Blue Jasmine: Blu Ray Review

Blue Jasmine: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

Woody Allen returns to critical success and Oscar nominations after the recent relative creative disasters of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and To Rome With Love. In this latest, Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a former New York socialite forced to live with her working class sister, Ginger (Hawkins) in San Francisco after her husband Hal (Baldwin) is indicted for fraud and takes his own life. But Ginger's not seen Jasmine since she and her now divorced husband Augie (Dice Clay) were caught up in the fraud and lost everything.

But the ghastly Jasmine lives in a daze, and is unaccepting of what has happened and recovering after a nervous breakdown, meaning that her relationship with her sister becomes ever more fractious as time wears on. However, it looks like things may be on the turn for Jasmine after she meets Peter Sarsgaard's suave Dwight, who's her social equal and potential future....Blue Jasmine is a fine return to form for Woody Allen, whose last couple of outings have been self-indulgent guff filled with trademark self-absorption.

Granted, Cate Blanchett's bankrupt Jasmine is as self-obsessed as they come, but thanks to a multi-faceted and resonant turn from a brilliant Blanchett as she spirals down and a tight script which sparkles rather than flounders, the film is a soar-away success. Wrapped in swathes of designer gear, popping pills, swilling copious martinis and blissfully ignorant ( in the way that someone who's living in denial only can) Blanchett delivers a powerhouse performance that's layered and complex as she spins through life unaware. She's a nasty creature, horrified when her sister visits in her former life and scornful and resentful of the time she steals away from her other more trivial plans. She's ghastly in the extreme and steals every moment the camera gives to her.

But other players sparkle too - specifically Hawkins' turn as the sister, who's initially reticent to help her after she's been burned by Hal is an impressive one, embodying the awkwardness of someone holding back, then embracing her sister's ideals and finally realising that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Alec Baldwin similarly impresses, while Sarsgaard and Louis CK don't quite get enough time on screen. Allen's also to be commended for throwing together a fully rounded script for the first time in a while (even though it draws on a similar story to Streetcar Named Desire, where one down-at-luck sister moves in with the other. It's one which tackles life post recession and failed finance companies. It's a straight forward piece that doesn't rely on portmanteau or intersecting lives for its twists and turns, and simply uses the narrative as it should be used.

Blue Jasmine is to be frank, Allen's best for a long time. A return perhaps to former form and ideas, this tragedy soars - predominantly thanks to a mightily impressive turn from Blanchett. I'd be surprised if she doesn't receive an Oscar nomination for this.

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A Million Ways To Die In The West: Red band trailer

A Million Ways To Die In The West: red band trailer drops

The official restricted trailer for A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST, starring Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, and Liam Neeson has just dropped.

The movie hits cinemas May 29th

Take a look at the red band trailer for A Million Ways To Die In The West below:

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones: Movie Review

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones: Movie Review

Cast: Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz
Director: Christopher B Landon

So, here we go with a kind of spin off to the Paranormal Activity series, but one which has ties to the original franchise in ways you could never foresee.

It's 2012, and The Marked Ones opens with the high school graduation of Jesse, an 18 year old Latina student (played by Andrew Jacobs) about to embark on the summer break. Along with his friend Hector (Jorge Diaz) the duo amuse themselves filming each other doing Jackass-style stunts and following the spooky escapades of the witch who apparently lives in the basement flat of their block.

But when she's shot dead by another of Jesse's fellow students, the pair start investigating - and that's when things take a turn for the spooky as Jesse's whole demeanour starts to change.

Initially Jesse gains super-powers as he can throw people around and do gravity defying things, but soon the darkness is all-encompassing and Hector races to save his friend from a long time curse and a very familiar coven of witches....

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a distraction from the series and franchise, rather than an advancement of the mythology that's built up around Katie (Katie Featherston) and in the previous films. Though, that said, there are subtle nods to what's gone on, as well as the ongoing mythology.

