No.264 : Wild Bill (2011)

Wild Bill at the IMDb

No, no it’s not a reprise of  'W' Movie 165 'Wild Bill', the Bill Hickok biopic. This is a gritty British drama with more swearing and fewer cows.

This ‘Wild Bill’ dates from 2011 and was directed by Dexter Fletcher of ‘Press Gang’ fame. It is a bit grim and urban but there is a lot to like, not least a smattering of familiar faces on various stages of their career trajectories.

We meet the titular Bill as he’s being released from Prison after an 8 years stretch for drugs, G.B.H. - you name it. We follow his long trip home from his cell on the Isle of Wight to his horrible flat in a London sink estate. His two sons Dean 15, and Jimmy 11, have been coping on their own for the nine months since Mum ran off with a fancy man to Spain. They are not best pleased to let Dad back in the flat and only acquiesce when forced to do so by the local villains. There ruffians expect Bill to come back to his drug dealing patch, and to seal the deal they get him plastered and a date with the fetching Roxie.

Dean is providing for the family and working as a labourer off the books. Jimmy, who has a bit of the stage school about him, is going off the rails; dogging school and smashing windows. Bill soon sees what he’s missed and resolves to be a good Dad. In no time flat he’s cooking dinner and cleaning the bog.

Dean’s fledgling romance with hairdresser Steff  is stalled by the theft of some money and Jimmy tries to help the family by being a lookout for the drugs gang. Sadly when the cops come calling he trashes the gear and is now in debt to the drug barons.

Bill meanwhile gets a £3 an hour job holding up a sign and soon has the cash to buy his son a hooker for his birthday (it’s Roxy again!) and plates up a mean shepherd’s pie. The kids start to recognise his effort but Jimmy‘s drug debt will see them all have some troubled times before they can start playing happy families. Or gin rummy for that matter. Will this be a story of redemption or was Bill damned before he got off the ferry?

Despite myself I enjoyed this latest instalment of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bad Slags'. The characters are uniformly horrible but you can’t hep to warm to them as they try to make the best of their terrible existences. Charlie Creed-Mills is great as the hapless Bill. He’s painted as a legendary nutter from the start and it’s fun seeing him follow a worthwhile path, as we know it's going to end with him kicking off. I recognised him from ‘Harry Brown’ and I’m pretty sure the same pub was in that too - maybe they come as a package?

Of the sons the older one Dean played by Will Poulter was better and you’ll know him from the recent interactive ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Bandersnatch. He was in the Narnia films too, but I’ve only seen the first one and don’t remember him. He spends a lot of the film scowling but does look made up when the hairdresser takes her top off.

For your money you also get two scenes of Andy Serkiss as a pointless drug lord and Liz White off ‘Life on Mars’ as the ‘hooker with a heart’, Roxy. In addition Ramsay Bolton comes on and does his mad eye shtick - keep working on that your time will come! Needless to say Sean Petwee also shows up as is the legal requirement of any film make in the UK. This time he helps out by only showing up in one scene and he reuses his copper’s costume from ‘Alpha Papa’. Oh, and as a bonus you also get Miss Cross off ‘Rushmore’ as Bill’s ineffectual parole officer.

The direction and pace of the film were well handled and I like the long montage of how drugs were packaged and distributed in the estate. It was a bit like ‘Breaking Bad’. Wait a minute, it was exactly like ‘Breaking Bad’!

The film builds towards an inevitable climax and, to be honest, it was the only part that I felt short-changed by. Our man was summoned to the pub for a showdown with a mental drugs gang, What followed was a bit limp and I don’t think the build up got the pay off it deserved. That said, it was well enough made and I had enough invested in the characters for me to enjoy the overall package.

All the main characters enjoyed something of an arc and, although nothing was resolved, we still have hope for the future. Can’t ask for much more than that!

W Rating 18/23 Best Bit : You don’t get that at my hairdresser’s!

No.263 : Wild Honey (2017)

Wild Honey at the IMDb

Another unheralded release courtesy of Amazon Prime now - so much more variety on there than Film 4 who offer little but ancient westerns. Still more of them coming soon! This film is a bit like the movie version of Alan Partridge’s ‘Problem People’ with everyone on show with issues to spare.

