Should American Heroes Be American?

The list of American heroes is long and filled with people whose names resonate across the very fabric of time and space. From Spider-Man to Green Lantern, from Jack Bauer to House, they are all.... well, you get the idea. None of America's biggest heroes are actually played by Americans. Spider-Man and Batman are British, Green Lantern is Canadian or something, and even President Obama is secretly from Africa (but don't tell anyone). Why are so few Americans being given American parts? Why are they forced to take on roles like Sherlock Holmes if they want to play an iconic role? American jobs for American people! British jobs for British people.

Superman is not American. It's well-known that he comes from the Marlonbrandoverse, a dark place where everyone talks with their mouth full and you can't quite tell what's happening but everyone seems reverential. Well... really he's from outer space, but then again so was Marlon Brando. So the appointment of a British guy as Superman isn't a bad thing at all. The problem here, which fans have not really pointed out yet, is that Clark Kent - Superman's racist alter-ego - *is* American. While Superman presumably speaks like a Mafia don, Clark Kent is designed to be a steretypical human and so bumbles, stumbles, and indeed mumbles his way through life. With an American accent. Superman sounds like an overrated actor, while Clark Kent sounds American. This is how it has always been.

So why haven't the studios cast an American to play Clark Kent? Well, for one thing, the most iconic thing about Superman is how pathetic his disguise is. A single pair of glasses and a tie immediately stop the most recognisable face on the planet from being, well, recognised. If suddenly Superman started to display even a small amount of self-awareness regarding disguising himself, it would be declared out-of-character and comic fans worldwide would stampede. For another thing, American actors should be glad that they're finally starting to escape typecasting.

Spider-Man, Clark Kent - these very American heroes all have one thing in common: they're idiots. Peter Parker spends all his time pining after a woman who is IN LOVE WITH SPIDER-MAN. There's an easy way to reconcile that, Peter, if you just stop and think about it for a few minutes. Likewise, Wolverine is a grumpy bugger with no sense of personal space, while Green Lantern Hal Jordan is a chauvinist. Let's look at these characteristics: loser, misanthrope, misogynistic, paranoid, pessimistic. Are these the characteristics of an American, or of a British person?

Superheroes are a lot like stand-up comedians. While they look awesome when they're performing, they are often broken hollow shells of a person, mental and rabid. Why would any American actor want to do that, when British people have been playing mental and rabid characters FOR YEARS? Alan Rickman should've been Batman. Sean Bean could've been Captain America. Heck, who could be a more perfect Wonder Woman than Helen Mirren? British people have been typecast as villains for too long. It's only fair that now we get to portray dumb, unlikeable, self-serving superheroes like Mr Fantastic.

The Movie Industry Presents: Six Steps to making ‘The Smurfs’ an International Hit

You didn’t hear this from us, right? You got that recording device switched off? Right, good, lemme just finish this cigare—no wait, you Brits like to call them fags, dontcha? Alright, I got some stuff for you. It’s a list I got from the Movie Industry’s filing cabinet – it’s got the six steps they took to make sure that The Smurfs will become a big movie hit and everyone will go see it. Got all kinds of dirt in this case, y’know? So you’d better have come good with the money I asked for. You better… wait, what’s that in your violin case? That’s not a string instrument. Fact, kid, that looks like you’ve got a…. machine gun?! No… nooooo!!!

So began our investigation into how you promote a film like upcoming Summer Smash ‘The Smurfs’, which will see the blue critters return to the big screen to once more fend off the attacks of the evil Gargamel. You want to know which six criteria the production needed to meet? Well, here they are. Read this, then go see the film – it’s going to be totally smurf.


Step 1: None of the film is to be a cartoon. CGI that shit!

The original cartoon series was massively popular not just in America, but other financially viable markets such as Canada and Australia. We need to tap into these markets by turning everything into CGI and adding a third dimension to the storytelling. Then we can flog some more of those 3D glasses that utterly nobody is talking about! Kids are tired of only seeing things in two dimensions. With the Big Bang sealing off about nine dimensions to us during the beginning of time (true fact - Ed), all we have left to ramp up the action are the third and fourth dimensions. The third is easy, but the fourth will be difficult. Note: can we persuade kids to lick a cinema screen at certain times so they can ‘taste’ the different smurfs?


Step 2: Get real-life humans to interact with the fake-ass smurfs

How are people gonna know to root for Gargamel if he’s a computer character? Get an actor to dress up in monk gear and that, and put him in the world. So what if he complains that it’s nearly impossible to act as if a tonne of tiny blue creatures are running round his legs? Jason Lee managed it okay, didn’t he? Reminder – David Cross will sell out for anyone. Perhaps turn Brainy Smurf into a human and cast him as that?


Step 3: Get non-actors involved

Smurfette is iconic because weirdos want to bone her 7-inch body senseless. Let’s tap into that market by casting someone with a slutty reputation as her. Obviously this means we can’t hire an actress, unless Helen Mirren is up for it. Nah, but we’ll have to get someone else. How about that Katy Perry? She’s single, free, and available, right? We hire her, and people will flock to this film like the flock of flock that they are. Flock, I say!


Step 4: Make things more American

Original story? Too French! You want to be reminded of how they betrayed us during Iraq everytime you watch the film? We got to cut that out, and send the smurfs somewhere American. How about New York? They can go to the Statue Of Liberty – they’ll be small, it’ll be really big. Sells itself! We’re onto a winner here, boys. Let’s all take a raise. Hey – we could make New York real, and have the CGI smurfs run around in it! That makes almost so much sense that I can’t breathe!


Step 5: Appeal to the minorities

All the smurfs are black, right? I always assumed that, because they live in mud huts and are crushed by the heels of The Man. We need to appeal to people who don’t like black dudes – can we hire Michael Richards? Failing that, let’s get some token character-actors and include them in small cameos. I’m figuring we get George Lopez to play a smurf nobody’s ever heard of before, and maybe we can get someone gay to be a smurf? Alan Cumming, yeah, he’d work. Make him Vanity Smurf or something, play to those stereotypes everyone loves. What’s that? You hired him to be “gutsy” smurf? WTH does gutsy mean? I’m gonna have to get my dictionary out for that one, man.


Step 6: Make the poster suitable for kids and adults alike

Put the smurfs in there, but make it so it looks like smurfette is totally cussin’ out. Y’know, they use the word smurf instead of normal words? Well let’s have her replace f^%$ with smurf, right? Man, I’m tired from all these great ideas I’ve been having. I’m gonna have to have a lie down with some cocaine. Is your wife doing anything this evening?

Changing M. Night Shyamalan's Twists

M. Night Shyamalan is a busy man. When he isn’t releasing a stream of films which always feature a twist ending of some sorts, he’s… wait. No. That’s all he does. And Wilftonville isn’t really fond of any of these twists either. It’s all very well and good having them, but at least have ones which are interesting and will entertain people. Over the next few months we’re going to review the endings of each of his films in turn, to see what twists he should have incorporated into the scripts. As such, expect spoilers.


The Sixth Sense:

In The Sixth Sense Bruce Willis plays a doctor whose newest patient, a small boy, can see ghosts. Rather than drown the child for being a witch, Bruce investigates further and then realises he is a ghost and the whole thing is a wind-up. The kid can only see him in the first place because he’s one of the ghosts he’s come to help the kid stop seeing! This is played for farce, and eventually the boy introduces Bruce to a lovely young woman (played by Jennifer Garner) and they fall in love. As Bruce is dead, he has to convince the woman to kill herself by whispering in her ear so she thinks she’s crazy. Evrentually she takes an electric drill to her brain, and she and Bruce live happy ever after. In the ever after.

That’s well boring. Here’s how we think the film should end.


Haley Joel Osment: I can see dead people.

Bruce Willis: I know. Even though it’s impossible, I accept the fact that you can see dead people. Frankly, I find it creepy.

J-JO: Do you want to know my secret?

BW: The seeing dead people thing isn’t your secret?

J-LO: Don’t you wonder how I’m able to see dead people?

BW: I assumed you had spent lengthy periods of time around radiation.

J-LO: No, Bruce. I can see dead people because I am a Werewolf.

BW: Oh.

J-LO: Yeah.

BW: Well that explains everything to my satisfaction. I’m going to go solve my marriage problems now.

J-LO: Alright. See you later, Bruce!

BW: You alright, kid! You alright. Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mother Flipper.

Failure Films: Hot Rod

American comedy is single-handedly defined by the strength of the lead actor.

It doesn’t matter much about the plot or the jokes, because everything has become a cult of personality. If you go to see a Steve Carell movie, for example, you can expect to enjoy lots of straight-faced nonsense. There is no actor better at holding a stony exterior than Carell, and his line-readings barely ever relate to the relative funniness of the lines themselves. He makes the exposition lines funny, and he can on occasion botch the punch lines in the process. But that’s how he is; his personality is what audiences go in for. The same is true, perhaps more than with any other comedic actor, for Will Ferrell. He has a very specific character he plays in his movies, dictated by the way he reads his lines, and this is perhaps the reason why Hot Rod feels as unfinished as it does. Originally a vehicle for Ferrell to be crazy in, the project instead passed on to The Lonely Island – a trio of web-comedians who had recently made it on the American comedy-factory also known as Saturday Night Live. Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samburg and Jorma Taccone make up the three, and they first made videos online before Andy was picked up to be one of the main castmembers on SNL, a show which has previously featured people like Bill Murray, Chris Rock, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell. The other two came along as writers, and together they created the “digital shorts” section, a series of viral videos which were the best thing to happen to the sketch show in a long time.

