job in a pizza parlour and meets Yan who is fortunate to have all his family around him given that they all killed themselves in separate incidents.

Our man, Zia, leans that his former girlfriend has killed herself (there’s a lot of it about) and convinces his new friend to go on a road trip to find her. Along the way they encounter Desiree who feels she’s wrongly been placed in this world and is seeking out those in charge so that she may be returned to the land of the living.

As their journey progresses they encounter a self styled Messiah (Will Arnett) and Tom Waits whose record keeping job may yet save the day.

This is a strange and depressing film that will doubtless appeal to emo types and few others. I like Patrick Fugit in ‘Almost Famous’ but he can’t carry the lead role here, lacking any empathy whatsoever. Most of the cast are quite introspective and are more annoying than sympathetic. Naturally as a bunch of suicidal youths they can’t be shown as bundles of joy but a bit of warmth would have gone a long way to engaging this viewer.

No explanations are given for the reality our cast find themselves in with black holes in car floors and free floating matches just accepted as the norm. There is ample room for speculation and I’m sure the film maker’s intention was for us to draw our own conclusions. Sadly the only one I reached was that I wished they’d all made better jobs of those suicide attempts!

There were some nice touches such as the real world being a couple of shades brighter that the purgatory world and I liked that the soundtrack was full of suicidal singers like Ian Curtis and Del Shannon. I also liked that the victims brought the scars of their suicide with them with one chap revealing the shot gun hole in his head when he took his hat off. It was a bit inconsistent however as those who had jumped off buildings weren’t puddles of goo!

I liked the idea of the film and hoped that the warm glow of redemption would wash over me at the end. Sadly the self importance of the film and the needy characters meant that it left me reaching for the pills rather than putting them away!

Best Bit : Suicidal flashbacks

'W'Rating 12/23

No.98 : Willow (1998)

Willow at the IMDb

‘Willow’ was one of the few George Lucas films that I hadn’t seen on release as I had a preconceived notion that it would be a bit cutesy pie and dull. And you know what they say about prejudging things? Yes, sometimes you’ll be right!

Lucas in fact only gets a story credit for the film with the always pedestrian Ron Howard on directing duties. The film is a Hobbit like fantasy yarn that Lucas no doubt came up with after reading some Tolkein and indeed The Bible.

Willow is a family man dwarf who lives with his similarly sized people in a wood. Things are going OK for him but elsewhere the wicked Queen, who is lifted straight from ‘Snow White’, is plotting to scupper a prophesy that predicts her downfall. A baby destined to take her throne is snatched from her mother but before she can be killed the tot is placed in a raft and sent down the river. As chance would have it lands by Willow’s village and is found by his kids. Willow tries to act as if he doesn’t want the baby but we know this is just poor performing from Warwick Davis and he’s up for extra daddy duties soon after.

When some bad guys show up looking for the chosen child Willow has to go on a predictable quest to allow the baby to fulfil its destiny. Along the way they meet lovable rogue Val Kilmer, who agrees to assist him, and various other peoples of the world including some tiny folk nicked wholesale from ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. Meanwhile the dastardly Queen sends her minions out to find our party including the unfeasibly lovely Joanne Whaley, who if she’s really bad then I’m a Dutchman.

The quest takes a predictable path with the requisite number of shots of the cast marching through the snow attained early on. As they head towards Mordor, sorry, the Queen’s Castle, they have an epic battle with a rubbish two headed plastic monster before the final showdown. Can Willow save the day and defeat the wicked Queen and still make it home to show off his new magic tricks? Probably.

I didn’t really like this film from the off and the game of ‘spot the rip off’ can only be enjoyed for so long. The set up with the lost baby was so clichéd I’m surprised that God didn’t sue for copyright. Once we have the characters and quest established you have a pretty unbroken and predictable two hour journey to the inevitable climax. You have to wonder why you bothered and I for one wish I hadn’t.

It is obviously a fantasy movie aimed at kids but films like ‘The Princess Bride’ manage to work with similar material and at least work in a few laughs for the adults and nod towards the predictability of the genre. I did quite like the Lilliputian like tiny folk but the special effects were too ropey to make them seem realistic. That and the plastic monsters suggest that Lucas failed to pony up a ‘Star Wars’ type budget and frankly it shows.

Of the cast Val and Joanne are best with a real chemistry that spilled over into real life. Kilmer especially seems to be having a good time as the lovable and hapless rogue and is almost a Jack Sparrow prototype. Warwick Davis is less good in the title role and never convinces at all. It’s certainly a tough ask of him to carry the movie and it’s one that he falls short of. To be fair the material is poor and hackneyed and some of the dialogue would have the best thesps in the world gasping for air.

‘Willow’ could have been a fun romp but instead it’s a dull retread of every fantasy film you’ve ever seen. It offers poor dialogue, rubbish special effects and a plot as straight as a pool cue. You may enjoy some of the film but those periods are as short as most of the cast.

Best Bit : Wagon chase

‘W’ Score : 11/23