Our heroine here is Gabby, a phone sex operator from Chicago whose 49 years and ample frame are at odds with her dial up persona. She has issues at home with a cheating boyfriend and financial problems that see her car repossessed in the first five minutes. She moves back in with Mom and shares here woes with Reggina, a phone sex colleague with whom she unsuccessfully cruises bars seeking male company.

Things take a turn when she gets interrupted mid filth by a caller named Martin who’d rather have a nice chat than hear any more about your clit, thanks very much. At $2 a minute he’d be better off trying wrong numbers! They soon become close and his hefty bills mean a fat pay check for Gabby - more Funyuns for her! Martin asks for a photo and after some uncharacteristic shyness Gabby sends one over. She’s quickly told that’s she’s beautiful and gets all excited about her prospects with the pervert caller. Maybe his guide dog will like her too!

With indecent haste Gabby decides to fly to L.A. to doorstep her new friend, under the guise of catching up with her sister with whom she hasn’t spoken in two years. The sister is everything gabby is not - thin, neat and successful. She also has a pregnant assistant Greta who is charged with taking Gabby about town. Gabby gets dropped off at the park where Martin, a successful screen writer, has told her he sometimes works. Inevitably the two meet up and enjoy a blissful day of smoking dope, visiting the theatre and eating in a pretentious restaurant.

Gabby stays the night but is awoken the next morning when Martin’s brother shows up - it seems that Martin doesn’t own the house after all and the screen writer is his brother, not him. Shocked by his sudden loss of wealth Gabby flounces off. Meanwhile after her chats with Gabby, Greta grows a set and ditches her P.A. job with Gabby’s sister, who in turn is also breaking down, unable to keep up the façade of having a successful life.

With everything collapsing Gabby’s cheater boyfriend shows up and after some drug and sex action, (hope she had clean pants) he proposes marriage. Is it her he wants or her unlikely talents as a manager of his apartment block? Can each of the damaged souls find some happiness and is there hope for  a reconciliation with Martin, even at two bucks a minute?

I enjoyed this film. Rusty Schwimmer does well in the lead, a part that probably had Melissa McCarthy’s fingerprints all over it. Her dirty chat was pretty full on and she wasn’t shy about her ample frame or modest looks - real people that’s what we need!

There weren’t many out and out laughs, but I did like the ridiculous fancy restaurant with the 11 year old chef and the arty play involving Martin’s naked daughter tipping a tin of beans over herself .
The twist that Martin wasn’t what he seemed was signalled from Mars but it turned out a lot more mundane than my idea that he was a serial killer with plans for Gabby. In truth is was a nice film with no one coming out of it terribly. There was a lot of swearing and a few bits of nudity but I’m all for that if it helps the story along.

The ‘wild honey’ of the title was a reference to the bee hive that Martin kept. I’m sure there was an attempt at a big metaphor here, especially as he pointed out the queen and that ‘everyone has a job, even the workers’ but as my regular reader knows subtext isn’t my thing!

Over all it was a fun 90 minutes with gentle humour, slight character development and a topless woman covering herself in beans. Got to be pass marks for that alone!

‘W’ Rating 15/23
Best Bit : Beanz Meanz a good shower is required.

No.262 : Willow Creek (2013)

Willow Creek at the IMDb

A cheap film doesn’t have to be a bad film, but a lack of budget certainly doesn’t help. If you had forty bucks and an old DVD of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ you could make a serviceable remake of ‘Willow Creek’ and still have enough for pizza on the way home.

The film was made in 2013 by when ‘found footage’ films were already old hat. I was drawn to this one however as it had the shouty comedian BobCat Goldthwait as the writer/director and it was based on a hunt for the legendary Bigfoot. So far so good.

Alas it doesn’t pan out well and it’s a dull, annoying and frankly forgettable waste of your time.

