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“Man proposes to sex doll”. You can just see the headline tucked away in the corner of the World section of your local newspaper - the obligatory quirky news item from some rural corner of the USA. Only in America. The amazing thing about Craig Gillespie’s Lars and the Real Girl is that the love affair it presents between a man and an inanimate object almost starts to make sense. Read the rest of this entry »
This film has everything going for it except for one small detail: it just didn’t make me laugh that much. I mean, I enjoyed it, I appreciate what they were trying to do, and it really was very well executed - it just wasn’t all that funny! Read the rest of this entry »
“I’m B, and I’m proud”. That seems to be the attitude of this schlocker from director David R Ellis. This is a B-movie that revels in its own crappiness. Indeed, the concept is so hilariously ridiculous, it generated a pre-release internet hype not seen since The Blair Witch Project back in 1999. Read the rest of this entry »
Is metafictional cinema the newest film genre? In what must surely be the ultimate conclusion to cinematic post-modernism, a few films have been popping up that attempt to blur the line between fiction and reality. Read the rest of this entry »
Why can’t the Academy remember back more than two months whenever it comes to selecting nominations for the Oscars? It may be academic anyway, given the overwhelming odds supporting a Best Supporting Actor gong for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, but it would have been nice to see Ben Kingsley at least up there in contention. Emulating his previous subversively brilliant performance as Don Logan in Sexy Beast, he has created something completely new (and undeniably just as impressive) in his realisation of wayward psychiatrist Dr Jeffrey Squires in Jonathan Levine’s satisfying coming-of-age plodder, The Wackness.
You want to like this, don’t you? Great director, cast of esteemed professional actors, a great subject to make fun of (American film awards in general). And it starts pretty promisingly as we are introduced to the characters and their various imperfections - fodder for the comedy to come, we presume, as the Hollywood machine bears down on them. But the film seems to completely lose its way within the first half hour, spiralling further and further into inexplicable references and off-target attempts at black humour before sputtering rather unexpectedly, though not unwelcomely, to a halt.
Despite the fact that he tackles his craft with tongue planted firmly in cheek, Robert Rodriguez may go down in film history as the greatest B-movie director of all time. Planet Terror is Rodriguez’ half of the Grindhouse double feature joint project with Quentin Tarantino. Although Tarantino’s effort, Death Proof, was great, it begins to look almost trivial in comparison to this instant schlock classic.
