The Black Hole (1979)

Recorded this a week or so ago, but only just get round to watching it.

If I tell you that it's a sci-fi film from 1979, you might jump to the conclusion that it's a Star Wars cash in. And you would be right, but put that to one side for the moment because it is important to realise that after Star Wars, everyone was churning out space movies* and most of them were just dire. Even some of the "purer" sci-fi moves were abysmal. However this is a Disney movie, their first to get a PG certificate and the last they made under the old classic model of film making, in which the studio produced all the models, props and special effects, so you know it's going to be the best they could achieve at the time. It was certainly a very expensive movie to make.

Story: A survey ship, The Palomino, discovers a giant black hole and a bit of a mystery. Sitting next to the black hole, impossibly holding its position against the most powerful force in the universe is a derelict starship, the USS Cygnus, missing for twenty years. Suddenly the ship lights up, and forced to dock after being damaged, they discover a ship run by robots and commanded by Dr. Hans Reinhardt**, who claims the crew abandoned ship years ago.

But incongruences start to appear in the story. Captain Holland sees one of the robots limping, and Lt. Pizer witnesses a "funeral" for one of the robots.

For me, the most memorable part of this film from my childhood was the robots. An uncredited Roddy MacDowell plays the voice of V.I.N.CENT remarkably well, with Slim Pickens taking the voice of B.O.B. You might be forgiven for thinking that South Park stole the look and feel of them to create their characters.

Score: C+ Good film, but time has not been kind to it. Well worth a watch to see one of the better Star Wars cash in movies.

OQ:

V.I.N.CENT: To quote Cicero: rashness is the characteristic of youth, prudence that of mellowed age, and discretion the better part of valour.
Lieutenant Charles Pizer: Vincent, were you programmed to bug me?
V.I.N.CENT: No sir, to educate you.

To film the special effects, Disney originally wanted to rent the Dykstraflex camera system (the first computer-controlled camera) from Industrial Light & Magic. However, the price and rental terms were unacceptable so Disney went to its acclaimed engineering division to come up with its own version. What resulted was Disney's A.C.E.S. (Automated Camera Effects System), which was radically superior to the Dykstraflex system; the Mattescan system, which enabled the camera to move on a matte painting (that was previously impossible); and a computer-controlled modelling stand. At the time, this put Disney technologically ahead of ILM.

At the time of its release, the movie featured the longest computer graphics sequence that had ever appeared in a film.

The character of V.I.N.CENT. was originally to have more elaborate electronic eyes (based on electronic stock ticker-type billboards), which would have given him a greater range of facial expressions. Unfortunately, the electro-mechanical eyes simply didn't work properly and the effect was abandoned at the beginning of principal photography.

The laser pistols originally had light up tips that would activate when the actors pressed the trigger, thus giving the animators cues as to when someone was actually firing the guns. This proved to be a problem however because the actors would unconsciously press the triggers when they were not supposed to often times inadvertently shooting cast members.

During the climactic escape from the Cygnus, the survivors scramble out into the vacuum of space to board the probe ship without any protective suits. Pizer even needs to be rescued from flying away into space, but no one asphyxiates from lack of oxygen. Reportedly, space suits were indeed designed for the sequence, but the cast refused to wear them because of how they looked.

*Not sci-fi, you understand. These were mostly just movies set in space.
**You just know with a name of Hans, he's going to be evil.

Taken

"The best action film since Bourne," says the marketing blurb. And for once they're not entirely wrong.

Taken is quite similar to the Bourne films in the way it is shot, so if you liked them, chances are you'll like this. My friend said it's basically Man On Fire meets Bourne, which is probably a fair assessment.

Liam Neeson is a great choice for the lead. He has the range to handle the emotionally charged scenes, but the action and fight scenes are something entirely new for him to play with and he excels in these. The fights are a little more violent than Bourne, but there's never any blood. Strangely I felt this added to the realism.

The background with the CIA is covered in a rather clunky and awkward scene with him reminiscing with his friends at a barbecue. But this can be forgiven because it is important to get it out of the way and get on with the story. All you need to know about his past is covered quickly in a few lines of dialogue.

As his search for his daughter intensifies, his increasing desperation is portrayed very well. He uses every contact, calls in every favour, burns every bridge.

Plot hole count: One.
My friend asked at the end "How did he get out of France?" I don't think this is a plothole in itself, given the character's background. But an interesting question is "Why didn't his friends go with him to help?" The answer being: because then it would have been a whole different animal, and personally I'm not sure I'd want to watch that. Seeing one man being ruthless in the pursuit of his daughter's kidnappers is one thing. Seeing a bunch of men being ruthless in the same pursuit is something else.

Score: A
It's rare I score anything an A, but I thoroughly enjoyed this and the cameo by Holly Valance pushed it over the B+ mark.

OQ: Please apologise to your wife for me*.

*Sounds like the dullest quote ever. Is actually a great scene.

Get Smart

Now this was more like it!

A comedy film of an old TV show that's actually funny, as opposed to being made to look funny in the trailer by a studio desperate to get re-coop money out of another disastrous investment on their part.

Steve Carell is rapidly becoming one of my favourite actors. Not comedy actors, just actors. He's been great in everything I've seen him in. Get Smart sees him take on the "comedy new secret-agent film" and does it so well, he's practically re-written the rules on how to do it. Way better than Johnny English (which I loved).

The script is written so that you don't need to know anything about the TV show, which was good because other than the iconic theme tune and the bit about walking down the corridor with the huge automatic doors to get to the phone booth-elevator, I knew nothing.

Other than that, I'm not going to tell you anything except it's very funny, it's got some amazing action pieces* and it's a great way to spend an afternoon. Well worth 110 minutes of anyone's time.

Score: A
It has the hallmark of a good comedy in my eyes: I was laughing even though there were very few people in the cinema at the time. (Well, it was 12.20 on a Sunday after all.)

OQ:
Maxwell Smart: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Trivia: When the project was in development in 1998, Jim Carrey was attached to star. All I can say is thank god it was delayed.

*Like James Bond worthy.

Stargate: Continuum

The second in Stargate SG-1's direct to DVD movies. The show jumped to DVD movies when their primary source of funding for the show dried up in season 10, which was surprising because they were still getting very good ratings. Deciding to take a chance and rely on their fan following, the show jumped formats.

The first DVD movie "The Ark of Truth" fairly neatly tied up the cliffhanger of the Ori threat. I loved that movie, as it had everything I wanted from Stargate; battles, race against time, character interaction, the works.