Our two heroes Jim and Kelly are on a mission to make a documentary about their quest to track the Bigfoot. The first half hour is taken up with scene setting - or padding the 80 minute run time - you decide. The two poor actors, whom I haven’t seen in anything else, look awkward as they try to improvise around real Bigfoot attractions in Trinity Forest area. We chuckle as they make a story around a Bigfoot mural, titter as they eat a big foot burger and lose interest as they make rude gestures at a Bigfoot statute.

Some unfortunate locals are dragged in to be ‘interviewed’ on camera and it seems an age before things even get near the action. We get a couple of hints about what lies ahead as Jim casually notes bullet holes in the park sign and a hillbilly local warns them off visiting their goal - the site of the famous Bigfoot cine film from 1967. A ‘Lost person’ poster is also noted but that’s bound to be irrelevant…

Obviously, they pay no heed to the dire warnings and drive deep into the forest only to be greeted by another redneck who invites them to have a coffee at ‘The Fuck Off Café’. As delightful as it sounds they decline and wander into the woods with their packs, but with no obvious means of navigation. After a needless scene of male nudity they bed down for the night - but it’s going to be a long night - for all of us!

A 20 minute scene follows with the two of them in a tent reacting to sounds outside. Bigfoot is known for banging bits of wood together (apparently) so there is lots of that and of rocks hitting their tent. This could be seen as a master class in tension building and bravura minimalist film making. Not by me however, it was totally tiresome!

Next day they wander about for a day, still lost, but finding hairs and large footprints along the way. Will they escape (er, found footage film, genius!) and will we at least get the monster money shot?!

It beggars belief that this film got a release. IMDb says it was shot in 5 days so they must have had at least four and a half off by my count.

It follows the found footage template to the letter with the only surprise being we get no pay off apart from a fat lass in the nip and a camera dragged through some grass. ‘Harry and the Hendersons’ this was not  - you’d get more monster in my underpants!

The improvisation and amateur interviews were terrible and the leads had no chemistry at all. At one point the bloke proposed marriage - I half expected the woman to say ‘sorry, who are you again?’.

There was almost no tension and that which there was, was falsely earned as it went nowhere. It didn’t make a lick of sense and had no laughs or horror to speak of. In one scene Jim finds a big pile of steaming shit and gets all exited about it - unfortunately I was unable to replicate this emotion with the film, despite their similarities.

Best Bit : Have a coffee in the Fuck Off Café.
‘W’ Rating 7/23

No. 261 : Wonderball (TV)

My regular reader (Hello!) will be shocked at after 260 entries we have moved away from the movies and into regional TV for this post. Fear not, soon we will return to obscure straight to video films and 1930’s Westerns shown at 3 am on Film 4.

The reason for our change of focus is a request. I know! I can’t say 'reader’s request' but we’ll take what we can get. Yes Julie from the office, who has followed my own stellar game show career, advised that she was soon to star on the glitzy new show ‘WonderBall’ and could I take a look? She didn’t actually ask that I write a sarky review and post unflattering photographs of the event, but that’s what she’s getting!

Firstly, the format. ‘WonderBall’ is shown on the new BBC Scotland channel at 7pm on weekdays, and is hosted by news reading lovelie, Catriona Shearer. I’ve been a fan of the Amazon like Catriona since her days of giving local traffic updates, so it wasn’t a hard sell to convince me to tune in. She has a chirpy sing-song accent and sometimes looks like she dressed out of a pantomime’s costume box. Did she wear this one?

Oh yes she did! The King of Hearts called - he wants his outfit back!

The game is played with three teams, each of two people. Each team have five balls numbered between 1-15. These are slung in a bag and the teams each pick one out in each of the four rounds. If they get an opponent’s ball they answer an easy question to take it out of the game. If they get it wrong it goes back in the bag. If they pick their one of their own balls they have to answer a harder question to get it back in the bag and if they’re wrong it stays out. The idea is to have your ball the last one in the bag which makes it the ‘WonderBall’ and wins you £2000.

There is also a danger ball which is the boo hiss baddie ball - if that’s the WonderBall at the end everyone gets hee-haw (apart from sold balls cash but we'll get to that soon). A new danger ball is added each round and if picked out the three teams can confer to give a correct answer which will take it out of play. Still with me? That’ll change!