Samburg also managed to pick up the traditional throng of female admirers, due to his being on TV, and it was with these that the Lonely Island group managed to lock themselves into this movie. The central conceit is simple enough: a young man who wants to be a stunt motorcyclist decides to take on the biggest jump of his life in order to raise money for his dying father (played by the grizzled Ian McShane). In taking the reins of the film, they decided to add their own touches to the script, to reinvent many of the scenes to be more in tune with their sense of humour. The result is an odd film which doesn’t know what it wants to be, but with a series of superb comic moments. For every scene which falls apart, there is a moment of surreal, throwaway brilliance. For a film which was meant to be ruled over by Will Ferrell, the trio manage to work quite a lot of decent jokes into the mix. On top of this, most of the jokes happen to be purely visual.

As Samburg’s character Rod wants to be a stuntman, obviously the film has to show several of his failed attempts. However the expected results don’t occur at any point. If this had been a Ferrell film, the scenes of Rod crashing repeatedly would have been grandly over the top, and followed by drawn-out moments of anguish from Ferrell (who does unstoppable crying better than anyone). With Schaffer as director, we instead get these scenes played out with stark realism. When Rod attempts to jump his bike over a swimming pool, we don’t see any big crash. Instead he goes up into the air, and then straight back down. It’s naturalistic, and it feels just like a viral video. The whole film does, and this gives it a great disjointed feeling. If each and every one of the scenes were taken away and uploaded separately onto Youtube, they’d be great. Together they are unnervingly bizarre. And self-conscious.

Every line in the film sees to exist as if the characters are aware that they are in a cheaply-budgeted film. When a love interest is introduced, in the form of endless perky and adorable Isla Fisher, the movie handles her with callous disregard for personality. That she has an obnoxious boyfriend (Will Arnett!) is taken for granted, and played around with as much as possible. “I’m going to grab a vitamin water. Shall I make that dos?” he leers at her, at one point. It is definitely unlikely that she would pick the obnoxious Arnett – whose every word is delightfully obnoxious, even to her – over the puppydog nonsense of Samburg, and the film realises this. Thus, the characters mope around to overdone 80’s powerpop. When we have a scene such as the one where Rod and… Isla Fisher pretend to fight each other for fun, we know that she will hit him too hard and he’ll be overly upset. The film hangs upon this for its own amusement, which satisfies the meta-humourist but will irritate the majority of the audience. There is a whole new level of humour buried under the surface – humour which is barely funny at all, unless you have a silly mind. Being drunk would definitely enhance the movie.

These jokes are rough, and so subtle as to not exist. It takes a mind of steel to dare laugh at these awful jokes. There is a trend with comedians who make a move to the big screen from somewhere else, in that they have far-out sense of humour. They don’t care if you get the joke, because they get the joke and thus everything is okay – Hot Rod is a firm example of this kind of comedy movie. It was probably far more fun to write and make up than it was to perform. Amongst the silly slight-jokes like Rod and his brother repeating the phrase ‘cool beans’ to each other over and over for a full minute or so, or a montage of friend-to-the-troupe Chester Tam throwing paper in the air before thrusting his crotch at the camera; there are some proper ideas hurtling around aimlessly. The reason why Rod wants his dad to get the surgery that will save his life is because dad will not accept him until Rod beats the guy in combat. It’s unfair to beat an ill man, so Rod needs to have his dad cured so the fight will be fair and square. Thusly, the poignant moments of father-son bonding often end with Rod shouting “you won’t be so happy with your surgery once I murder you!” It is a mad piece of film.

The cast are incredibly uneven. Bill Hader appears as one of Rod’s friends, but doesn’t get anything to do – and nor does he make much of his role. Isla Fisher and Will Arnett, also, are not as interesting as they have been in the past. They’re both brilliant at comic timing and can make something of almost any line, but feel like their performances are being toned down by outside influences. Certainly, the two actors of The Lonely Island trio (Jorma playing Rod’s younger brother) are probably the two who stand out the most of all. Samburg has the most to do in his role as Rod, and given that this is his first leading performance in a movie he manages to just about hold up under the strain. His character is amorphous to fit into whichever joke they want him to take part in – flipping from clueless berk to remotely sensible human being depending on which other character he’s taking to – and Samburg handles this well, almost making Rod feel like an actual character. Jorma Taccone is better, though, as Rod’s geeky brother, and it’s almost a shame the two roles weren’t switched around, as Taccone seems to have a much stronger presence onscreen than Samburg. Really, though, the only good performance comes from ever-reliable Chris Parnell, playing an overenthusiastic DJ who provides the commentary for Rod as he undergoes his final moment-of-truth jump.

The best thing about the movie turns out to be Schaffer’s direction, which creates a much-needed tone for the film, and is reminiscent of Napoleon Dynamite at times due to the ruthless editing. Each joke is played out perfectly, and the only shame is that the jokes aren’t strong enough to deserve this. There are only a few moments where the script shines enough to show the direction the film could’ve taken, and many of them come towards the end. The best scene of the film, where Rod and his team march to the site of his big jump, is executed wonderfully.



That the film was made at all was a hugely impressive leap for The Lonely Island team, but the result is too nonsensical to work. Disassembled into different scenes, you can see bits and pieces which are ingenious, but overall there is no coherence to anything, and the script gives a number of very talented actors nothing to work with. Perhaps the biggest flaw of the movie is that it does not have a single personality running the show here, but at the same time this manages to work in favour of Hot Rod. By far and away it is the sum of its parts, but it’s consistently entertaining, and will almost certainly pick up a huge cult following as time goes on. And it’ll deserve it.

Failure Films: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Oh, it just had to be aliens.

Once filming wrapped on 1989’s Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, all eyes fell upon the duo of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to see what they had planned next. There were five films planned in the series, and with such a wealth of other items around that could be ‘found’ by Indiana – Excalibur, Atlantis, El Dorado – it seemed that the pair would have no end of fun with their franchise. But instead, feeling like there was nothing worthwhile left for Indiana to find, Lucas closed down the project, leaving it a trilogy of films. And the general public, for the most part, was happy with that.

The Indiana Jones films follow the eponymous lead character; an archaeologist who is distinctly more ‘hands-on’ that most would be, in that he goes on missions to recover sacred artefacts before the Nazis can use them for their own evil purpose. The title role was filled with some flair by Harrison Ford, a former carpenter-turned-actor who had previously come to fame with Lucas while playing the role of Han Solo in the massively influential Star Wars trilogy. With Ford playing the role with weary disdain and a sardonic sense of humour, Indiana Jones became an iconic figure amongst film fans. With his battered old hat, leather jacket, and trusty bullwhip, Jones was beaten up repeatedly during his quests for the ark of the covenant, some magical hindu stones, and the holy grail respectively, which merely added to his appeal. He barely managed to survive, let alone win his quests, and people like a hero who takes a beating (see also: Bruce Willis, Bruce Campbell – when you think about it, Bruces seem to be quite game for anything, if you also take Forsyth into account). With the on-form Lucas producing the films, and Spielberg himself directing, the trio set themselves up to be quite the force in modern cinema.

So that all ended, as anything promising always does (Pushing Daisies), and the Jones franchise took a turn into TV – Lucas produced a “Young Indiana” show which was reasonably successful, while Ford went on to other films and Spielberg became one of the biggest directors in the business today. And almost twenty years went past without one mention of the fedora-totin’ hero. Until, that was, Spielberg’s son came up to his dad one day and asked 2dad, when will there be a new movie?” That was all that it required for Spielberg to decide to make a new film. Ford would doubtless be up for it, if the script was strong enough, so all that Spielberg needed was some kind of interesting item for Jones to look for.

And now, watching ‘Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull’, that turns out to be the single most glaring mistake that the duo made. The rumour was that Lucas had been pitching an Indiana Jones film with aliens in it ever since 1989, to the righteous scorn of both Spielberg and Ford. He’d also been commissioning writers to draft possible scripts for a long time, including Frank Darabont – who created one idea which was particularly important, and we’ll discuss later on. Ultimately, Lucas wanted an alien film, and he wasn’t going to grant anyone access to the film series unless Martians appeared in it somewhere. Spielberg finally agreed, and the item to be searched for became “the crystal skull”. It’s a genre which Spielberg has already done to death with E.T. and Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and Lucas himself should be kept as far away from aliens as possible, having managed to completely wreck his most beloved film series with some illogical and poorly-judged prequels. It’s fair to say that aliens were not a good choice for this film.

We’ve moved on nineteen years since the last time Indiana picked up his hat and rode off into the sunset, but Jones hasn’t changed. When we first see him in the movie he’s been captured by Soviets and taken to Roswell, where he is forced to show them the location of a mysterious chest which contains… well, surprise, an alien body. This is Roswell, after all. What did you expect? He makes an escape from the Soviets, naturally, and then for some reason finds himself on a bomb site. Steady, because this is the most famous part of the movie. With just seconds left before an atom bomb is dropped on the village he’s in, he climbs into a lead-lined fridge and is blown out of the stateliness, only to then step out of the fridge and wander off. This is a vital moment: “nuked the fridge” has become an internet term on the scale of “jumped the shark” recently, and is used to describe a moment when a film series gets mad. Now granted, the other three films weren’t too realistic – but there was a slight chance that the events could have happened. No matter how bizarre things got (and in the second film the main character was brainwashed after drinking magic potion), the original three all took the events seriously, accepting the silliness and yet trying to keep realism going on. This film does not do anything of the sort.