Mixing in touches of Chronicle (teen gets new powers and revels in them before abusing them), a riff on the Exorcist - involving actual eggs (Eggs-orcist anyone?) and throwing in some of the usual jolts, as well as a psychic (and vaguely psychotic) Simon Says, there are a few clever touches thrown in here and there. But after the initial teen edge is dispensed (Kids chasing girls, doing pranks etc), the film settles into the usual routine of drawing out scenes, ramping up the soundtrack before the scare punchline. Some are effective bursts and give the edge that's needed whereas others are unoriginal and expected.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones also suffers from a slightly muddier edge with time portals being thrown into the mix (and uncertainty over how they affect the ongoing story arc) and the found footage format ever so slightly creaks in places as Hector keeps the camera on all the time. Plus, at the end when they end up inside the house rather than running away, you find yourself shouting at the behaviour of the protagonists.

A couple of drip fed hints and allusions here and there to the mythology aren't really enough to sustain the interest in the Marked Ones and while there was a Japanese version of the film way back, you can see why the makers looked to extend the series in some ways.

Here's hoping that the upcoming Paranormal Activity 5 starring Katie Featherston will prove a satisfying end to the series, because the pay off now really needs to come before lovers of Oren Peli's original Paranormal Activity question their own loyalty.

Rating:

Grudge Match: Movie Review

Grudge Match: Movie Review

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Robert de Niro, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Hart
Director: Peter Seagal

It's a delicious idea - Rocky vs Raging Bull in the ring, mano a mano with only the bell to separate them.

It becomes a reality in this gentle comedy from the director of Get Smart and Anger Management.

Stallone is Henry "Razor" Sharp, a boxer who decided to retire when his nemesis, Billy "The Kid" McDonnen (De Niro in feisty frowny form) slept with his girlfriend Sally Rose (Basinger). Denied the final title fight, a rivalry's formed through the years - and when their former promoter's son, Dante Slate Jr (Kevin hart) comes to them to offer a chance of a rematch on the 30th anniversary, only The Kid is keen.

But when Razor loses his job, and has no money, he has no choice....

However, will their out of the ring rivalry cause the rematch train to come off the tracks?

Let's pull no punches here, Grudge Match is a comedy that's a little thin on laughs, but gets by on a relative charm as its old timers creak along, complete with predictable side plots - a son comes out of the woodwork, facilitating necessary bonding, an age old score over romance has to be settled and old timers set back on the path of redemption.

Seagal makes good fist of it all (from what there is to work with), as you wait for the inevitable match up at the end - Razor's home in Pittsburgh is beautifully shot against the mists and the bridge, evoking a man who's fallen on hard times.

The major annoyance of the piece is Kevin Hart as the promoter, whose delivery verges on the Chris Tucker / Eddie Murphy motormouth excesses but simply ends up shouting his lines as his scenes draw to a limp conclusion. It's excruciating in places and puts your teeth on edge.

Alan Arkin offers up his usual slice of deadpan mischievous sarcasm as Razor's dad and Basinger is bland enough as the love interest. There are the obligatory training montages and moments as you'd expect in most boxing movies - and there's even scenes of Stallone trying to emote. De Niro still packs a punch as he wrestles with an average script and some phone it in dialogue (and corny cheeseball moments)- but the scenes of him training remind you of the wiriness of Jake La Motta and his physicality is impressive also as he skips around.

The relative knock out blow comes with the fight at the end, drowned as it is with nostalgia, though it's still lacking the killer punch it really needs - but Stallone and De Niro are to be commended for slugging it out in the ring (though you do wonder how many takes it took to get in the can) but to be honest, at this stage, it just looks like two old guys going at it.

All in all, Grudge Match does make you occasionally want to throw in the towel and has you leaving the cinema like you've been punched in the head - make sure you stick around for the credits as the promoter pitches another fight to two others who may have a score to settle; it delivers more of the laughs that you'd have expected from the film in the first place.