At the end of each of the first three rounds players are offered a cash bribe to sell one of their balls - £100, £200 and then £300. If you sell your ball it stays in the bag but if it’s the WonderBall you get nothing apart from looks of disdain for your weak willed, money grabbing tendencies.

Each team gets to appear on two shows, but if you win the jackpot on the first you forfeit your second appearance. A flawless pair of games means you could trouser a decent £3200 overall if you sell a ball every round and still retain the WonderBall. That’s just less than what I won on ‘The Weakest Link’!

That complicated explanation can be simplified by reading the BBC page for the show or by watching it. I would recommend neither - unless Julie is on!

Julie appeared on the show with Stephen who left one circus to join another. They had some decent banter and clearly weren’t intimidated by the slightly low rent set which includes some large balls and the colander on wheels which contains the game balls.

My first gripe is that the regular questions are too easy - “Where is Ayers Rock?” and the hard ones are too hard “Which vice president was in a duel?”. Lots of ‘oh I know it’s…’ before ‘Aaron Burr’ was announced to a roomful of shoulder shrugging.

Julie and Stephen’s games followed similar paths with early optimism soon giving way to money grabbing economic decisions. The main problem is the luck part of the format. If your balls are constantly picked you have no chance whereas if you’re lucky you can bluff your way to the jackpot without knowing a thing. Julie and Stephen suffered badly with their luck in their first game and had to salvage £300 by selling their last ball. This was a slightly dodgy decision economically as their ball had a real value of £400 (1 in 5 chance of £2000) but £300 in the hand was too tempting and ultimately proved to be the correct decision when it failed to gain ‘WonderBall’ status.

On show two any nervousness had gone, evidenced by some better play and, more importantly, some decent banter. “I’m putting in a complaint to Scotrail’ quipped Stephen as a Railway employee eliminated one of his balls. Julie did well too by getting an answer about Isaac Newton correct - tempered slightly with her comment that she heard about him on ‘The Big Bang Theory’. The hostess did well too despite a late alarm call meaning she had to do the show in her dressing gown…

This time our dynamic duo had two balls in the mix meaning they had a 40% chance of winning the £2000. They opted however to sell one for £300 meaning they had a 1 in 4 shot of the top money. Sadly it didn’t come to pass and they were correct to sell as neither of their blue balls reached the winner‘s podium.

My main problem with the format is that it makes sense to take the cash, but by doing so the players take any thrill out of the game. You’d do it too - potentially £600 in the hand for an outside chance of £2000. If it was five grand people would risk it, but there simply isn’t enough gain to offset the allure of the easy money.

The show is only 30 minutes long but even then it gets a bit samey as the rounds are repeated each time with the last round twist being there are no questions, so it gets even less demanding! There is canned applause added in which makes the whole thing seem a bit contrived and the method of passing down the balls and then displaying them on an Ikea lamp from the 70’s just looks a bit cheap and cheezy.

I enjoyed the shows I watched but manly because I knew someone on them. Julie’s howlers such as thinking Benjamin Franklin was a president of America and her wonderfully delivered ‘Horse please’ line will never be forgotten, as long as slaggings are allowed in the workplace. Stephen was good value too although I thought he was going to smash the set up when he missed the ‘Glasvegas’ answer. Maybe he should have done  - he could have caused hundreds of pounds of improvements!

It was also strange that there was a long conversation about juggling on a show about balls an no one thought of having a quick demonstration. They must have been worried that entertainment may have broken out!

All in all a fine effort and a good day’s work - £300 each for grabbing some balls. You can insert you own joke here………………

No. 260 : War Dogs (2016)

War Dogs at the IMDb

We all remember how dire ‘War Pigs’ was, but what about the canine variety of war film?

This one isn’t about the war itself or fighting in general but is more about the arms dealers who occupy the morally dubious role of gun runner and weapons provider to the highest bidder.

The film opens with the familiar premise of the lead character having a bad day. His voice over does the predictable thing of saying ‘I’m getting ahead of myself’ before we dissolve into the past where things start off.