Spielberg wants to embrace the silly fun of his original movies, which is understandable, but when in the film we have something like this happen it takes everyone out of the experience. It’s at this point that everyone snaps out of the film for a minute, at least, and shakes their head in disbelief. There are several other moments where this happens, and it’s an unsatisfying experience. However, let’s first discuss the biggest development of the film: Shia LaBeouf. He is Indiana Jones’ son! Jones finds out this during one of many lukewarm set-pieces scattered throughout the movie, as he is trapped in quicksand alongside Karen Allen, who played the heroine in the first film. Incidentally, Allen doesn’t stop smiling once throughout the film and doesn’t seem anything like the feisty, angry young woman who appeared in Raiders. She is set dressing and doesn’t get the chance to do bloody anything at all. Shia, however, is the man. He is the focus. And he’s not bad! Granted he gets nothing to do at the end, either, apart from look on as Ford does stuff, but he does it well. The expectation was that he would prove to be hideous in the film, as in every other film he’s done, but instead he is witty, quiet, and makes the most of his few lines. His character, Mutt, is also quite well realised, which adds a lot to the movie both in terms of looks and in terms of character.

And that alone pushes him above most of the other characters. John Hurt is the most obviously underused, playing a professor who was turned mad by the crystal skulls of the title. Why he chose the role at all is a mystery, because all he does is repeat lines in a slightly confused voice. Karen Allen is negligible in the movie, and Ray Winstone is completely let down by the fate of his character. He is a double-crosser, and thus you would expect him to receive a hilariously nasty death. Instead he changes his mind about being a villain and it makes no sense. Why he even bothered to be a part of the Soviet party made no sense, but why he would then abandon them again is even less sense-filled. And then his final scene is done quickly and poorly, rendered in full CGI-crappiness. When was it that CGI stopped being a sign of good filmmaking, and became a crutch? Probably after The Phantom Menace was released. Anyway, back to the film, and the primary villain turns out to be psychic mentalist Cate Blanchett, utilising a brilliantly incoherent accent which enhances her role significantly more than her dialogue. She is given no cool moments of triumph, and does nothing but fail and glower as she follows Indiana and his team across the World. It’s a mighty shame, because the roots of a decent character are there, but they are all sown by Blanchett’s ability to elevate a script which does not deserve her talents. So really out of the cast, only Shia and Harrison Ford come out particularly well.

This is without taking into account the fact that the film is about aliens. Let’s finally get round to discussing this, shall we? The thing which Indiana is looking for turns out to be a crystal skull, which he finds in a burial chamber somewhere in South America. He was led there by cryptic messages left by Hurt’s character, which makes this film more a Dan Brown novel than an Indiana Jones film, but he eventually finds the thing and it’s not a human shape. Obviously it is alien in origin, which is fair enough. But at the end of the movie the entire cast stumble upon a chamber filled with crystal skeletons. It turns out that the skull isn’t a tribute to the aliens or some kind of technology, but instead is an actual skull. An actual alien skull. In the other films Indiana typically is faced with a test of character at the end; whether it be closing his eyes so he doesn’t see what’s in the ark of the covenant or overcoming brainwashing or letting the holy grail be destroyed. In this film his big escape at the end consists of running off when the aliens come back to life and standing from a distance to watch them take off. There’s no big heroic moment, no fun tricky riddles. He simply runs off, leaving Cate Blanchett with the aliens – and what happens to her is disappointing and lacklustre. It’s a sour taste at the end which ruins what was previously merely an average film. While the beginning is tacky, the middle shows all the promise of a proper film. It’s the writing that takes it down at the end, because they rush it.

Spielberg’s direction starts off in the same vein, being far too showy for its own good, but gradually settles down and stops detracting from the characters, but there are points where the CGI takes over and you can see how bored he is with the whole experience. He seems to be going through the motions somewhat with his work, and I take great pleasure in putting all the blame at the doorstep of George Lucas. All the film had to do was be reasonable, and the public would have accepted it. Instead he’s tried to turn it into a George Lucas production and he’s essentially killed off a lot of the charm that the series was associated with. It’s shambolic, when you get down to it. He’s dragged down a good director and excellent cast into the mud.

Or should that be quicksand?



Verdict: Pass..... sort of.




Next Month's Failure Film: HOT ROD!

The Top Ten Christmas Films OF ALL TIME

10: It’s A Wonderful Life

Synopsis:

James Stewart is a very nice man he is so nice that everyone else walks all over him and then he gets very depressed because of this so he meets an angel.

Our Take:

We didn’t know much about this film until very recently - it’s always cited as a film that everyone can enjoy, but those sort of films usually end up to be Papist Propaganda that nobody really enjoys. There are films which everyone claims to like, you see, even though they aren’t very good. The Godfather is an example of a film like this. Well put together, well acted, and boring boring boring boring! We were wondering it ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ would be the same, seeing how it’s in black and white and all that, but it turns out that is actually is quite a nice film. Not excellent (the ending peters out), but rather nice indeed. And you don’t even care that it’s in black and white!


9: Gremlins

Synopsis:

A boy gets a pet and he splashes it with water and it gives birth to Gremlins that destroy his town.

Our Take:

We’ve never seen this film, but when you put together a list of anything you need to include at least one thing you’ve never seen but has cult appeal, because then you appeal to a wider demographic. So we’re including Gremlins, because it’s apparently very funny and very anti-Christmas, and including anti-Christmas films is half the point of making a list about Christmas films.


8: A Muppet Christmas Carol

Synopsis:

Michael Caine sees Muppets everywhere he goes and then meets five ghosts who persuade him to stop being so mean all the time.

Our Take:

The best version of A Christmas Carol (although just wait until Thursday…), the Muppets manage to improve the original story by Dickens through their use of mouse puppets. The strangest thing about this film is that the characters – Rizzo the Rat and Gonzo excluded – are all taking it very seriously, for some reason. Miss Piggy and Kermit and Fozzy Bear are all in character instead of being themselves, which is slightly disappointing but still makes for quality entertainment. Add Michael Caine to the mix, and you’ve got yourself a faaaaantastic slice of film magic!


7: A Nightmare Before Christmas

Synopsis:

Halloweentown decides to try celebrating Christmas instead of Halloween despite having no idea what Christmas actually is and then Santa gets kidnapped.

Our Take:

Tim Burton’s animations typically have nothing to do with Tim Burton at all (he didn’t even direct it! What a swizzstick) and so we refuse to put his name in the title. Henry Selick was the director of this particular stop-motion masterpiece, which features a winningly macabre storyline featuring several horror characters like “Jack Skellington” and “Sally”, who is a Frankenstein patchwork woman. And these are the characters we’re meant to (and do) sympathise with. The storyline, which features some terrific set-pieces such as the attempted kidnap of Santa, twists and turns all over the place, and is punctuated by several absolutely ballistic songs (sung by Danny Elfman, yay). It makes for a superb alternative Christmas film.


6: Trading Places

Synopsis:

A rich white man becomes poor and a poor black man becomes rich and it’s all because of two old white rich men so Jamie Lee Curtis gets topless.

Our Take:

Well, there’s some snow in the film, and maybe at one point a Christmas tree? We’ll be honest, this film has about as much Christmas in it as “Groundhog Day” does (when is Groundhog Day, actually? Maybe it is near Christmas.) but we’ll forgive it that because it’s a fun little film that actually makes use of both Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy. Those two are talented, but you wouldn’t know it to look at their film career. In this film, anyway, we have two old men who decide to engage in some social experimentation – like Davina McCall! – and give money to a poor man and bankrupt a rich man, to see how they react. In doing so, they set off a chain-reaction which ends with blackface and gorillas. It’s everything a Christmas movie should be.


5: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Synopsis:

No idea; but it’s awesome.

Our Take:

Just so very, very, awesome. And the Christmas setting means that Michelle Monaghan gets into this outfit:



But her aside, the film also features Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer working together on some sort of detective case. We have the film on DVD, it’s a favourite here at Wilftonville so we’ve watched it several times… we still don’t really get what’s going on. And again, there isn’t that much Christmas in it. Do you feel cheated? We certainly do. To make up for it, we’ll make sure that the top four are all Very Christmassy Indeed.


4: Home Alone 2 Lost In New York

Synopsis:

A small boy takes the wrong plane and ends up in a different country than his family during Christmas and then is chased by two criminals whom he viciously assaults at the end of the movie.

Our Take:

The first film started the trend (shock!) but the second one is unarguably the best of the series, which is now up to something like 6. With that Culkin kid whose name we can’t spell returning, and Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern and Catherine O’Hara also in the same film, you know you won’t be going wrong. And this story doesn’t disappoint. Everything is leading up to the point where the two burglars (Pesci and Stern) try to kill off our child hero by entering the building he lives in and snuffing him out, so you could be forgiven for fast forwarding to the last half hour. It’s in watching the various traps unleashed on the villains; which include electrocution, fire, and brick-throwing amongst others; that the film is entertaining. It’s Joe Pesci’s greatest role.