Continuum returns to the old protagonist; the system lords, and the last of the big threats; Ba'al, played wonderfully by Cliff Simon. With all his clones dead and his symbiote about to be extracted from his body, Ba'al has an intricate revenge plot set in motion against SG-1, the Jaffa, the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri.

This is a more adult version of Stargate. No! Not like that. It's a bit grittier and with the DVD release they can get away with more profanity. Daniel Jackson even says 'shit'.

Overall, it's good but not quite as good as The Ark of Truth. While it doesn't actively try to scramble your brain with time travel maguffins in the way Bender's Big Score did, it still relies on time travel too much for the premise and conclusion, and frankly Stargate has done better time travel stories in the series. The main difference here is that since there's a longer running time, you get to see how the crew try to adapt to the altered timeline. This is not filler, it's important to the plot, but it is the main difference between this film and the TV show episodes. And that's the problem, because in the final solution (while satisfying) they rely on a plot that they already used in the TV show, and used to better effect.

The banter between the characters is also more subdued because they spend a lot of time apart from each other, which is a shame as it was one of the things I loved about the show.

It was nice though to see Don S. Davis again as General Hammond, in what turned out to be his last appearance.

Score: B
Good, but Ark of Truth was better.

OQ:
Major General Hank Landry: I take it that in your timeline you're not a discredited whackjob living on the fringes of society?
Dr. Daniel Jackson: That really depends on who you ask.

Trivia: The film is dedicated to the memory of Paul McCann, 32, and Anthony Huntrod, 20, of the HMS Tireless, who died in an accident during the filming of the arctic scenes of ‘Stargate: Continuum’.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

In order to make this film, Guillermo del Toro turned down Halo (2009), I Am Legend (2007), One Missed Call (2008), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). And it certainly shows in the cinematography, the wonderful world he has created and the attention to detail. Detail such as the damaged mask of Kroenen from the first film can be seen in a glass case at the BPRD headquarters.

Raging gun battles, bullet time, cameos from famous "retired" actors. These are just some of the things you won't find in Hellboy 2.

OK, your basic plot:
Man, having in ancient times broken a pact with the elves and other magical creatures is nearly wiped out by a mechanical indestructible golden army controlled by a crown worn by the elf king. When he saw how devastating the army was, the king ordered the army to be hidden and broke the crown into three pieces. One he gave to the humans as a gesture of good faith, the others he kept for himself. Now, one half of Bros, sorry Prince Nuada wants to awaken the army and wage war on human-kind. Guess who has to stop him?

There are a couple of oddities. For a start Doug Jones who played and voice Abe Sapien in the first movie but was subsequently overdubbed by David Hyde Pierce has been allowed to voice Abe this time, except that now he has to do so while impersonating David Hyde Pierce. And there is that huge plothole to worry about. The script has to tip-toe around its edges the whole time.

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PLOTHOLE: Princess Nuala (Nuada's twin sister) has the third part of the crown. They are linked together, hurt one and you injure them both. When King Balor orders Buada's death for stealing the human's part of the crown, he is also ordering the death of Nuala as well since she will die along with Nuada. She says she is at peace with this decision. Yet only at the end of the film when Nuada is about to kill Hellboy does Nuala realise that if she kills herself, then she defeats Nuada. Presumably because if she realised this earlier, you'd have a much shorter film.

---

Having said that the film is very enjoyable. Seth MacFarlane was a particular joy as the voice of Johann Krauss. The fights are very well staged, the sets are impressive and the story is quite good. It's let down a little by the characterisation in places, but it's more than made up for by being fun to watch.

I think overall the film suffers from the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull syndrome; removing the Nazis as the bad guys may not have been the best idea.

Score: B-
For the plothole. It's a stunning and beautiful film.

OQ: Industible, my ass.

Trivia:

From the Bureau of Spelling and Punctuation: When Johann speaks German it is generally nonsense, and sometimes the grammar is incorrect.

From the "Ha! Bet'cha regret that now, don't ya?" file: Revolution Studios was originally set to produce this sequel but had to pull out once Sony decided they no longer wanted to fund Revolution Studios. Sony put the rights up for sale since they felt Hellboy wasn't a profitable franchise for them. Universal felt differently and bought the rights to make the sequel immediately.

And from the "Sweet Lord, you need to get out and get a life" file: Hellboy is shown watching "Howdy Doody" (1954) on Christmas Eve 1955. Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday that year, and "Howdy Doody" aired Monday-Friday.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

After the disaster that was Attack of the Clones' ending*, Star Wars fans were clamouring for more action. This was promptly delivered in a short animated series. Very short. Each episode was exactly three minutes long, which most fans said was precisely 27 minutes too short. The whole season end to end is about an hour long. And then the only channel to show the series did so by replacing certain advert breaks with the episodes, so it because very difficult to watch the whole thing in the right order.

The series was intended to bridge the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. It was highly stylised, very expressive and created by the same people who brought us Samurai Jack. Each character had been recreated in such a way as to be unique, but still very recognisable. There were two seasons of this (or three if you're American and rejigged it).

After Revenge of the Sith, Lucasarts gave up on making episodes 7, 8 & 9 and decided to embark on a series of TV shows**, one life action and one animated. Clone Wars is a film intended to kick off that animated series.

All of which leads to a film which if you haven't seen the animated series, would lead you to look at it and say "What the fluff was that?" The characters are 3D versions of the original cell animated series characters, so they're not as detailed as you would expect from a feature film, but are about par with a TV show.

There is some attempt to provide a little more back story, but it is brushed aside and relegated to wherever explosions aren't taking place, which is a limited amount of real estate. Anakin has an apprentice; Ahsoka Tano (about the only "new" character in the entire movie). However since so much of what is about to come has already been on the big screen, it becomes hard to care about a lot of the characters or become concerned for their safety. "She can't die because she's in the next film." "He can't die, because he gets killed in the next film." "She can't die because she got killed in the series." "He won't get shot because he's in the next film." And so on... In fact, there's only really one character who could possibly be in real danger throughout the entire film. Which kind of spoils it for me, I'm sorry to say.

