CINEMA: The Strangers

As any fan of horror movies will tell you the first rule of horror is always look behind you and the second is never get left by yourself. Not only does The Strangers totally disregard these rules, it breaks every other one in the book, which makes it extremely frustrating to watch.

Returning from a wedding reception to his family’s locked-up country house, James (Scott Speedman) and his girlfriend Kristen (Liv Tyler) are in a sombre frame of mind – Kristen has just turned down James’ marriage proposal. It looks like their romance is over but this is the least of their worries for in the dead of night a stranger comes calling. Soon the house and the couple are under siege from unseen and unknown people who seem to be playing with them. Whatever it is these strangers want it obviously isn’t anything good, but Kristen and James have no way of knowing just how bad it could be.

This is a beautifully-made film that ratchets up the tension but then lets itself down badly because the main characters keep doing stupid things – like opening the door to strangers at 2am and deciding they’d be safer if they split up.       Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: The Wackness, Part 2

This is the second film Sir Ben Kingsley has starred in this year in which he shows off his astonishing range and depth as an actor. Set in New York, 1994, Kingsley plays Dr Squires, a psychiatrist so mentally screwed-up he’s scoring dope off one of his patients as well as self-medicating on prescription drugs. The patient is the equally screwed-up teen Luke (Josh Peck) who feels his life is futile. Luke whiles away his hours by being a small-time dope pusher to his high school colleagues and the few people he makes ‘house calls’ to.

In an effort to shake off his own depression brought on by the disintegration of his marriage Squires persuades Luke to let him join him on his rounds. What then transpires is a series of somewhat surreal but highly amusing encounters with some of the Big Apple’s idiosyncratic characters. When Squires meets Luke’s supplier and starts analysing his dreams (all about a mother fixation) you know this is seriously wacked-out stuff.

Although the film feels a little flat in the beginning and the humour seems rather self-indulgent, it really starts to take off as Luke and Squires’ relationship deepens. Kingsley is brilliantly, quietly weird as Squires spouting such gems as ‘never trust anyone who doesn’t smoke pot, or listen to Bob Dylan, or says they don’t like dogs’, while Peck is rather sweet and loveable, especially when he falls for Squire’s stepdaughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). This is a different, leftfield take on the coming-of-age film and writer/director Jonathan Levine doesn’t overplay his hand by populating it with caricatures. Instead, these are to all intents and purposes ordinary people who are finding it difficult to cope with life and are just a little odd.     Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Step Brothers

So here’s the pitch: a middle-aged couple (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins) meet and fall in love and decide to marry. However, moving in together proves rather sticky because his grown-up snotty loser son Dale (John C Reilly) and her grown-up whiny loser son Brennan (Will Ferrell) both still live at home. Now, not only will they have to share their respective parents’ attention and affection, but also a bedroom.

From here on in things can only go downhill as Reilly and Ferrell act like five-year-olds throwing their toys out of the pram and generally having hissy fits – which is fun for about five minutes before it starts to get extremely tedious and irritating.

Watching grown men acting like spoilt brats can only hold the attention for a very limited amount of time and this is basically a one act sketch stretched exceedingly thin over a full-length movie. It also doesn’t have the quality of writing of The 40 Year Old Virgin, which at least tried to flesh out its loser main character. Here Dale and Brennan are just saddos with little or no redeeming features and extremely bad hair.     Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Ben X

This extremely accomplished film from writer/director Nic Balthazar takes an intelligent and rather different view of bullying. Teenager Ben (Greg Timmermans) suffers from Asperger syndrome but rather than send him to a ‘special’ school his mother (Marijke Pinoy) has opted to keep him in the mainstream education system.  She thinks she is doing the right thing by Ben, but what she does not know is he is being severely bullied on a daily basis by two of the other pupils. The only respite Ben can find is through a fantasy computer game in which he becomes the all-conquering knight Ben X, fighting alongside a mystery female player he knows only as Scarlite. After one particularly distressing bout of bullying Scarlite urges Ben to take revenge and the normally timid teenager decides enough is enough.

With its mix of computer animation (when Ben become Ben X) and gritty realism this is a thought-provoking, well thought-out and handsomely framed movie that never allows itself to cross the line into exploitation.  The bullying scenes are well handled and in one instance at least, difficult to watch without wincing. The fact it is subtitled may put some people off, but because of the quality of the material, don’t be surprised if an English language version gets made in the very near future.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Angel

The great problem with melodrama in the high style is it can so very easily descend into histrionic farce, and that’s exactly what happens here in a film that is so over-cooked it’s like the worst kind of am dram.

The normally restrained Romola Garai stars as young writer Angel Deverell, whose rags to riches life story forms the basis of the movie, which itself is anything but restrained. Here we get madness, miscarriage, sickness, illicit Sapphic love, a huge monstrosity of a house named Paradise, a philandering husband and amputation, but not necessarily in that order.