3: Elf

Synopsis:

A boy raised by Santa as an Elf is told that his real dad lives in New York so he goes to New York to meet his dad and is ill-prepared for life in the city.

Our Take:

Will Ferrell was funniest when he was still trying to find a comedic voice for film, and Elf was his breakout role. Hence: funny. He plays the elf of the title, as he heads to New York and tries to reconcile with father James Caan. It’s all very much in the spirit of Christmas, as the film has barely a nasty character in it. The humour is gentle but actually funny (much like Wilftonville itself, of course) and Ferrell’s performance feels earnest and real. Sadly, he’s lost that recently, as all Hollywood comedians must in order to fit in. But the highlight of the film is Zooey Deschanel, who is charming and delightful throughout the whole film, and even gets the chance to sing a few times. Elf is a film anyway can enjoy, fact.


2: Die Hard

Synopsis:

Terrorists take over a building and hold everyone hostage but luckily Bruce Willis is also in the building and he kills them all and it’s also Christmas.

Our Take:

This is a film which every list has to include, because then they can say “oh well remember – it’s set at Christmas!” It’s one of the oldest facts that exist, and everyone knows it. For the sake of consistency, then, we’re going to include it in the list even though it’s not really a Christmas film at all. What it is, however, is a stonking action pie with fist-punching truffles and a side of explosive cream. “Explosive Cream” – if ever there was a good name for a band…
But yes, Die Hard is one of those films which gets better each time it’s watched over, and Bruce Willis has rarely been more out-of-his-depth and superb. Plus he hangs this one German guy, but the German guys survives and comes back at the end and is all “kablammo!” but then this other policeman is like “no way, punk!” and shoots him back. It’s so cool.


1: Jingle All The Way

Synopsis:

A man wants to gets a present for his son to prove that he isn’t a bad father but the toy is sold out across most of the World and he can’t find it anywhere and then he starts getting desperate.

Our Take:

The best Christmas film of all time? Oh Wilftonville, you merry purveyors of sexist gags, you’re having us on surely? This must all be some sort of joke! NO. Jingle All The Way is one of the best films ever made, and Arnold Schwarzenegger has never been better as he fights a city for possession of a crappy toy his son wants. The fact they haven’t made the sequel yet is proof enough that Arnie needs to get the hell out of politics and back into movies: it is essential that he gives us more of the Quality Christmas Fun that can only be found when one man needs a Turboman Doll.


Seriously: great film.... or greatest film ever?

Why I Don’t Trust The Jews

A lot of Americans recently believed that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and that because of this he shouldn’t be allowed to become the awesome new President of the USA (or as we call it in Europe, ‘Disneyland’). This Islamophobia is not something that the Americans alone are guilty of, though – Britain seems to be obsessed with it. At least, the papers are. Every day the worthless newspapers spread panic about how the Muslims are going to take over all our jobs because;

A: They are ASYLUM SEEKERS. Agh! Asylum seekers!
B: They are trying to destroy the very fabric of British society which first enticed them to migrate over here
C: (They do the jobs better than British workers do)

Option C is not one you’ll see the papers mention very often. We’re not too bad though, overall, just as long as you don’t visit Bradford. Ever. In the Middle-East, I’m led to believe that apparently the Muslims are getting into wars with each other and other religions! That’s quite extreme indeed. It seems that The Muslims are not appreciated properly by the World. I sympathise with you, Muslim community.

At the same time the Christians are under attack from that Dawkins feller. He doesn’t think that people should base their lives around the writing of one book, and if you read his ‘The God Delusion’, available at many good book stores, he will advise you on how best to live your life away from the glare of religion. Mostly, he is not happy with Catholics. And why should he be? Those people have been going away once a week to those sinister-looking church buildings for years and years now. They’ve got something in mind, heed my words, and for centuries now they’ve been planning it for two or so hours a week. Also, they don’t like abortions – what kind of weirdo doesn’t love a good abortion?

But I’m not here to talk about the faults of Catholics and Muslims and Atheists. I’m here to talk about the real issues. I always have been, in a way. It’s just that you’ve never understood before what my posts about ‘X-Men’ and ‘How To Get Famous Women To Sleep With You’ were really about. They’re allegorical! I think that the main problem with society today is that it is doing too much worrying about Catholics and Muslims, and not enough worrying about Jews.

For one thing, did you know that all female Jews are surgically modified when they reach a certain age? The process is called a Bat-Mitzvah, and during it the girls are given a pair of wings to use, and an inbuilt sonar system. With these powers the girls then are able to fly around at night, drinking the blood of cows and peasants. Why isn’t the media reporting this?

It doesn’t end there. One thing that’s been bothering me for quite some time are the hats that Jews wear. These hats are sanctioned whenever they go into their place of worship, and you will not see a Jew in a synagogue without one. Nobody else seems to realise that these hats are resistant to telepathic intrusion, which means that the giant satellites the Government have in space are unable to read the minds of Jews once they start worshipping. There is a mental black spot above and around each Synagogue. What is it that the Jews see or think about in Synagogue that they need to keep secret from the rest of the World? Why isn’t the media reporting this?

And finally, the thing most Jews are known for: their fame. It’s long been known that Hollywood is run by Jews, gays, and Jewish gays (who have the most power of all), and that they use their power to influence the country. They have control over the entire population of California, for one thing (not the gays: they just suspiciously lost their ability to marry recently – another Jewish plot?), and their expansion is slowly taking over the rest of the two US coastlines. They have taken over the film industry, the TV industry, the music industry, and the media. Why isn’t the media repor- oh.

Jewish people must be stopped.

Failure Films: Mamma Mia

Mamma Mia!

There are two things which are required to make a musical great. The first, perhaps obviously, is that the songs should be good. The second, and this is less obvious, is that the plot should be memorable in it’s own right. In other words, you should get the story down first before you start writing the songs. Write the film without any songs in it, stand back, and decide if you think it could get made. Then write the songs and put them in-between to make a delicious cinema cake filled with goodness that everyone will love. It’s a simple thing to check out, and films like West Side Story, The Sound Of Music, Fame, they all makes sure that their songs come complete with a story to make them meaningful.

Mamma Mia is about a young girl (played by Amanda Seyfried, who looks disconcertingly like a mermaid) who is preparing for her own wedding on a deserted island somewhere in America. It’s not made clear whereabouts this island is at any point during the film, but she has an American accent so presumably she lives somewhere nearby the ol’ USA. She’s not happy to get married until she finds out who her real father is, because it turns out her ma Donna (Meryl Streep) had her way with three different men in the month she got pregnant, and none of them know about it. So the girl decides that the best way to solve her paternity problem is to send a message to each of the three, inviting them to the wedding, firm in the belief that she’ll be able to work out which one is her father. At the same time, she doesn’t want any of them to see her mother; her mother to see any of them; any of them to work out why she invited them; and she expects them all to turn up on the spur of the moment.

Streep, to her credit, makes her character’s shady past seem entirely likely. Her character is an ex-hippie chick, and the fact she isn’t allowed to play this role during the film is criminal. Instead, the film asks her to play a put-upon mother who is either overbearing or not bearing enough – we’re never told which one we’re expected to think of her as. You get flashes of character, but there’s not much for her to play with. Streep’s not the sort of person you think of for light, frothy roles and this is immediately apparent the first time you see her, as she walks in aimlessly and then wanders off again with nary a hint of fanfare. This grows typical of the movie in general, as she trades off her usual magnetic presence for a lighter touch. This lack of grit or real feeling becomes sorely missed as the movie continues.

Without Streep scene-stealing like she does in The Devil Wears Prada, the film is forced to look elsewhere for the lead role, and we focus on the arrival of the three possible fathers, played by Stellan Skarsgard, Colin Firth, and Pierce Brosnan respectively. The plot of the film requires that each of the three men are equally likely to be the father of Sophie, but we quickly realise that Brosnan is far and away the most important of the three. He is the one whom Meryl looks at most, and thus the only one of the three to get any serious character exposition. Firth is mostly played for laughs, while Skarsgard is miscast and misused in his role, sat in the background almost the entire film as if he wishes he were somewhere else.

As more guests arrive for the wedding, we meet Donna’s old friends Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, who cackle away like they’re having a ball throughout. These two characters are here to bring some sparkle back to Donna’s life, although she’s either happy where she is or desperately unhappy where she is. The film, again, neglects to tell us where to fall with our feelings for Donna. Meanwhile Sophie bumps into the three fathers accidentally, all at once, and panics, sending them to a remote goathouse because she figures it the best place to hide them from her mother., who promptly walks straight into there and meets them. Given this chance to thus kick the plot into gear, the writers then stop doing anything and the film stalls for roughly an hour and a half before any of this is picked up again properly. The characters mope and worry about what will happen when their secret plans are found out, but each time they do, there is no reaction. Nobody gets angry in this movie.

Granted, the idea of a film like this is to provide sparkle and fun, and use the plot as a springboard to muck around. You don’t come to a film based around Abba to see something dramatic, after all. The problem is that As a result, the film attempts to ratchet up tension when there’s nothing going on, and the need for songs slowly gets more and more desperate as a way of filling up time. None of the characters get any development at all during the middle of the film, with songs being used as a way to plug in the gaps instead. We are given the entrance of all the characters, and a setup for what could’ve been a fun film with a strong resemblance to Shakespearian comedies like Much Ado About Nothing (which would’ve been a superb title for this film), and then left while the cast enjoy some karaoke.