Add to this a strange mix of voice casting. Only about half the actors in Revenge of the Sith reprised their roles for this. Most of the "classics" are present; Ian Abercrombie as Palpatine and Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, and Christopher Lee is back to play Dooku because frankly, who else could? Even Samuel L. Jackson comes back to play Mace Windu, though his part is small. And the voices for Jabba and Yoda are very good. Even the guy now doing the voices of the clone troopers is so close that I didn't realise it was a different actor. But Amidala, Anakin, and Obi-Wan have all been re-cast, for obvious reasons. And while the replacements do an able job, they just aren't quite right. Because they have so much screen time, little differences in the voices soon become annoying. Particularly when you realise that this man is imitating Ewan McGregor channelling Alec Guinness. And never being one to shy away from giving someone a kick when they're down, we're shown that once again an inanimate object (in this case a render-farm) can out act Hayden Christensen. I really wish that were a joke, but the animated character manages to emote more than Hayden did in the whole of episode 3.

Score: C Average, and watchable, but nothing special.

OQ: I hate Hutts...

Trivia:

• The official Star Wars website announced that the film will lead the way for a television series will debut in the fall of '08. The TV series will air on Cartoon Network, TNT, as well as CTV in Canada.
• This film will be the first animated ‘Star Wars’ feature film in theatres.
• This film will also be the first 'Star Wars' film not to be released by 20th Century Fox (Warner Bros. Pictures will handle distribution on behalf of Lucasfilm Ltd.).
• This will also be the first "Star Wars" film that won't have Frank Oz providing the voice of Yoda. Tom Kane provides the voice.
• The first Star Wars film not to have John Williams composing the music.
• This is the first ‘Star Wars’ film not to open in the month of May.

*Disaster in that the audience wanted to see the actual clone wars, but George for some reason decided to gloss over them almost entirely, so you see how they start and how they end and that's about it.

**Most Star Wars fans were instantly terrified by this announcement because Lucasarts have attempted two TV series before; Ewoks and the now non-canon Droids. Ewoks was truly dreadful and Droids, while entertaining was essentially The Littlest Hobo, except with droids. And in space. And now it's totally irrelevant as the story-line it followed no longer fits within the revised story-line set out in episodes 1-3.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

I was going to launch into a scathing attack on this film, but a funny thing happened on the way to the review...

I realised I'd rather enjoyed this.

Most Adam Sandler films I can take or leave. Happy Gilmore is probably my favourite and while this film isn't that memorable, it is certainly funny in places and well written. The physical gags are pretty good as are a lot of Sandler's lines.

Gets a tad preachy towards the end and has the usual slushy ending, as you'd expect.

Score: C Enjoyable and quite funny in places.

OQ: OK! I have your mother one more time and we go!

Trivia:

• Co-writer Robert Smigel revealed that the movie was mostly written in the year 2000, but it was delayed after 9/11 due to the terrorist themes in the film.
• Adam Sandler's character Zohan was loosely based off of a real-life hairstylist named Nezi Arbib in Solana Beach of San Diego, California. Sandler and the film crew came to the stylist (who was in fact a former Israeli soldier turned stylist) in order for Sandler himself to learn different hairstyling techniques and mannerisms.
• Throughout the film, Zohan and other Israeli characters use various Hebrew words and phrases. These include, but are not limited to, Aba - Father; Ima - Mother; B'seder - Okay; and Faygelah - Homosexual.
• Sandler's longtime friend and former college roommate, Eric Lamonsoff, who was previously mentioned in both The Wedding Singer (1998) and Click (2006/I), makes his debut film appearance as Hamdi's Passenger.
• Most of the guns used by the Zohan and the terrorists in the film are weapons manufactured by Israeli Military Industries (such as the Uzi submachine gun, Galil assault rifle, and the Jericho 941 and Desert Eagle handguns).
• The Arabic text on The Phantom's head band spells SH-B-H, or 'Shabbah'.
• Adam Sandler's daughter, Sadie, and wife, Jackie, make an appearance at the end of the movie. His daughter is seen taking a "Goat Ride", while his wife holds onto her.

Made of Honour

Now before I get accused of going to see a "chick flick", I should point out that I got pulled along to see this by my sister, who no amount of debate could I convince to see Iron Man instead. I had been half looking forward to it, because the trailers made it look like a romantic comedy but with a twist on the genre.

Trailer lie. Although it has its moments and had some genuine laugh out loud scenes, it is still highly formulaic and clichéd. It also has one fairly huge plot-hole.

In addition to this, Made of Honour is so twee that it is about as offensive to Scottish people as it is possible to get. Seriously, it makes "Loch Ness" starring Ted Danson look like a balanced documentary. I actually promised myself that if anyone said "Och aye the noo", then I was going to walk out. Unfortunately, no-one did.

OK, for anyone interested, here's the plothole. The two leads are best friends, and their friendship is based on complete and total honesty, so Tom would tell Hannah if clothes didn't suit her and she'd tell him if his taste in art was juvenile. Yet when she introduces her fiancé that she only met a month ago, he doesn't once try to point out that she barely knows the man or that he isn't compatible, such as when he shoots wild game in Scotland, because she hates blood sports.

Score: ??

OQ: Wouldn't you be more....comfortable in a...a...20?

WALL-E

Short newspaper like review: Brilliant. Absolutely stunning. A must see.

Plot from trailer: Humans, having made a mess of the Earth, leave en mass and leave behind an army of WALL-E robots to clean up the planet. But 700 years later they still haven't returned and only one robot is still functioning.

And from that a brilliant story about heroics, romance, robots, spaceships and corrupt corporations emerges.

It has some unusual elements for a Pixar movie. For a start, there's a real person in it! Fred Willard as the CEO of BnL, seen in video messages. A little surreal, but he's definitely the right choice in the role. Second, and as some have mentioned, the humans are badly defined. All the same size/shape, with very little to give them any character. But this is deliberate for two reasons; the robots are the real stars of the show, and they're brilliantly realised but more importantly the humans have no character because of the . Sorry, but you'll understand when you see it.

And thirdly, the ship's autopilot is played by an actual computer. It's not an actor, but in fact MacinTalk, a text to speech program that comes with Macintosh computers Very unusual, but very well done. There's a lot of Apple references in this movie. For those who know their sci-fi, they might be able to make guesses about AUTO.

In fact, the only big name star that I recognised was Sigourney Weaver as the ship's computer. The guy playing WALL-E (and most of the other robots) is better known as a sound designer than an actor. Not that you'll have much chance to listen for the first thirty minutes of the film, as it is nearly devoid of dialogue up until that point.

As you'd expect, the film is crammed with loads of visual references, inside jokes and gags. It's a joy to watch.

The opening short animation; Presto is genius. As Alasdair said: never has CGI come closer to Tex Avery...

Score: A++ It's not quite as good as Toy Story, but then....what is?

OQ: I didn't know we had a pool!