Our hero is David (Miles Teller) who is making a few bucks as a Miami masseuse. He gets come ones from his elderly male clients and has a failing sideline of selling Egyptian cotton sheets to old folks’ homes. If he’d invested in rubber ones he’d have had more success. At a funeral he meets up with Efraim (Jonah Hill) who seems to be doing better - at the buffet table at least.

Efraim has a lucrative business finding the ‘crumbs’ on a government procurement website and supplying the goods to the army. They do OK for a while but David keeps his activities secret from his annoying wife as she is against the war in Iraq - we are in the 90’s after all. He wife is so annoying she takes the huff when she finds big bricks of cash in the bathroom - I’d have given him a big kiss!

Things take an upturn when a deal for Italian pistols comes their way and, despite having to deliver them in person, the success of the deal opens new doors for them. Soon they are in Vegas and a seemingly chance meeting with Bradley Cooper’s blacklisted arms dealer sets them up for a deal of a lifetime. The crumbs are forgotten as a $300 million banquet hoves into view. As you’d expect locating and delivering 100 million AK47 bullets is no small task, and soon the lads are falling out and dodging lots of shady characters in 90’s tracksuits.

Will they survive to tell the tale? The voiceover suggests yes!

This was a pretty decent film with a good cast and production values. Romania ghosted as Albania and it looked suitably bleak. The scenes in Iraq were well done and there was a bit of peril as they tried to escape those guys in a van out of ‘Back to the Future’.

There was an ongoing reference to the film ‘Scarface’ down to even the poster which seems a bit insensitive as actor Miles Teller has several facial scars from a real life car crash - still, do what you know I guess.

The three acts of the film were rote large with the success moment lasting about two minutes before the usual twin beasts of greed and paranoia taking over. It seemed such a waste but you do have to remind yourself that these are terrible people.

Jonah Hill was a lot like his persona from ’This Is the End’ and you knew he wasn’t to be trusted from the start. Teller’s every-man David was supposed to elicit our sympathy but between his naivety and annoying wife he failed to get a smidgen from me.

The file was directed by Todd Phillips from the Hangover films and this one was short of laughs, although reasonably engaging. He and Cooper co-produced so that gained the film a couple of scenes of Cooper going through the motions in a pair of glasses that magnified his eyes to a distracting level.

The film boasts a great soundtrack with several rock classics keeping things moving along - and then Leonard Cohen at the end!

It was a decent ride and seemed shorter than it’s near two-hour running time. I don’t think I learned much and the write ups I’ve read suggest the ‘based on a true’ story caption should be taken loosely at best. Still an enjoyable watch and free on Amazon Prime as I write.


Best Bit : No we're not waiting for your free glass token at the garage.
‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.259 : What Happened to Monday (2017)

What Happened to Monday @ The IMDb

No question mark for this seemingly interrogative title - maybe it’s just a report as to the fate of the weekday monikered heroine?

This was a pretty enjoyable Netflix offering with a good cast, plenty of action, nudity and violence to keep things ticking over. The scene is set with a familiar montage over the opening credits as the world goes to shit. Over-population has led to a new policy of ‘one child per family’ with any extra siblings put into 'cryo-sleep' until things get better.

Willem Dafoe lacks a social conscience so when his wife, who dies in childbirth, hatches seven daughters he decides to keep the lot of them. As there are seven he names each after a day of the week, meaning each girl can go out on their name day each week. Lucky he wasn’t a Disney fan or Grumpy would be waiting for Bashful to get out of the goddamn toilet.

Anyway we fast forward 30 years and the plan is going well. Willem has disappeared off the scene with no explanation given - guess he was only booked for the first half hour. The girls share the identity of ‘Karen Settman’ and manage to hold down a job at a bank by giving the others a bed time run down of the day’s events so the rest can pick things up on their day. Guess Saturday and Sunday got the best of this deal!

Things go awry when Monday doesn’t come home after her day at work. The rest, all ably played by Noomi Rapace, try to work out what has happened whilst trying to keep their own secrets safe. Meanwhile evil politician Glenn Close is trying to get to high office where her plans for even more draconian laws spell trouble for everyone - well except the planet.