A big deal is made of the contrivance that Sophie inadvertently makes each of the three men believe that they are her father, and thus must walk her down the aisle. It provides roughly twenty minutes of underdeveloped drama and songs. When the time comes, though, only Brosnan makes any appearance before the wedding scene, while Firth and Skarsgard are already sat down in the church, apparently oblivious to the promise they made Sophie the night before. The film thrives on such dangling plot developments. A lot is made of the irritation that Sophie’s fiancé feels because of her search for a father, but at the conclusion he just stands there at the church, smiling, because he’s not an important character. It’s another potential story that gets thrown to one side in order to have some songs.

But hey, at least the songs are by some of the strongest songwriters of all time. Benny and Bjorn put together some undeniably powerful songs about a variety of subjects, and some of these fit in perfectly with the type of story the makers are trying to tell – “Slipping Through My Fingers” appears towards the end, as Donna laments her daughter’s leaving home (even though we’ve already been told she isn’t moving anywhere), is well staged and works well. Likewise, when Donna finds the three men she belts out “Mamma Mia”, and it fits like a glove to the situation, and several other songs slip into proceedings effortlessly, with the last hurrah being “Take A Chance On Me”, the introduction of which is one of the first successful stabs of humour that the film achieves.

The strange trend though, is to have the character sing the first verse/chorus on their own, before boosting them with a backing track that renders them inaudible. This could be for a number of reasons, but the most likely one is that Lloyd realised she had a musical filled with actors who can’t sing, and she wanted to distract us from this. Brosnan suffers the most, as he’s given several big numbers to stumble through, including a moody version of “SOS” complete with creepy extras who shout at him as he tries to fix a light-bulb. He sings that one with Streep, during a part of the film which makes no sense to anyone watching for the first time. Mamma Mia is, perhaps, a film which works best on the second viewing. For her part, Streep is a game player, adding froth to an already overflowing film but doing so in a way which tries desperately to add to the film rather than detract. She’s the only performer who you look forward to hearing, here.

Indeed, aside from Streep, Seyfried’s over-cute numbers (the nauseating highlight of the movie is her ‘duet’ with the previously mentioned fiancé of hers, with whom she has no chemistry) and Brosnan’s Irish crackle – a new idea for a breakfast cereal if ever I heard one – you don’t get anyone else performing proper songs. Oh sure, Baranski gets a song in, but her character and side-plot (which comes from nowhere, incidentally) seem to be in the film purely so they can shoe-horn in “Does Your Mother Know”. The two other dads are forced to share their only song “Our Last Summer” with Brosnan, before being forgotten entirely. These songs come in extremely close to one another, with barely time for the actors to breathe before another dancehall number comes in again. There aren’t even any proper dance routines, because the film is set upon making the audience believe that this is all really happening. There are no flash-fantasy sequences or breaks of the fourth wall like in Rocky Horror or Grease, which makes everything very creepy indeed.

Only two songs have any fabulousness in them at all, a crime where Abba is concerned, and those two happen to be the credits sequence version of “Waterloo”, played for laughs, and the somewhat poignant rendition of “Super Trouper”. In these scene, one of only three to have any emotional resonance, we see the old guard of Streep, Baranski and Walters as they reunite their old band for the benefit of Sophie’s hen night. It’s a nice scene, carried off well by the three women as they share a mix of nostalgia, humour, and happiness with their crowd and the outside audience. The song accepts the campness of the situation, unlike the other songs which are aimlessly slotted in around realist moments. As far as the writers are concerned, the plot has either been ignored in favour of more karaoke songs, or pushed aside with no space left because of all the songs. In any case, we get all our conclusions at once, in the final scene.

All three dads, Donna, and Sophie gather at a church as she prepares to marry her fiancé. Midway through, Donna interrupts to finally confess that one of the men is Sophie’s dad, but Sophie admits she knew this because she invited them, and the men all trade shifty glances at each other, before everyone smiles and says “ok then”. It’s then revealed that Colin Firth has now turned gay and Pierce Brosnan is in love with Meryl Streep still (why didn’t they telegraph either of those two?), and Meryl and Pierce get married because Sophie calls off her wedding. Each development is thrown out there with no regard for reality at all, and when Julie Walters seduces Stellan Skasgard with a terrifying song and dance at the reception it speaks more of a desire for the film-makers to have a happy ending than anything else. It makes no sense, because it’s not developed. He should’ve been called Fernando, so then she could’ve sung to him that song earlier in the film, and that pairing would make more sense.

You get the sense that Mamma Mia is more a chance to watch Celebrity Karaoke than a real film, because we have a beginning and an end, but no connection between them and a lot of useless padding in the middle. There’s a gaping hole in the film where an actor should have marched in and taken over the show – like Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, for example – but instead we get a limp film which is barely lifted by the middling execution of all the songs. For what the film offers, they might as well have just given us longer songs, less bothersome dialogue between Sophie and whoever she’s shrieking at whenever, and more pizzazz and sparkle. More camp factor! Surely that’s what Abba were all about, anyway?


Verdict: Fail.

The 007 Faces of Pierce Brosnan

Oh Pierce, you were the very best of Bonds and yet the very worst of Bonds. On the one hand, we have Goldeneye. On the other, Die Another Day. How one Bond could run from one of the best Bond films of all time to easily the worst Bond film of all time is beyond us, and yet we never get up on you. After Bond finished, we traipsed along to see that Matador movie and all those Irish dramas you did that had orphans in (although we didn’t make it to the end of them, the mere fact we tried to should give us points for effort, surely?). We like you, y’see. You’re a decent feller, and we think you’re funny and witty and revitalised the Bond series way before Daniel Craig came along. And even though we say Sean Connery was our favourite… in our heart of hearts, the flame burns for you, Pierce Brosnan.

Which is utterly fantastic, considering you only have seven different facial expressions.

This first came to our attention while watching the godawful-looking trailer for ‘Mamma Mia!’, which you’ll be starring in this summer with the oddly hot coupling of Meryl Streep and Julie Walters (it’d be wrong to find them attractive, but yet it feels like the right thing to do). Like we said, the trailer looks like a mess of a film that all but the most fanatical and mad of ABBA fans could ever love, and you’re dead in the centre of all of it. In fact, we have reason to believe you might even sing a song or two, which shows commitment to the material at least. But… how come you have such a limited array of facial expressions? We love you anyway, but after some rather thorough research on Google images we realised that – yes – you only ever wear one of seven different facial expressions. And here they are.

1: The ‘I’m Suffering For My Art’ Look. You’ve been run through the mill. Your tank has run out of petrol, you’ve been shot at, and you can’t for the life of you remember what you’re doing out here in the field when all along you just wanted a nice lie down. Life must be tough sometimes, eh? Don't worry, I'm sure that you'll stop being wet/covered in smoke sometime soon. You're close to giving up right now, but we're sure that you won’t give up, because... well, that’d be a very Irish thing to do now, wouldn't it? Oh, wait…

2: The ‘Sweet Jesu, I’m Suffering For My Art’ Look. For when the previous look just doesn’t quite convey how much you’re suffering, you open your mouth a little wilder and shake your head from side-to-side a few times. Whoo-whee! At this stage the only thing that’s keeping you going are the startlingly perky breasts of your female companion, who at this point has shown several indications that she would like to sleep with you but has not yet given in to your charming, charming smile.

3: The ‘I’m Having Sex! I’M HAVING SEX!’ Look. You sly old fox, Pierce! You’ve finally gone and bedded the girl after exchanging a series of increasingly dirty, neurotically challenged and downright odd entendres, and you’re really enjoying it. You grab her shoulders, you stare blankly into her eyes, you make no effort to kiss her at all, because you’ve already had the sex and you don’t need to anymore. Your hair isn’t one strand out of place, and you are da man.

4: The ‘What?’ Look. Not everything that happens to you makes sense, and it just so happens that they’ve blown a bomb up right in front of you or assassinated someone you like. This prompts you to raise a quizzical eyebrow just like Roger always used to do, before darting your eyes from left to right as quickly as possible. If you have the time, you’ll wipe your mouth with the sleeve of your jacket and look at it for a short while. Verbal communication is minimal – everything you need to say is being said by the state of disrepair that your dinner jacket is in.

5: The ‘You Betrayed Me/I’m Being Tortured!’ Look. Every time! Every single god-damned time someone betrays you, and this somehow means that your shoulders have to start dancing. Once they get bored of this they start a simultaneous war on your neck while you keep your head at a jaunty angle and squint/stare concurrently at your betrayer. If you have a gun, you put it unnecessarily close to their face and try not to blink, while your cheeks contract and your mouth shrinks. You are annoyed!

6: The ‘I’m In Complete Control’ Look. Things eventually go according to plan, and James Bond is allowed to start relaxing. So this means, Pierce, that your shoulders drop down to where your knees are and you start focusing on things out of picture. Generally you then let your co-star do all the talking while you fix a steely gaze on anything that moves – which will always pay off, because there was one more guard walking around than you originally expected, and you’ll have to take him out in a minute. This is the opposite of your ‘You Betrayed Me’.