Meet Dave

Caught this at an advance preview, which sounds all glitzy and glamorous, but in reality still costs £6 admission, contains a complete lack of anything resembling a red carpet and has about as much chance of me rubbing shoulders with Kiera Knightly as shouting "Expecto Petronum!" would cause a bright light to explode from my wand. I've clearly carried this metaphor too far.......

Meet Dave is about...... You see I haven't thought this through. I've started trying to explain what the film's basic premise is, but I have no idea how to finish that sentence because it's so plainly bizarre. Bunch of tiny space people travel to Earth in a starship that looks human. Eddie Murphy plays the captain of the ship and the ship itself, Dave.

If I were a harsh man, I would review Meet Dave using the following sentence: Eddie Murphy, a man never afraid to work himself stupid playing several parts in a movie, reaches for new levels of insanity to play both the captain and the starship he commands.

One does get the vague impression that this is a film designed to promote a single joke. After years of seeing Murphy play as many characters as possible, as in the Norbit trailer "Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy stars in Norbit!", Meet Dave is a chance to see Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy.

Most of the reviews online have started with phrases like "Mildly redeeming", "Another safe movie from Murphy" and "Better then Norbit", which in my eyes wouldn't be difficult. Norbit was, in every sense of the word, painfully unfunny to watch.

The concept is a pretty good one, but I left with the impression that the film had taken the safe route with every possibly joke about a bunch of tiny people living inside a person. Whereas Norbit was filmed well (apparently) but then butchered in the editing room, Meet Dave just feels like the script could have done with one more last minute polish.

Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union star as the love interests of both big Dave and little Dave, which is phrase that sounds far dodgier than it did in my head.

Overall, the film panders too much to it's core audience, which I can only imagine are tweenie* kids. Any younger and the jokes would miss the target, any older and...well the jokes would miss the target. And that's a pretty narrow age bracket to aim a film at.

Sadly the whole set-up is almost completely let down by the acting of Ed Helms as "Number Two". While everyone else is very much playing it straight, Ed is hamming it up like his life ambition is to win a Razzie**.

Score: D+
Definitely one for the kids. Woody Allen's "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex" already did every joke imaginable about tiny people living inside a person, and did it better.

OQ: I am Dave Ming-Cheng!

Plus points: Only one advert, but the usual number of trailers. Very much appreciated.

*As in "tweenager" - kids in the 11-14 age group. Not quite teenager. It's not a phrase I invented and I'm taking no responsibility for it.

**Exactly the opposite of an Oscar. The sort of award no actor wants to win. Categories include: Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie.

Wanted

It's been said that part of the appeal of shows like The Tomorrow People is that it connects with its audience at a personal level. In the case of The Tomorrow People, a group of teenagers develop fantastical powers of teleportation, telepathy and mental prowess. This "break-out" was always preceded by wild mood swings, hearing voices in their heads and a certain disconnection with the rest of the world.

As their primary audience was teenagers, this connected because those kids going through puberty would be experiencing very similar conditions. It made the audience feel like part of the show.

James McAvoy attempts something similar in Wanted. He's a bored office worker, stuck in a cubicle with a boss he hates and a job that doesn't matter to him. He life is crap and he knows it. This method is used to illicit sympathy and a sense of familiarity with his situation. As a way of drawing the audience in, it works remarkably well...up to a point. And that point is when the film totally jumps the shark. While passing through a burning ring. Using the Devil's own motorbike. Backwards.

You know that part in From Dusk Till Dawn, where the film jumped genres? Well imagine that, but imagine it jumping into a genre that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Like turning into a sci-fi movie. Or a badly dubbed Japanese martial arts movie. That's pretty much how far Wanted jumps.

Look, if the fact that the guild of assassins are taking orders from fate, via the medium of binary code in the form of missed stitches from a giant weaving loom is the most sensible part of your plot, then you know you're in trouble as a scriptwriter. Unless your name is M Night. Shamalan, of course.

Strangely, if you can ignore this problem, the film is enormous fun to watch. It had the audience laughing, it's got some great, insane stunts and some good one-liners. And, as Gavin has already pointed out, it's almost worth the admission price for seeing Angelina's arse. Seriously, if Michelangelo had decided to make a Davina instead of his David, I'm pretty sure it would be something close to hers.

It was nice to see Hustle's Marc Warren in a big film. He really does well in this. But James McAvoy really has come into his own. You wouldn't think he isn't American based on this movie.

Trivia: There's a Ukrainian law that forbids cinemas to show films in Russian. As a result, many Ukrainians travelled to Russia to view the movie in Russian. During the chase sequence in which Wesley drives the Mustang and Fox drives the C4 Corvette, a camera shot briefly shows Fox's hand down shifting from above. However, it shows the shift lever from the Dodge Viper used earlier in the movie.

Score: Difficult to rate this one. It's definitely a bad film in terms of sensible plot. In fact if you actually try to think the whole thing through, you'll wind up with a headache. On the other hand it's a very good no-brainer action movie with comedy in parts.

Action: B+
Comedy: C+
Sensibility: F--

OQ: This is me taking control of my life...

Hancock

Another film I saw a couple of weeks back but haven't had time to review until now.

I know that most reviews, and indeed most people I talked to about it have said that Hancock is a movie in two parts. An excellent super-hero first part let down by a mediocre second part. And to be honest, it's beginning to worry me. Not that I can't see what they're talking about, but because I never picked up on this until they mentioned it. It's making me worry that my mind is losing its attentive powers.

The first half is very good. Great super-hero stuff with a brilliant twist; he's drunk. It's almost an antithesis to Wanted. Less focus on the action, more on the story. In fact, while the tagline of Wanted is "Kill one, save a thousand", Hancock's motto while drunk could well be "Save one, kill a train." He clearly wants to help, otherwise he wouldn't even turn up. But more often than not a drunk superhero is worse than no superhero at all. The highway chase scene from the trailer is a scene of carnage after he shows up.

Personally I found the change to the second half a bit shocking, but in a good way. I didn't see it coming, and in fact I'm not going to spoil it for you. It's one of those you need to see for yourself, like finding out who Luke Skywalker's pappy was. It adds an interesting dynamic to the story and really forces you to chose between the viewpoints of two characters.

I honestly liked the ending. Hancock having to turn his back on one world to save the only person who will ever understand him. A bit sappy in places but fun nevertheless.

Score: B+

OQ: Call me that....one more time.

Sex and the City

Are there seriously no other reviews of this? Is it just me and Robert (who hasn't even seen it)? I can't help but wonder.......where all the other review are?