All of this would trouble the sanest of souls, but Angel, a woman who in the past would have been described as ‘flighty’, isn’t exactly sane to begin with and as she gets more deranged so too do her costumes and so too does the acting. Director Francois Ozon wanted to make a film in the style of those great 1930s Hollywood ‘women’s pictures’ full of passion-filled glances and pounding hearts in heaving bosoms, unfortunately this is so over the top and appalling, it’s almost unwatchable.       Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: The Wackness

This is one of those movies that’s going to be derided as a post-Juno attempt at cool, I just know it. Set in the 90s, the plot follows high school kid Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) as he deals drugs, feels isolated, and desperately seeks emotional attention through the course of a single summer. The unique selling point of this movie is that a big chunk of young Luke’s emotional outlet goes via a customer – middle aged psychologist Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley). With this set up everyone will be expecting a standard progression through the standard teen romance/buddie movie format and, to a certain extent, The Wackness meets that expectation. Luke deals drugs, looks thoughtful, gets in some scrapes with Dr. Squires and falls in love with a beautiful and apparently unachievable peer.

.

However, The Wackness is far more than a carefully planned attempt at some indie cool. As we journey with Luke, it is impossible not to feel the sincerity of the traumas felt by him and those he comes into contact with. And his relationship with Dr. Squires seems far from the kooky contrivances that are so often branded as ‘indie’, instead we are treated to some great scenes of sentimentality and juvenile joy. Even the romantic element of the plot, which is either blandly predictable or painfully obvious in its attempt to be ‘different’ in most teen movies, is created with a genuine understanding of what it’s like to be young and in love/horny.

The positive aspects of The Wackness are, at least in part, a credit to the quality of the actors attached. Ben Kingsley has returned triumphant from his humiliation in Mike Myers’ The Love Guru, to deliver a superb performance that vacillates perfectly between intellectual arrogance and extreme mid-life crisis, while Josh Peck and Famke Janssen play their characters without a hint of the overdone teen angst that dogs so many performances of the pains of high school life.

But floating above these performances are the skills of director Jonathan Levine. His only previous feature release is the teen slasher All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and I can see him fast becoming the most under-appreciated talent in Hollywood. A big statement I know, but in a climate where a majority of directors still seem adamant that they become auteurs he remains a beacon of intuition. Rather than sacrifice what feels right for an overall artist consistency within the film, Levine moves between in-your-face shaky camerawork and detached surreal scenes where the paving slabs light up as Luke dances across them: this kind of direction keeps the audience in the tone of a scene far more than any attempt to create an something ‘edgy’, ‘artistic’ or ‘new’ could do, and it’s a rare treat in Hollywood.       Mike Edwards

CINEMA: Hellboy II – Part 2

In which Big Red (Ron Perlman) gets a bigger budget and better special effects than the original film and shock horror, Luke Goss gets the juiciest part of his career.

Hellboy (Perlman) and his assorted band of freaks – including firestarter girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and man/fish Abe (Doug Jones), are still fighting paranormal monsters here on Earth but their actions are meant to be top secret. Which annoys the hell out of the showboating Hellboy who believes he should be getting the credit for all the bad guys he’s beating, so against orders he makes sure the press get a good glimpse of his mug. Instant notoriety follows, but there’s one bad guy Hellboy hasn’t reckoned on and that’s Prince Nuada (Goss in spooky make-up and Matrix leather coat). Nuada plans to resurrect the fabled Golden Army and crush all of mankind, so now everyone is counting on Big Red while he’s facing a seemingly indestructible enemy.

Director/writer Guillermo Del Toro has taken the Lord of the Rings route here with an epic mythological story of evil tooth fairies, elfish beings and monsters, and set piece battles and underground locations of awesome magnitude and imagination. There’s a really nice spiteful edge to everything but not enough of the great humour that made the first Hellboy movie stand out. That said one scene where Hellboy and Abe Sapien get drunk together while talking about women troubles and listening to Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You is bound to go down as something of a classic. However, this is nowhere near as deep, disturbing or profound as Pan’s Labyrinth, but it will certainly amuse during this washout of a summer.       Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Get Smart

Or how to dumb down in one easy lesson. Believe me, there is nothing smart about this movie and although it stars the ever-dependable Steve Carell, it is nowhere near as impressive as The 40 Year Old Virgin. Here he’s playing mumbling, bumbling would-be special agent Maxwell Smart, who keeps flunking his special agent exams. When the chance finally comes to show his boss (Alan Arkin) and best mate Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) what he’s really made of Smart is partnered with experienced Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) and nearly blows the mission before it’s even begun.