7: The ‘Something Interesting Is Happening To My Right’ Look. This is by far the most common Pierce Brosnan look of all time. It comes out whenever a situation arises that doesn’t call for any of the other six looks, and at times sticks around for minutes on end before you move to something more comfortable. What is it that you can see above your head, Pierce? Do you have pet moths that fly in unison around you, or is this just part of an intricate game you’re trying to play with us. Whatever the answer, I do not like it Pierce and I demand that you get some new faces immediately, please! You’re acting next to MERYL STREEP, for goodness sake! You’ve got the advantage over Colin Firth’s three faces, but seven different looks are simply not going to cut it against the Streep. Why not try a ‘I’m feeling jovial’ look? In reality, you actually smile sometimes – could you try that perhaps? We’re sure you’d look lovely if you showed off that nice smile of yours once in a while. At the very least, stop looking at something above you if you aren’t going to tell us just what it is you can see. It’s not fair.

Moths? Tiny planes? What is it that you're looking at, Brosnan?

Ten Rumours You Should Spread About Disaster Movie

I’ve been thinking about the audience that Disaster Movie is going to be courting when it comes out this year. They are going to be a very predictable bunch, and obviously very little is going to persuade them that this movie honestly isn't worth their time and money. To stop them from seeing the film, then, I have come up with ten rumours we should all try to spread about the film in order to dissuade people from going to see it. If one person sees these rumours and thinks that they are true, and so avoids going to see Disaster Movie... then I'll be happy.


1: Although Carmen Electra is in the movie, she does not have any bra scenes.

2: The movie makes fun of George Bush and says he is a bad President.

3: The film ends with a 30-minutes lecture from Al Gore about why Jesus doesn’t exist.

4: Films parodied include “From Here To Eternity”, “Last Tango In Paris”, and the collected works of Pedro Almodovar.

5: The film has a gay couple as the heroes, and they kiss regularly.

6: The directors of the film stole money from our troops in Iraq in order to finance the movie.

7: If you haven’t seen the original Disaster Movie, you won’t be able to understand this film, which is a sequel.

8: There are no tits in it.

9: Another film being released in the same week as this one will star Tom Cruise, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Borat, all at the same time.

10: The film was written by and stars Woody Allen, who presents his unique Jewish vision of how a couple in crisis reacts when they find out an asteroid is heading to earth and will kill everyone.


Pass them on!

Countdown to Disaster Movie

Folks, the time has come again for a film which will change the World. We’ve had the advent of the black and white silent movie, the birth of colour, the arrival of talkies, and heck, we’ve had Jingle All The Way, but coming this year will be a revolutionary movie that will change the way you perceive moving images on a screen. I’m talking about Disaster Movie, the film that follows Date Movie and Epic Movie to form a trilogy of ‘oh sweet lord, what the f*ck is wrong with people?’





This is the poster they released today, which shows in one picture just how the movie will change things forever: it’s going to make not one god-damned lick of sense. In their past grande opus du cinema (my French is ropey at best, alright?) they’ve made fun of Paris Hilton by having someone who looks like Paris Hilton be in their film, made fun of Britney Spears by having someone that looks like Britney Spears be in their film, and don’t even get me started on the gay jokes. Oh, the joys of this planet, a planet where you can see a film like Disaster Movie, which takes all the best jokes from when you were at school and had to change with the rugby team before a PE lesson, and transplants them into a film which everyone in the World will get to see.

So what will get zinged this time round? With Meet The Spartans on dominant film-referencing form, are there any films which have not been replicated that need a good replication? We are only a few months away from a teaser trailer, and if it’s any match for the previous ones (check ‘em out on Youtube! They have a surprisingly large number of views!) then we are in for a treat. Nerdy people and children WILL get hit in the face, puke jokes WILL be made, animals WILL be injured… and third-rate rappers that nobody outside of America knows about WILL turn up.

It’s a party and you’re all invited. The Countdown to Disaster Movie begins!

Twin Cinema: Things Films Have Taught Us (Part 6)

Getting your hand cut off will increase your effectiveness in battle
See also: “George Lucas has a severed hand fetish”. The two greatest Jedi were Anakin and Luke Skywalker, right? Well, you know what made them so great? The fact they had their hands snipped off. If you happen to be a Jedi, it’s well worth exploring limb-lopping opportunities, because it will make you better. Same goes for anyone stuck in a haunted cabin – the replacement hand/chainsaw will ultimately make you invincible, incredibly strong, and help you improve your witty banter. Seriously kids, I highly encourage you to cut off your hand. Did I mention it protects you from being possessed by Satan?

Terrorists With Computers Can Do Anything
If plotting an evil terrorist scheme, your first step should be to hire some computer hackers, because through the use of their computer they can affect anything, and are especially good at causing things to blow up for no reason. Luckily, the hackers themselves are skinny simpletons who despite being able to use a computer to shut down a nuclear reactor across the other side of the world, are unable to fathom the fact that once they have completed their task, they are no longer necessary to your plans. This is why hackers never take over the world – they aren’t leadership material.

There Is Always Time For Some More Sex
No matter if you are being chased by robots, ninjas, dinosaurs or the government, as soon as you stop for a quick rest in a motel, feel free to have a night full of magnificent sex. Nobody bothers tracking at night-time, so you can really take time with the other person, who will almost certainly be female because you are almost certainly male. The one exception to this is if the girl happens to be your girlfriend or wife, in which case you should abstain from having any sex until your pursuer is dead, because otherwise they will find and kill you mid-coitus.

The Worst Moments In Movie History

1: Darth Vader’s Scream in"Revenge Of The Sith"

Everyone knows Darth Vader to be a cruel villain with little regard for who lives or dies. In Luke Skywalker’s quest to save the galaxy (always with the saving the galaxy for these people, tsch) Vader is built up to be the villain he must fight at the end to save the day. We see Vader attack Luke’s friends and allies, and try to kill him on several occasions. When he fails, he kills the generals he sent to do the killing. All the while though, we know that come the end of the series, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker will have an epic fight and Luke will probably win. The way in which this happens, though, was unique, in that we found out Vader was Luke’s biological father in the second film of the trilogy. This made it even more tense, and in fairness the way everything pays off makes sense and feels like a good ending that the characters have earned. Vader is redeemed, and Luke is the hero.
Yet whilst the audience was watching the films and thinking how interesting the conflict became, George Lucas was thinking something else – these people need to have the origins of Darth Vader spelt out in excruciating detail using various levels of computer generation in place of plot or characters. And as George Lucas, thinks, so it shall be done. Three prequels were made to Star Wars which turned the focus of the films from Luke Skywalker to his father, Anakin, played with robotic pizzazz by Hayden Christianson, already proving to be one of the worst lead actors of his generation. The part of the final film in the prequel line-up that destroyed everything, though, was hardly Christianson’s fault. It’s no spoiler to say that Anakin turns into Darth Vader after an epic FAIL in his fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his wife, Padme, dies after giving birth to twins.
It’s during the transformation – arguably the one scene the entire series has been leading up to, and the point of these three films – that the audience realised just how rubbish the film was. We get the slow-motion shots of Vader’s armour being put together, he rises atmospherically while a bunch of operatic singers wail melodramatically, and James Earl Jones returns to provide the voice. It should be a massive moment, the central moment of all six films. And this is what happens:



That scream is the worst set-up ever. Poor James Earl Jones gets practically nothing to do before the scene shifts away and Vader is evil and Anakin Skywalker is completely gone. What we demanded as audiences was to care about Padme dying and how that would affect Anakin, but instead people were actively waiting for her to die and (at least where I was) laughing at Anakin’s pathetic emo moans. This scene cemented the fact that the first three films are almost entirely without merit and partially ruined what was the best trilogy of all time. Try watching the original Star Wars now without remembering the reason Anakin/Vader is doing all of this is because he’s a whiny idiot, and see if it still seems as terrifying when he first appears.
On the plus side, this scream single-handedly won the Back to the Future/Star Wars debate without Michael J. Fox having to lift a finger.

Lexy Clinton, The Ever-Hopeful Actress

Letter To Justin Chadwick RE: "The Other Boleyn Girl"


Dear Mr Chadwick,

My name is Lexy Clinton. I am an actress from Devendeck in England, UK. I believe I have something I can bring to your new film, ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’, which is set to start filming in a few months time. I have long held a deep interest in all things historical, and when I was a child I was fascinated by the Tudors. My teachers used to say they couldn’t teach me anything unless Henry VIII was involved somehow! Of all the Kings and Queens of that age, however, I found Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, to be by far the most interesting. So when I saw you were making a film about her, I knew that I had to be a part of it somehow!
I received a copy of the script from my agent, and to my great surprise I noticed that nobody had yet filled the role of “Young Anne”. As a woman who has spent half her life researching the Tudors, I believe that I am uniquely placed to play this role for you. I understand and feel for the character, and I already have the English accent sorted out!
My resume may look rather bare, but this is entirely due to the fact that I feel the need to research each role I take, so I can fully understand every aspect of how that character thinks, moves, and feels. For example, when I played the role of “Meteorologist” in a series of short commercials for a UK airline, I spent several months preparing to find out exactly how one goes about doing such a job with several experts. It must have paid off too, for the director told me that the advert helped increase revenue by .24%!
So Mr Chadwick, when you go casting the role of “Young Anne” in your film, I hope that my name will be one of the first you turn to when it comes to auditioning. I have the skills and background information to really sell this film to the general public, and I look forward to working with you.