OK, so you've watched the TV show so you know what to expect. It's funny, sad, romantic, and very well written. I won't spoil the plot for you, but it is in keeping with the TV show. Carrie doesn't get kidnapped by aliens or anything like that.

There's a short review of where all the characters are at the beginning. Oddly, although the TV theme tune does show up now and again, they've not tried to use it for the main title sequence. Running time is about right, there's no unnecessary characters, although there are a few cameos from the series.

I enjoyed it immensely.

Score: C+
Entertaining and fun to watch.

Blade: Trinity

The Blade films are a bit of a mixed bunch. Popular enough to spawn a TV spin-off. Not popular enough to get that TV show renewed for a second year. They've had a troubled history at the box office too.

I got into Blade when a friend gave me the first film on VHS. Yes, Blade really is that old. My main impression was that the film was a very modern take on the vampire genre. I didn't really enjoy Blade 2, and I can't really pin down why. I think in the end it came down to a film that swung too far towards gritty and violent and too far away from funny.

Having seen Blade: Trinity for the first time last night on Channel Four, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ryan Reynolds annoyed a lot of people with his quipping in this, but I found him a good counter balance for Blade's cynicism.

Sure the plot's more full of holes than Swiss cheese and as thin as paper, but it doesn't seem to matter. It's a great vampire action movie and you never get tired of seeing vamps incinerate into ash. The action pieces are very well crafted, the dialogue is good and the one liners are bountiful.

Score: C+
Entertaining and fun to watch. Just don't expect Bram Stoker to approve.

OQ: Well, this is embarrassing...

Iron Man

All I knew going in to this film was that there was scene at the end, after the credits that I needed to stay and watch.

Well, that's not entirely true, I know Iron Man's origin story and who he is, etc... But I've been looking forward to seeing this for months, ever since I saw the first trailer. It doesn't disappoint.

Right from the first scene I knew they'd got the right guy in Robert Downey Jr. His dry sense of humour is perfectly used, but he also breathes life into the character of Tony Stark showing the angst, pain and anger that turns a hedonistic weapons designer into an armoured crusader for justice.

It was great seeing Tony Stark develop his iron man suit, rather than just jumping to him having completed it, and some of the humour surrounding that. But also, seeing where he gets the idea for the suit initially and the problems it caused him.

Overall this film is on a par with the first Spider-man film. It's a slow film that introduces the characters and the setting, has some great action pieces and is really fun to watch. Even Stan Lee's obligatory cameo was handled well* and had a great joke attached.

I'm looking forward to a sequel already (and given the after credits scene, such a sequel could be very very good).

Score: A

OQ: .........Face it. This isn't the worst thing you've caught me doing.

In a shocking twist, it appears that the official video game of the film is actually pretty good!

*I know! Stan Lee's cameo and it didn't feel forced or out of place! What a shocker!

In The Shadow Of The Moon

I bought this purely on spec as it was a Ron Howard documentary about the Apollo project.

It's really good.

It contains interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts as well as re-mastered footage from the moon landings.

I'm a bit of a moon buff. I really enjoyed the From The Earth To The Moon series that Ron Howard and Tom Hanks produced, and this film was again full of trivia and little stories about the astronauts. For example, I knew that the navigation computer on the LEM effectively crashed twice on the decent. What I didn't know was that it was Buzz Aldrin's fault. Buzz is of course a nickname, but he has another nickname; "Doctor Rendezvous", because of his work on orbital rendezvous. Because he was concerned that the landing would be aborted, he left the rendezvous radar on so he could find the command module quickly. This radar continued feeding data to the computer, while it was simultaneously receiving data from the landing radar. The computer couldn't cope with this and spat out error message 12 02 (buffer over-run).

Also in the film are the usual shots of the spacecraft that we are familiar with, but the re-mastering really brings them to life and a lot of footage will be new to most folk.

Score: 7/10 Good documentary, and quite funny in places.

OQ: Neil had been two seconds from death that morning but afterwards he'd got up and just gone back to his office to do paperwork.

Leatherheads

I'm not certain why this film is getting the pasting it is, because it certainly doesn't deserve it.

It's a, by all accounts, fairly accurate if somewhat embellished story of how football (or American football to us limeys) became the nation's favourite sport. It starts in 1925 and immediately highlights the difference between college football with their young stars and thousands of spectators and "professional" football where the players travel the country, trying to make enough money to buy food, board and train fair to their next game.

Dodge Connolly (George Clooney) has a plan to get the game into the big time, by borrowing an up and coming war hero turned college football star Carter Rutherford, who has his face advertising everything from shaving razors to gasoline. However Rutherford is hiding a secret and reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellwegger) is out to bust him.

Where the film does drag is the whole war hero part, which seems to be included only to alternate between it and the football story. I think it works though, because the only other reasonable story that could be focussed on is the romance between Dodge and Lexie, which I think would have been distracting rather than diverting.

Is this film trying to be "Welcome to Colinwood"? Well, I don't know, I've never seen it. But it's very well shot, the sets are very impressive and the story's quite good. The problem seems to be that it's a historical film about a sport that few in the UK care about. As such, its main hook for the audience doesn't work well. Take a look at the UK trailer. There's not one mention of football at all, and it appears to be marketed as a romantic comedy, which it certainly isn't. It is funny, and it does have romance, but it's mainly about a handful of players and the birth of a national game.

Oh, and in case you were wondering where the film's name comes from, it's because in the 1920s all players wore leather helmets during the game.

Score: C
It's not a great film by any standards, but I found it enjoyable and worth a look. This commentary may be marred by the fact that because of my Cineworld pass, I didn't pay £6 to see it.

OQ: There has to be a better way to advertise starch...

Bender's Big Score

It's a worrying time when the first sign of senile dementia sets in. Especially if this occurs before your thirtieth birthday.

I of course, being a big Futurama fan, ordered the direct to DVD feature length episode "Bender's Big Score" as soon as it became available, as well as preordering Stargate's "The Ark of Truth". Arriving home last night I found two packages from Play.com. My initial excitement that perhaps the Stargate release date had slipped forward was dismissed when it turned out that at some point in the past I had preordered Bender's Big Score, and promptly forgotten about it. Or perhaps one of these is a temporal copy of the other one?

Thus, I am now the proud owner of two copies of this DVD.

I've always preferred Futurama to The Simpsons.I've just found the humour better, more surreal and quite often very cerebral. I could make a joke that this is why Americans didn't like it, but the main reason it was cancelled was because studio executives fully understand what the show was about.