As you’d expect from a spoof on Bond and every other secret agent movie ever, there are plenty of gadgets and gizmos and a really bad arch-villain (here played by Terence Stamp) working for an evil crime syndicate named KAOS (what else). The problem is the jokes are so obvious and signposted, and the comic timing so appalling, you’ll be way ahead of the movie. Carell really is smarter than this material, which is passable but just not special enough – a bit like Smart.     Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Somers Town

Made with money from Eurostar, director Shane Meadows’ latest piece of whimsy isn’t really a whole film at all; it’s a bit like a Milky Way – fills a gap between movies without spoiling your appetite for the main course.

Set in and around the Somers Town area of London, it’s a tale of friendship found within loneliness, of growing up and growing wise, and of finding hope in the bleakest of circumstances. The excellent Thomas Turgoose of This Is England fame plays Tomo, a northern teenager who escapes his broken home life by jumping on a train to London. Here he gets roughed up and robbed but encounters the equally lonely Marek (Piotr Jagiello), the son of a Polish construction worker who is left to amuse himself while his dad is at work.  Marek spends most of his days taking photos and mooning over a French waitress and soon Tomo is equally smitten. So, for 71 minutes, this small-scale, black and white picture follows this unlikely pair as they mooch about their area, dreaming up moneymaking schemes, and basically whiling their days away. However, they do so in such an entertaining manner the running time simply flies by with lots of laugh out loud moments and genuinely amusing gems.

Although this is not as powerful as This Is England, Somers Town has a gentle charm about it – if only Meadows had been able to expand the storyline, adding depth and detail, then this would have been a proper feature rather than simply a taster.       Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Hellboy II – The Golden Army

The trailer for Hellboy 2 packed an almighty red fisted punch, the film itself however doesn’t quite manage to follow through.

Director Guillermo del Toro is a visual filmmaker with two distinct styles. His mainstream cinema releases are big-budget action-packed hits like Blade 2 and the original Hellboy. In contrast we have a very deep and thought-provoking man who can construct dramatic masterpieces with an intense fantasy style such as Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. Both styles are very different and both work extremely well, but unfortunately the problem with Hellboy 2 is that both styles are thrown together and both are heavily compromised as a result.

You see, Hellboy 2 is neither glossy mainstream cinema nor dramatic fantasy; it is an uneasy mishmash of both, and  spends far too much time switching between the two to be able to find a balance. The action is underplayed in order to create more of a sense of the fantasy, but unfortunately the fantasy is also far too underplayed in favour of short and disappointing action sequences. The original Hellboy had such a strong narrative and was action-packed but this sequel fails to live up to that. It seems to have missed out on the golden rule of sequels and just not been able to better itself.

While X-Men was a great story-based film which familiarised us with the characters, the sequel X2 could just run with action from the outset yet still retain a great narrative. However, the story in Hellboy 2 just isn’t strong enough on its own to make a great film and it relies too heavily on spectacle and the visual flair of the director. This weak plot means that the viewer loses interest, and the subtleties in action and pace throughout the picture mean that we are made to expect a huge action sequence for the finale. However the last act doesn’t live up to these expectations and just fizzles out.

Having said all that, there is still plenty to enjoy from Hellboy 2. There is no denying that Guillermo del Toro is a genius when it comes to his film-making style. Correctly branded in the trailer, he really is a “visionary director” and throughout the whole film every frame has been carefully and lovingly crafted to look amazing. As with his previous work he really has gone to extremes to create a film that is stunning to watch. The characters, locations, creatures and visual effects are impressive and worth the price of admission on their own. When it comes to syle, this is an epic film. The characters are well cast, although the lack of John Hurt and Rupert Evans (as the adopted father and the new recruit) hurt the film somewhat, and they are sorely missed.

Luke Goss is amazing to watch once again after an equally impressive role in Del Toro’s earlier film Blade 2. Ron Perlman proves again that there couldn’t be a more perfect choice for Hellboy. He plays the role with delight and passion, although he doesn’t t seem to be quite as ‘cool’ as he was first time round – but maybe that’s down to the script. The chemistry between him and Liz, played again by Selma Blair, is priceless and works well in providing the film with a comedic element.

Another interesting relationship is between Abe Sapien and Princess Nuala and this also leads to some very funny moments, but also some much needed personal drama. The film contains a lot of comedy elements throughout, as did the original. Hellboy has a lot of comic one-liners, some of which are extremely funny. There is also good use of slapstick, especially with Hellboy and Abe Sapien arriving at a fight drunk. The character of Johann Krauss, voiced fantastically by Seth MacFarlane, with his unpredictable German accent is also a source of great amusement. The comedy in the film works extremely well and helps it to maintain its slow pace.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is an interesting film, but disappointingly nowhere near as good as its predecessor. It is, nonetheless, still a lot of fun with plenty to enjoy. No doubt we will have to wait a few years for the return of Hellboy as Del Toro is now going to be dedicating a lot of his life to The Hobbit films, but we won’t see them until at least 2011, so enjoy this piece of Del Toro action while you can.       Russell Gomm