Soon our fish are well and truly out of the water and the hunt is on - how many will survive and what has happened to Monday?

This was an above average sci-fi thriller. It’s a pretty dystopian 2073 - pissing down and rubbish on the streets are your clues! Some of the tech like the well designed palm phones and a digital punch bag sit uncomfortably with the all rat diet but I guess you can piss away resources on some shiny stuff while making do on rodent stew.

The seven sisters are well realised with predictable quirks and differing haircuts setting each apart and the editing is excellent so you really can’t see the joins when Noomi is on the screen as seven characters all at once. The flashbacks with Dafoe are well done although they did lift that finger chopping bit from ‘The Prestige’ more or less wholesale.

What surprised me was the level of violence with some really brutal men versus ladies fist fights with plenty of blood. I was also surprised that some siblings were lost but not so much about the big reveal.

There was a bit of an attempt for some social commentary regarding climate change and overpopulation, this was however a bit muddled. Glenn Close is seemingly a mental baddie but her policies will save humanity whereas Dafoe is the hero father who's spewing out kids faster than the midwife can catch them. I guess the theme is 'difficult choices' but as Close said if everyone procreated like Dafoe the planet wouldn't last five minutes.

At a bit over two hours the film could have lost 20 minutes, with the last third decidedly flabby. It was however well constructed, so that a potentially confusing tale of seven identical twins was easy to follow. The title was a bit poor though - I’d have went with ‘The Secret Seven’. No wait, ‘Sister Act 7’.

Best Bit : Blonde Karen syncs with the guard
W Rating : 17/23

No.258 : Where the Devil Hides (2014)

Where the Devil Hides at the IMDb

Pat Farrell in Lee Van Cleef’s hat stars in this low budget 'serial killer in an Aimish community' romp.

The film opens with Pat making dramatic statements regarding ‘the prophecy’ Word on the streets is that when six girls are born on the same day only one will live until their 18th birthday and that one will become the Devil’s Hand.

Before the title card appears the girls start popping out and Pat is on the scene with his sickle to get all biblical on their asses. He’s shoved down the stairs by Rufus Sewell out of ‘The Man in the High Castle’ but that’s not the end of the matter, sadly.

One of the six new mums, who has presumably seen the rest of the script, opts to smother her baby and cut her own throat. Probably easier to wrangle five accesses than six and it’s easier to remember who everyone is too, so it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.

We flash forward to the present day and the girls are about to celebrate their 18th birthday - which is strange as one of them looks about 30. Their community of New Bethlehem has accepted them but the nearing of the prophecy puts them all on edge - a good time for a skinny dip in the lake then. The girls meet a couple of horny lads, one of whom saves one of them after she has a fit and lots of visions.

They split up and go to their own homes but one is soon butchered with a big sickle after choosing somewhat bizarrely, to hide down a well. With the murder weapon clearly shown it has to be Pat who is the murderer - surely?

Things take a predictable path as the girls start to thin in number and we have to wonder if the prophecy will be true and whether someone with vested interests in local jam and quilt sales may be pushing things towards his own agenda.

As we near the welcome 86th minute, sorry 18th birthday, we have to wonder who will survive, who’s doing the killings and whether the prophecy will become true - bet you manage 3 out of 3 too!

This was a lot of clichéd and risible nonsense but I have to confess to quite enjoying it. The dialogue is atrocious with poor Colm Meany having to spout out so much drivel. Sewell gets little to do and you can almost see him mulling over new agent options as he delivers his Aimish lines that look like leftovers from ‘Kingpin’.

For a horror film they are quite coy with the sex and violence with a bare bum and a few off screen slashings all you get.

If you are looking for a new take on the serial killer genre you won’t find it here and the religious angle is just ridiculous and never given any traction, no matter how many ‘visions’ they crash cut in.
Overall a bit of throwaway hokum with nothing to really to recommend it apart from a few unintended chuckles and a plot that couldn’t be more transparent if it were written on glass.

Best Bit : Pat has a look for the ‘Devil’s sign’ - the dirty bastard.
W Rating  12/23