There's a great opening where Professor Farnsworth is explaining that the idiots who cancelled them were in fact themselves fired for incompetence. The Box Network visual gag is very good. Then Leela asks "What does this mean for us and our many fans?" while standing in front of a rack full of desk fans. As soon as I saw that, I knew they were back on form.

The pace is maintained throughout, not even slowing down for the musical number. There were a couple of unnecessary cameos but on the whole, it was well written and very funny.

Score: A

OQ: Well....we're boned.

Stargate SG 1: The Ark of Truth

The first of the direct to DVD movies that Stargate has jumped medium to. This film is intended to wrap up those loose threads left unresolved at the end of the series. I don;t want to spoil it for you, as it's something you probably want to see first time yourself, but I can say it's very good. It starts well, keeps up the pace throughout and has a satisfactory conclusion. The character interaction is still an important part of the mix, and no-one is sidelined. Each character is used well and nothing feels out of place or forced. There's also the usual comedy moments, which I realised I had missed terribly from the TV show.

Overall, the look and feel is exactly like an episode from the series, albeit a little longer with a bit more budget for special effects.

Personally I hope that this new business model works for them. It would be a great wake up call to the Hollywood TV producers that the DVD market can more than cover your production costs, if the show is good quality with a loyal fan following. Hell it could even pave the way for cancelled shows to make a comeback in a new format. Here's hoping.

Score: A But then, I'm a huge Stargate fan.

OQ: .... Ahh...now that would be a spoiler, wouldn't it?

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

...or "Why pushy parents should be taken out and shot."

Caught this on BBC 4 last night, and it was surprisingly good. Not that it shouldn't haven been, given the names attached, it's just that biographical films are not generally my bag. Still, I found it very watchable.

Starting with his radio career and his desire to break into films, the story concentrates on the self imposed tragedy of his private life. There are some up-beat moments, such as when he fools the casting director of his first film into thinking he's an eighty year old war veteran, after first being rejected for not looking the part. This first break catapulting him into stardom, which the film cleverly completely skips over in order to avoid detracting from the main story. But behind all his success, right up until her death was his pushy mother. A woman who instilled in him the idea that fame comes at the cost of your friends and family, but it's a price worth paying. This isn't to place all the blame for his problems with his mother, it's clear he's a deeply flawed individual. Geoffrey Rush plays him in an almost child like state, throwing tantrums whenever things don't go his way. But her pushy and demanding nature certainly didn't help him.

Only two of his four marriages are shown in the film, his first wife Anne and second, Britt Ekland (played wonderfully by Charlize Theron). Whether the film takes artistic licence or not, the implication is that both of these marriages broke down because of Sellers' selfish nature. The scene where he tells his two children and wife Anne that he loves them, just not as much as Sophia Loren is stomach churning, not least because his affair with Loren is all in his head.

Whenever something traumatic happens in Sellers' life, the narrative changes completely to Rush (as Sellers) stepping into the role of one of the other characters (Anne, his mother, Blake Edwards) as the world around the scene turns out to be a studio set, and shows Sellers re-editing his own life, altering their dialogue to create the happy ending he never had. It's quite evocative, rather unusual, but it strikes home because this is something that everyone has done in their own lives at some point.

Later in his life, he comes to despise the characters he has created and strikes out to do something completely different. However financial urgencies force him to do one more Pink Panther film. Ultimately when he does finally make a film that really matters to him, playing Chance the gardener in 'Being There', the film cuts to Sellers watching the movie on TV in an empty house. Having finally won the critical acclaim he always strove for, he now has no-one to share his success with.

Score: C+
Not usually my thing, but very watchable if a little sad.

OQ: You think he was harsh to me? He was. But that just means he learnt his lesson.

Vantage Point

Vantage Point is the sort of film that makes you want to run up to the director, shake him vigorously for ten minutes and say "Well? How do you like it?" There's a lot of shaky-cam. A lot*.

The film leans heavily on its use of showing the same event from eight points of view. In fact without this storytelling technique, it would be quite a dull film. Also a shorter film. The story is fairly compelling, although it's just not enough of a plot to fill the time on its own. It is filled with plot twists and cliffhangers. And when I say filled, I mean filled like a foot long Sub of the day with everything in it that's so big you get lockjaw trying to bite into it.

The constant cliffhanger and reset used throughout gets really irritating about half way through. I felt like I was watching an episode of Lost. "I'm never going to get any answers, am I?" was a nagging thought that kept popping up. The film seems to be an answer to the question nobody cared about; How many cliffhangers can you get in one film? It is constantly perforated with people looking at something out of camera shot going "Oh My God!" before rushing off and the focus immediately jumping to the next person. By about the fourth one of these I could hear the audience shifting in their seats and feel their frustration. Fortunately, the producer seems to be aware of how irritating this is and at about this point, the focus shifts into "more action, less faffing about".

After the twist in the middle (this isn't really a spoiler as there are so many twists), the film does pick up pace a lot, almost like it's looked at its watch and realised how little time is left before the end. However, this doesn't really make amends for torturing us with cliffhangers for the first half of the film.

I guess the moral of the story is that terrorists are quite happy to shoot hostages, assassinate presidents and blow up plazas full of people, but they won't run over small children or cute animals who have wandered into the road. So really, all we need to do is surround all our important buildings with small children and cute animals and they'll be perfectly safe. Also, the closer you stand to a bomb, the better your chances of survival with only a few cuts and bruises seem to be.

Score: C- A distinctly average plot bolstered by a tired and overused narration technique.

OQ: "Oh My God!"

*You can always tell the films where the city council refused to let them drive cars at high speed through the streets. They use shakycam to cover the fact that the "car chase" is being driven at 30 miles an hour.

Knight Rider (2008)

A new Knight Rider? Blasphemy, I say! Or said, when I first heard about this film being made. For some very strange reason, I thought this was a cinematic release. It isn't. It's a TV movie.

Now I know that a few of you are already heading for the exit hearing those words. And to be honest, I almost joined you. But I thought; I'll give it a go.

The whole thing feels very much like a long pilot for a TV show. That prospect had be shivering. Knight Rider was brought back a few years ago in the guise of TKR (Team Knight Rider). Team Knight Rider was dreadful Watching it was arse-wrenching (like gut-wrenching but much worse).