Yours sincerely,

Lexy Clinton.
[March 1st 2006]



Dear Ms Clinton,

I am sorry, but the role of “Young Anne” is unsuitable for your talents, as prestigious as you say they are. Sadly, you are too old for the role, as we are looking for a girl between eight and twelve to play the part of Anne as a child. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

Yours,

Marianne Thimberly.

[April 2006]

Twin Cinema: Things Films Have Taught Us (Part 4)

Ugly but funny guys can pull girls like Kate Beckinsale
Beaten round the face when you were a kid by bullies, causing you to develop a speech impediment? It’s going to be okay, my friend. Look at Adam Sandler – he’s managed to pull Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore (twice!), and Joey Lauren Adams, among others, without breaking a sweat. All you have to do is act really, really, really retarded and you’ll get your girl. And Rob Schneider will encourage you if things get tough.

Aliens Prefer To Take Over Planets On A One-To-One Basis
The biggest fear of all humans is alien invasion, but luckily aliens are all of them vengeful animals with unfulfilled rage issues, and as such will take the fight against Earth down to a personal level. They will fly right down and get out of their vehicles of unending destruction, and start fighting humans one at a time. Whilst they will manage to kill a number of us in highly inventive ways, the good news is that by not wiping us all out from the beginning with a death ray the aliens give us (well, the Americans) the chance to find out a weakness they can exploit, thus killing off all the aliens in the one fell swoop they themselves were unable to emulate.

Serial killers are shy, retiring types
They’re nasty people, we all know serial killers are total nutjobs born in trailers and raised wrong, but they’re also very shy. If you’re menaced by a serial killer, you’re totally safe as long as you can’t see anyone in a mask. If, however, there is someone with a mask near you, then they could well start slashing at you immediately. You see, killers don’t like people to see their face while they kill, because they are all ugly or weird-looking. None of the killers in the Scream series were much to look at, right? They all looked weird and dangerous. Make sure all your friends are virginal brunettes, and you’ll be fine.

Christopher Guest Knows A Lot Of Actors Who Like To Sell Out

He sure does, and what better way to indicate this that to have a look at ten of his most famous co-stars and judge them from their career CVs? Here at IEF we take indie credentials very seriously (and as such are still uncertain if we should like Of Montreal or not), so each actor will get ten points for each film they made with Guest, but will then lose points for each act of grabbing the paycheque without looking at the script. Each animated film they take on will lose them five points, and any involvement in Epic Movie or Dawson’s Creek is also going to cost you several big ones. But it’s not all critical – if they appeared in something like Six Feet Under or the West Wing, they’ll get credit from us. Naturally, the big points will go to anyone who appeared in Mr Show (although none of them have, far as we know) or Arrested Development, because they are the most fantastic shows of all time - and we get that info from none other than the AV Club, so don’t you even dare try to argue with us! Here’s our list, going from most-credible to least-credible.

1. Ed Begley Jr
(Spinal Tap, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+40)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Neither.
Animated Movies? Hair High (-5), Fly Me To The Moon (-5)
Arrested Development? Yes! Five Episodes. (+50)
Notes: Appearances in The West Wind (+15), 7th Heaven (-10), Six Feet Under (+20), Boston Legal (+15), Veronica Mars (+15)

Points: 125.

2. Parker Posey
(Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+40)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? None!
Animated Movies? None!
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Is Parker Posey (+50), appearances in Will & Grace (-10), Boston Legal (+15).

Points: 95.

3. John Michael Higgins
(Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+30)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? None!
Animated Movies? No.
Arrested Development? Yes! Five episodes. (+50)
Notes: Appearances in Boston Legal (+15), Halo 2 (+10), Joey (-10), Fred Claus (-10).

Points: 85.

4. Catherine O’Hara
(Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+40)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Neither.
Animated Movies? Chicken Little (-5), Over The Hedge (-5), Monster House (-5), Brother Bear 2 (-5), Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (-5).
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Appearances in Six Feet Under (+20)

Points: 35.

5. Harry Shearer
(Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+30)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Neither.
Animated Movies? N/A (see notes)
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Appearances in Dawson’s Creek (-30), is in The Simpsons (+30, exemption from Animated movie point loss)

Points: 30.

6. Michael McKean
(Spinal Tap, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+40)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Neither.
Animated Movies? Dr Doolittle 2 (-5), Recess Christmas (-5), The Hunchback Of Notre Dame II (-5), Arnie The Doughnut (-5), Open Wide: Tooth School Inside (-5), Surf’s Up (-5)
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Endless Cartoon Voiceovers (-20), appearances in Curb Your Enthusiasm (+20), Boston Legal (+15).

Points: 25.

7. Jane Lynch
(Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+30)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? None!
Animated Movies? No.
Arrested Development? Yes! Two episodes. (+20)
Notes: Appearances in Dawson’s Creek (-30), The West Wing (+15), 7th Heaven (-10), Veronica Mars (-15), Boston Legal (+15), Alvin and the Chipmunks (-20)

Points: 5.

8. Jennifer Coolidge
(Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) (+30)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Date Movie (-40), Epic Movie (-40)
Animated Movies? Robots (-5).
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Is Stifler’s Mom (+10), appearances in American Wedding (-15), Joey (-10).

Points: -70.

9. Fred Willard
(Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Best In Show, For Your Consideration) (+50)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Date Movie (-40), Epic Movie (-40)
Animated Movies? Sesame Street: Happy Healthy Monsters (-5), The Nutcracker and The Mouseking (-5), Chicken Little (-5), Monster House (-5), Holidaze: The Christmas That Almost Didn’t Happen (-5)
Arrested Development? Nope.
Notes: Endless Cartoon Voiceovers (-20), appearances in Girlfriends (-15), How High (-10), American Wedding (-15), Anchorman (+20).

Points: -195.

10. Eugene Levy
(Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Best In Show, For Your Consideration) (+40)
Date Movie/Epic Movie? Neither.
Animated Movies? Curious George (-5), Over The Hedge (-5)
Arrested Development? Nope!
Notes: Appearances in American Wedding (-15), 3 American Pie Presents… films (-60), Like Mike (-15), Dumb and Dumberer (-20), New York Minute (-20).

Points: -200.

Family Films Which Will Warp Your Child

To celebrate the child in all of us, let’s have a look back at some classic family films, and why they are in fact dangerous and will turn your children into terrifying perils to society. Hurray for liberal ideals taking over the past and ruining your childhood! Hurray for them!


1: Back To The Future

The adventures of Marty McFly were chronicled in what could honestly be called the best movie trilogy of all time. There are no missteps here, no poor third film to drag down the others (see: Spiderman) and the films wrap up perfectly by the time film III is over. The acting is fun and the plots are entertaining, while the jokes work and there are people flying around on hoverboards. This is a film for the ages, and kids are bound to love it – did I mention the hoverboards?

Features: Incest, Rape, Jaywalking

Ah, yes. There are several points in the first film where Marty almost has sex with his mother before he is even born, blowing up the corpse of Freud as he spins in his grave in the process. And yes, we’ll admit this, there is a ‘minor’ rape scene when Biff forces himself on Marty’s mum in a car. She gets rescued, luckily, but not without a few bruises. And finally, Marty breaks the Green Cross Code repeatedly through all of the films, first by skateboarding haphazardly round the town square whilst Biff tries to kill him, and then repeats the same act (on a hoverboard, natch) in film two, narrowly avoiding other cars both times. This can’t set a good message for the children.


2: The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

Peter Jackson’s trilogy is another which could contend for the greatest film trio in history. It’s aimed mainly at geeks, but children love it too, as they watch Frodo attempt to make his way to Mt Doom (why would anyone name it that?) to destroy a ring. Meanwhile, Ian McKellan watches on and shouts from time to time, wondering what else he has to do before they’ll give him a role in one of the Harry Potter films. It’s a rip-roaring swashbuckler, guaranteed to keep the kids on the edge of their seats.

Features: Depression, Multiple-Personality Disorder, Animal Cruelty

Good point. And don’t forget how they kill off most of the heroes at one point or another. The depression comes from Frodo and the other hobbits, who get seriously bleak as the films go on, before getting happy again, before then becoming really depressed again. Seriously, half the endings to the film (there are many endings to this film, one after another) are all about hobbit depression. And if you want your kid to see all about how multiple-personality disorder affects people, show them this film for an entirely sympathetic view to the plight of sufferers. They’ll learn that anyone who has this has a good side and an evil side, who talk to each other in mirrors (see also: Heroes). The number of animals who die for no reason in the films is pretty staggering as well – in the final film, count how many of the elephants get killed. Harsh, dude.


3: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

A fun film which combines the real world with the world of Disney characters! Roger Rabbit is a hilarious romp for everyone, featuring cute cartoon characters fighting to save their town from the evil villain, all seen through the eyes of grumpy private detective Bob Hoskins. Physical comedy combines with slapstick to give the whole family a treat every Boxing Day, the only day of the year anyone will ever show this film on TV.

Features: Alcoholism, Bestiality, Cartoon Porn.