The only way to convey how bad it was, is to compare it to other horrors of TV and Film. For Star Wars fans, it's like watching the Star Wars Holiday Special (something that according to every fan who has seen it should never be attempted sober). For Star Trek fans, it's like watching a director's cut of Generations, where Picard travels across time to rescue Kirk, whereupon they fall in love, move to Venice Beach and set up a nightclub where Picard performs showtunes, dressed as a woman.

With my expectations set suitably low, I bunged this on and had a gander. It's surprisingly good.

The technology of KITT has been updated considerably. Instead of an indestructible shell, he now has a nano-morph skin that regenerates damage almost instantly. The effect for this is suitably impressive. They've kept the "super-pursuit" mode, but updated it so it doesn't look so naff. And having KITT be able to mimic other cars (albeit only other Shelby Cobras) is a nice and rather logical addition.

The story is what you'd expect from Knight Rider. Bad guys want to do bad things, KITT and his driver have to stop them. The lack of the Foundation for Law and Government was a major plot contrivance. This film also "de-canonises" Knight Rider 2000, the TV movie made with The Hoff after the TV series finished, and I can't shake the nagging feeling that something nasty has happened to the original KITT in the interim.

There are a few places where the CGI is a little obvious, and I'm not convinced that Val Kilmer was the best choice for KITT's voice. By all accounts he was a last minute choice after the original actor (Will Arnett - see trivia section) had to withdraw after he had recorded all his lines.

Soundtrack is quite good, updated title music is pretty neat and for the most part the special effects deliver. However if it does spawn a TVshow they're going to have to drop at least one character, as there's a couple too many in this film and they don't all have a major part to play.

Score: Overall it's a B - -

Trivia:

Originally, Will Arnett was cast as the voice of K.I.T.T. However, after he had finished recording his lines to everyone's satisfaction, a conflict of interest was raised. His is the distinctive voice heard on General Motors car and truck commercials, but K.I.T.T. is a Ford vehicle. As a result, Val Kilmer was cast as K.I.T.T.'s voice and all of the car's dialogue was re-recorded.

In the beginning, as the thieves are going through the garage, you can see many of the parts from a third generation Firebird, including the outline of an opened hood, a Tune Port Injected engine, as well as the dash of the Knight Industries Two Thousand. Continuity (which I spotted):

When Welther and Smoke are pursuing KITT and Sara in the helicopter, the exterior of the black helicopter is shown three times and each time it is a different helicopter.

Rambo

Isn't it odd? Stallone wanted to call his first Rocky film "Rocky Balboa" but had to shorten the title because the studio was concerned about a limited audience, and he wanted to call his first Rambo film "Rambo" but had to lengthen it to "Rambo: First Blood" because the studio was worried that the title was too ambiguous.

I saw an interview with Stallone about this film where he said that at his age he has to approach every project with the thought in mind that if this is his last film, how does he want to be remembered. So with the final Rambo film, he wanted to show the real horror of war. With the previous films in the Rambo legacy, the violence was sometimes so violent that it bordered on black comedy. There were times (and I'm thinking of a particular scene with a waterfall and an exploding arrow here), where I expected there to be a paid of comedy legs standing after the explosion. There is a sort of homage to that in this film, but it's done not for comedy or just to shock, but merely to show that the human body is not best equipped to deal with the sudden and catastrophic loss of it's own head.

This film is gritty, bloody and in places fairly disturbing, and it is made all the more unpleasant for being very very true to life. The Burmese government was very unhappy with the way their country was portrayed in this film, particularly their army as a group of barbaric drug dealers engaged in mass genocide. To which I always thought that the best response from the film-makers would have been: "But you are...."

The action scenes are very bloody and gory. Let's put it this way. This film really works hard for its 18 certificate. There's been a lot of criticism about the level of violence in this movie, but in all honesty it's about par with films like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. I think most critics are harsh on this because they have this view that historic films about the second world war are important and have something to say about noble sacrifice, whereas films about modern conflict do not. Which is a ridiculous position to take, since it implies that films about the deaths of soldiers sixty years ago are more important than films about people dying today. Whether Stallone intended it or not*, this film brings home the message that horrible things are happening to people all over the world right now, and if his intention was to show that war is not heroic and noble, but bloody and unpleasant then he's succeeded by a country mile. His point seems to be; there's no such thing as nobility in war.

The film is both written and directed by Stallone, and he's done a good job on both fronts.

Score: C+/B- Kind of teeters on the edge there. But then, it's a Rambo film, so you'll already know if you'll like it.

OQ: You're not changin' anything...

Although banned in Myanmar (formally Burma) by the military government, bootlegs of the movie are a hot item. Burmese Freedom Fighters have even adopted dialogue from the movie (most notably "Live for nothing, or die for something") as rallying points and battle cries. "That, to me," said Sylvester Stallone, "is one of the proudest moments I've ever had in film."

Has a kill count of 236, the most for any Rambo film, which averages 2.59 killings per minute.

*And I think he did.

Jumper

Short review: A weak premise of a film with an ad-hoc plot bolted on in an attempt to keep the audience entertained. It doesn't work.

Longer review: Plot (from trailer): There's these people called jumpers who can teleport themselves see, and then there's these other people called paladins who want to kill all the jumpers.

Now as with most films, I knew the basic plot before I went. I was expecting that the film would fill in the gaps with more plot during the movie. What I wasn't expecting was that the plot I've outlined above would turn out to be the whole shabang. There's nothing else.

Characters pop in and out of the film like they're big name stars cameoing on a TV sitcom. Whole segments of character backstory are tossed in and out of conversation with a single line. Plot progression is sporadic and confusing, particularly so when showing the protagonist trying to do things a normal person could do. There's a good reason for it, but it's never laid out for you or hinted at. They just never take the thing to it's natural conclusion. It's like hearing the first half of a joke and never hearing the punchline.
The ending is a complete cop out.

I could go on slinging mud at this film. So I will....

There's no motivation for the bad guys. In fact, so loose is the script and so little done to emote with the main characters, and (and I must say it) so bad is Hayden's acting*, that Samuel L Jackson is forced to ham it up to the extreme in order that you know he's the bad guy. If it weren't for this, I probably would have sided with his character during the film. He seems to get confused with his character motivation. At first he's killing jumpers for religious motivations "only god should be in all places at once", however later he admits that he's doing it because jumpers always turn bad. Hayden's character tries to convince him that he's different, but his character has no substance, no depth.

A much better film could have been made by blurring the line between the two sides so the audience doesn't know who's good and who's bad.

Score: D- I'm annoyed with the film, not because it was bad but because it had a lot of potential and threw it away.

OQ: There's no OQ as this film has no memorable lines.

Trivia: The roles of Davey and Millie were originally cast with Tom Sturridge and Teresa Palmer. After 2 months of filming and inflating production costs, Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson were recast as the leads. This really explains a lot.

Eminem turned down an offer to star.

The crew was allowed to film inside the Colosseum for three days under the condition that no equipment could be placed on the ground. Shooting was allowed only between 6.30 and 8.30 am and again at 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm to avoid disturbing tourists. The only lighting allowed was natural sunlight.

*In fact this is another film that features two actors playing the same part, with Hayden playing the older version of the character. And yet again, the younger actor is better. By some margin.

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

Mmmmm.......not sure what I can say about this film.

It's certainly entertaining, it's got good action pieces, it continues the tradition of breaking into impossible places, it's got a good story.

Except, you could easily add the words "just not as good as the first one." to all of the above statements. The story is virtually identical, with a few trips down cliché boulevard to trick you into thinking it's different. The action pieces are broadly similar, the clues they follow are presented in a similar manner (and order) and the finale is pretty much the same. All this being so noticeable detracts considerably from the sense of peril that should have underpinned the film. At no point did I ever feel a sense of danger.

Overall the whole enterprise smacks of "why did they bother?" It's basically a remake of the first film. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, it's a reasonably good action film. Just don't expect anything radically different or new.

Score: C-. Would probably have been a B- if I hadn't seen the first film.

OQ: Maybe one day I'll wear this to a party I'm actually invited to.

Trivia: According to IMDB, there are a plethora of lines in the US trailer that didn't appear in the film.

Because of her role in The Queen (2006), Helen Mirren was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II, but couldn't make the meeting because she was in South Dakota filming this movie.

Blue Thunder

Having my sister up to stay with me over the weekend, I thought I'd introduce her to some classic 80s cheese, and what could be cheesier than this?

I'm a big fan of Roy Scheider; The French Connection, 2010, SeaQuest DSV, the lot. I think he's a great actor who can put across a lot of emotion and depth of character. The man can emote more with one brief look than a lot of modern actors can with their whole repertoire.

Basic plot: Frank Murphy (Scheider) is an LA police helicopter pilot and along with his new partner/observer Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) is assigned to test out a new police riot response helicopter, Blue Thunder. A helicopter with more firepower than the entire Los Angeles SWAT division. While out playing with their new toy, the boys discover that the helicopter contractor along with Lt. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) are planning to stir up trouble in order to prove what the machine is capable of.

This film was made in 1983, but it feels like it came from the 70s, in terms of the way Murphy's relationships with colleagues and girlfriend are portrayed. There's lots of unspoken backstory that you have to work out for yourself and often you're not sure if the witty insults are just friendly banter or genuine hostility.

The final showdown pitches Murphy in Blue Thunder against a SWAT team, two F-16 and finally Cochrane in an attack helicopter, while Murphy's girl rushes to the TV studio with the evidence.

Score: C
Worth watching for the cheese factor, or if you're a Roy Scheider fan.

The TV show spin-off that followed scores a decidedly lower D-. Truly awful film-to-TV transition that throws away the film's final message in order to make some money for the studio. Presumably they were trying to recoup come of the money spent on the helicopter (which does look the mutt's whatsits).

OQ: Has one of the best lines in film history "You know he measures his sanity with a wristwatch." "What do you use? A dipstick?"

Man On Fire

I'm not normally into the revenge type stories that a lot of modern films use, with two notable exceptions: Breakdown and Man On Fire. Breakdown because it has the brilliant JT Walsh and Kurt Russell facing off against each other. Man On Fire uses several tricks to overcome the usually revenge-movie traps.

First, the lead character Creasy (Denzel Washington) isn't particularly likable at first. But he warms and begins to like Pita, the girl he's hired to protect from would-be kidnappers. Secondly, the kidnap of Pita and subsequent events leave no room for forgiveness in Creasy's mind. So as the audience, you don't feel any sympathy for them. Everything that happens to them is justifiable because they are the vilest people who ever walked the earth. And third, the film pulls away from the nastier stuff when Creasy is attacking the kidnappers, pulling back to wide shots with loud music. It's kind of the film equivalent of closing your eyes, sticking fingers in your ears and going "Nah nah nah I'm not listening!"

There are a lot of jump-shots, where the camera jerks aside and the image flashes. Normally I don't like these, but here they are used to great effect, to illustrate in a visible way Creasy's state of mind. When he is calm, the shots go away. When he gets angry, they return. It's a clever effect, even if it is seriously over-used and often used badly these days.

Very cop out ending, I thought. Too much Hollywood, not enough story. It's not the sort of film I would have gone to the cinema for, but I caught it on TV over the weekend, and I enjoyed it.

Stranger Than Fiction

Odd film this.

Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who's hearing a woman's voice, narrating his life.

Dr. Mittag-Leffler: I'm afraid what you're describing is schizophrenia.
Harold Crick: No, no. It's not schizophrenia. It's just a voice in my head. I mean, the voice isn't telling me to do anything. It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary.
Dr. Mittag-Leffler: Mr. Crick, I hate to sound like a broken record, but that's schizophrenia.

Emma Thompson in the narrator he's hearing: Karen Eiffel, an author who's trying to kill the lead character in her book, a book which she's been writing for the last 10 years. Harold does his best to ignore the voice up until the point where it tells him he's going to die in a week.

Will Ferrell is basically pulling a trick out of Jim Carrey's book and doing a straight film with comedy elements, ala The Truman Show. He pulls it off remarkably well, and given than for large parts of this film, he's the only one in the scene, it's quite impressive for someone thought of as 'just a comedy actor,' a phrase that is one of the worst curses in Hollywood. Maggie Gyllenhall is cast perfectly as Anna, a romantic lead required to avoid being a-typical Hollywood stunning and beautiful, but instead to entice and captivate Harold's heart.
Dustin Hoffman plays a professor of literature helping Harold. The quiz he gives him had me giggling.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: What is your favorite word?
Harold Crick: Integer.

The story is quite slow paced, and although it does have humour, there's little in the 'laugh-out-loud' category. That's not a problem as the story is both bizarre and straight-laced and that level of comedy would have swamped it and drowned out the message completely.

Utterly brilliant ending. Thoroughly recommended.

Score: B. Entertaining, but not the all out comedy I had been promised by the trailer.

OQ: Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing.

Trivia: To portray someone not sleeping and plagued with writer's block, Emma Thompson wore no make-up during the filming.