I forgot about that. This film is a lot grittier than you remember it, people. Bob Hoskins has fallen into alcoholism after his brother was killed (by a falling grand piano – oh, the bitter genius!) and drinks heavily throughout the film. When he’s not drinking himself drunk every third scene, he’s being attacked by smoking weasels (no seriously, they have cigars) or getting pissed off with Roger, himself the most annoying cartoon character of all time, almost certainly. It’s all good, because we know in the end it’ll sort itself out – but what about when Jessica Rabbit shows up? Do you really want your kids to see her, and realise that not only are we meant to fancy this animated character, but that within the context of the film she has sex with Roger Rabbit? Who is, lest you don’t get it, a rabbit? I thought not.


4: Finding Nemo

A cutsey computer animated film from Pixar which explores the lush surroundings of the sea as Nemo’s bedraggled dad tries to find his son, who has gone missing, aided by a gormless fish, some pelicans, and a stoned turtle. They sure do have crazy minds, those writers. The adventure gets really exciting once some sharks come onto the scene, as the search for Nemo starts to become pretty darned intense. Featuring fun and colourful ideas at every turn, what family wouldn’t enjoy sitting down for a while to watch this film?

Features: Death, Parental Neglect, Talking To Strangers

Maybe a family who don’t want to bring up these points into conversation. At the start of the film Nemo’s mum gets eaten – well depressing, by the way – so he is raised by his dad, who is overly protective, right up until the time when he neglects his son and the kid wanders off on his own, gets captured, has all manner of wacky adventures. If this isn’t a bad enough experience to foist on your children, watch in horror as Nemo merrily talks to every single damned thing he meets, and imagine what this is going to mean the next time a drug dealer offers your child some sweeties. It’s not going to end well, is it?


5: Mary Poppins

The biggest family classic of all. Mary Poppins is THE film for any family who want to pass a rainy afternoon, offering lessons in how to make cleaning your room fun (hint: have a magic room that dances for you) or drinking your medicine. That actually may not be too good for your kids if they get their hands on your medicine cabinet, now I think about it. But regardless, this film features pure celluloid joy, with the family learning how to be happier people from Ms Poppins herself, and they dance and sing together and everything’s a jolly ‘oliday for them.

Features: An LSD Trip, Murder

Oh dear. Halfway through, the gang jump into a street painting and magically turn up in a fantasy world filled with singing geese and penguin waiters offering them drinks… If that’s not a sign of LSD intake, then I don’t know what is. When your children ask you “how comes they got inside the painting, dad?” just remember that your answer should not at any point refer to the fact that the street sweeper has probably drugged them so they won’t notice while he molests them (Now THAT is unwarranted slander). Mr Banks gets fired from his job at the bank, so he tells his boss a joke. The boss then laughs so hard that he has a massive heart attack and dies – that’s murder. But the film glosses over this, as Mr Banks gets his job back afterwards and everything ends happily. Except for the bank manager’s family, of course.

Twin Cinema: Things Films Have Taught Us (Part 3)

Scientists are hot women, but with glasses
Have you somehow found yourself mixed up in a plot to take over the world? You’ll be needing help from a scientist of some kind. You might think, blegh, I have to spend time with a fat blobby woman with skin disease and a superiority complex, but don’t you fear your little head about it, because actually most scientists are hot women. It might seem tricky to see the prettiness – and everyone she knows will think the same. But see, if you take off her glasses, she’s actually an incredibly hot supermodel in waiting. If you’re a girl and you take glasses off a guy, expect him to grow hunky muscles or be a superhero.

Criminals are one step below children and dogs in terms of intelligence
Criminals can be split into two groups: those who steal diamonds and are swish and flashy and pretty damn cool, and those who decide to try and foil dogs and children. Thankfully, children and dogs are more than enough of a match for even the most elite villain, and will be able to fend them off with some cunning traps. You may find that your dog is able to speak. Don’t be terrified and beat it, screaming “it’s a demon, it’s a demon!” because that will look strange. It’s perfectly natural for dogs to talk, and is actually an asset for you. On a side-note, all cats are evil and will side with the enemy.

Which Is The Best James Bond Film?

People across the internet go on and on about which is the best of the James Bond spy franchise, picking their favourite and then saying that their choice is obviously the correct way. However, nobody ever goes to say why the other films aren’t as good as their favourite. In one of my frequent online experiments with culture, I’m going to work out once and for all, which is the best Bond of all – by eliminating the other films for single acts of rubbishness they commit. I thought up nine questions, designed to test the series. If a film does not live up to the question I ask it, then it loses and will be eliminated. The film left standing after my nine questions shall be the winner. Let the elimination commence!


Question 1: Can You Remember What Happens?
Thunderball has something to do with submarines, and For Your Eyes Only had a Greek dude who was the villain. Octopussy has this one scene where one of the allies gets killed with a buzzsaw thing, which is cool, and I think Roger Moore dresses up as a clown. The Living Daylights was the first Timothy Dalton one, and he was a good Bond. These are the sum remembrances I have for any of these films.

Eliminates: Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, The Living Daylights.


Question 2: Who Plays Q?
If Desmond Llewelyn is not playing Q, the film is rubbish and must be taken out back and shot. I’ll let Casino Royale off, because Q doesn’t actually appear in that one. However, he is played by someone else in Dr No and Die Another Day (John Cleese, natch), and I refuse to let those films off so lightly.

Eliminates: Dr No, Die Another Day.


Question 3: Does Bond look past it?
James Bond is a superspy! And more than that, there is a policy that says all 00-Agents have to retire when they reach 45. Despite this, Bond looks pretty rough in Never Say Never Again and A View To A Kill. (Never Say Never Again, by the way – I only include that here so that nobody thinks I’m dissing Lord Moore. I don’t consider it a real Bond film, so don’t even GO THERE). Yeah, those two films are pretty much eliminated.

Eliminates: Never Say Never Again, A View To A Kill


Question 4: Is the Villain Up To Much?
From Russia With Love has a great villain – Red Grant – but sadly nobody remembers him, and he’s out of the picture long before the final act. Instead we have Rosa Klebb, a butch Russian lesbian who has a dangerous shoe. Ooh, scary. The Spy Who Loved me also has a bad villain, a really old guy who sits at a table and likes fish. There’s another old guy in Tomorrow Never Dies, a journalist who says “delicious” far too often and is no match for Bond. I’m also including For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights on this one.

Eliminates: From Russia With Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies.


Question 5: Is the death scene of the villain insanely stupid/bland?
Again with the Klebb – she spends a few minutes waving her leg at Bond before she gets shot – where’s the fun in that? Bond literally inflates someone to death in Live and Let Die, whilst Le Chiffre dies without Bond punching him once. Lame! The Man With The Golden Gun sees Bond pretend to be his own statue before shooting the otherwise badass Scaramanga, and nothing will ever remove the image of a fat German bloke getting sucked out of a fake window in Goldfinger. If I remember correctly, he even makes the noise a balloon does when you let go. Real classy, guys.

Eliminates: From Russia With Love, Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, Goldfinger, Casino Royale.


Question 6: Is Space Travel involved?
Moonraker has lasers. That’s about the only good thing I can say about it. Actually no, I’ll give you Jaws’ last line. That was pretty funny.

Eliminates: Moonraker


Question 7: Does Bond get the wrong girl?
Poor Pierce Brosnan. The role of James Bond offers you the chance to roll around with stunning women, and yet in every one of his films he ends up with the least appealing of the two women who appear. Why couldn’t Xenia reform in Goldeneye? Couldn’t they have found someone less irritating than Christmas Jones to be his lover in The World Is Not Enough? Whose decision was it to kill off Teri Hatcher, and WHY did Rosamund Pike have to be a villain? She’s so hot! Poor Pierce got a string of bad luck, it seems. Also Timothy Dalton’s Bond shows highly impaired judgement when he picks the CIA agent lady instead of Talisa Soto in License to Kill.

Eliminates: License To Kill, Every Pierce Brosnan Film.


Question 8: Does Blofeld not look like Donald Pleasence?
I can accept only two kinds of Blofeld: Donald Pleasence, or obscured Blofeld. All other forms of Blofeld are unsatisfactory, and towards the end they get really strange (Diamonds are Forever – what’s going on there? Face transplants?) I’d also like to take this moment to point out the weirdness of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s bobsleigh scene.

Eliminates: Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever


Question 9: Are black people bad?
Self-explanatory.

Eliminates: Live and Let Die



The Lone Survivor: “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.”!!

It has a kickass opening, a superb villain, a decent song, an underground hollowed-out volcano superbase, and people getting poisoned by string. Fantastic. You Only Live Twice has survived my nine questions, and proves itself to be truly the best Bond film of all time. Dispute THAT, fanboys!

Reimagining A Sarah Jessica Parker Film As A Child Abuse Morality Tale

The Family Stone: A Well-Groomed Comedy Of Dubious Taste!

Synopsis:

The Stones gather for Christmas. Dad's a professor in a Connecticut town; mom has a secret; there's a gay, deaf son and his lover; a pregnant daughter and her child; a daughter who's judgmental and acerbic, like her mother; and a laid-back observant brother. Everett is the eldest, bringing his fiancée Meredith to meet the family and, probably, to ask for grandma's ring to give her. She's self centered, uptight, and seven years old. Instantly, almost all give her a hard time.
Meredith calls her little sister to come and help, and Meredith, her sister, and the family stone conflate. What does Everett see in Meredith, and doesn't she deserve someone to love her for who she is? Someone who doesn't have to break the law whenever he wants to make love to her? Go see "The Family Stone", and find out!

Rating:

3/5 (years old)