Rating:

Paranoia: Blu Ray Review

Paranoia: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Icon and Roadshow Home Entertainment

Billed as a "high stakes thriller", Paranoia is a delve into the world of greed and deception within the technology industry. It focuses on Liam Hemsworth's Adam, a young up-and-comer in the industry who's been working at entry level at a tech company run by Nicholas Wyatt (Gary Oldman, in cock-er-nee mood). Adam's an honest sort, but one who wants more from life, envious of how some are willing to cheat to get ahead and have achieved major wealth off of others. He lives at home with his sick father (a criminally underused Richard Dreyfuss) and is always struggling.

When he and his team are fired from their jobs, they head out to commiserate and spend up big on their company credit card. But the next day, Adam's hauled up in front of his amoral former boss and given an ultimatum and Faustian pact from Wyatt - face jail time for fraud charges or infiltrate another tech company run by Harrison Ford's Jock Goddard, Wyatt's former mentor and now business enemy.

Seduced by the wealth and possibilities, Adam's sucked into a world of corporate esponiage and is soon in danger of losing his life.

Paranoia is supposed to be a thriller, but to be frank, it lacks any real thrills or suspense whatsoever, resulting in a perfectly average, but utterly under-cooked effort. Sure, Hemsworth finds any excuse to take his shirt off and wander around semi-naked, but the fact he's completely soulless, dead behind the eyes and lacking any real charisma means you don't actually feel for his plight or any peril he may be in.

Likewise, why tease the possibility of Oldman and Ford's characters being major rivals and have them face off each other in only a handful of scenes? And when they finally do face each other down, there's scant tension, little energy and only the slightest frisson of them wanting to tear strips off each other. Though the sight of a shaven headed Ford at the end seething and threatening to boil over brings the first sign of life to this - but it's too late by then.

Underwritten characters, lumpen direction and laughable dialogue in this derail it from the start. An initial voiceover from Hemsworth intones that "I am not going to make excuses - I asked for this" as he extols the fact the American dream has been bastardised by the corporate greed (before fully embracing said greed); another scene in the latter stages at the tech company sees one security guard screaming that they need to "get the IT guy on the line" when their systems go down. Even Ford isn't invulnerable too - he succumbs to delivering the line -"Power's the juice - get used to drinking it" 

All in all, Paranoia had the trappings of some decent moments and the promise of a thriller, but it delivers up a damp squib which is memorable for all the things it does wrong, rather than getting it right. And that's enough to make anyone in Hollywood paranoid.

Extras: None

Rating:

Riddick: Blu Ray Review

Riddick: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R16
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

In the second sequel to the thrilling Pitch Black (which bowed 13 years ago), Riddick finds himself left for dead on sun-scorched planet after being betrayed by the Necromongers from The Chronicles of Riddick movie. Firing off an emergency beacon as an impeding horde of aliens close in on him, Riddick sets in motion a chain of events as two sets of mercenaries head to the planet to kill him and claim the bounty on the head of this criminal.

On one side, there's the vile (potential rapist) Santana (Jordi Molla) and his crew of scumbags; while on the other, there's Matt Nable's Boss Johns, who's been hunting Riddick for 10 years and shares a personal connection to his prey.

While they try to track down Riddick and form an uneasy and uncomfortable alliance, Riddick's lurking in the shadows, engaged in a long term game of cat and mouse.

However, when a new threat arises on the planet which threatens them all, all three sides have to work together to survive. So, here we are with a film which in no way meets the highs of the anti-hero of Pitch Black but is a major improvement on The Chronicles of Riddick.

Vin Diesel is dialled down and damn near silent in the first part of this film, where he channels his inner Bear Grylls to survive the scorched wastelands after being betrayed by the Necromongers of the last flick. WhereTom Hanks had his Wilson in Castaway, Riddick has a dingo / hyena / leopard striped dog creature to help him get through the days as he bonds and bounds around the landscape.

But it all heads south when Riddick activates an emergency beacon and two teams of scumbag mercenaries show on the scene to claim the bounty on him. And not just on screen either - because the turgid script takes a dive and turn for the uglier. As their quarrels and mistrust escalates, the game of cat and mouse eventually escalates (after a lot of slow meandering that doesn't build on tension but serves to drag it out) before a greater menace than all of them shows up.

Visually and technologically impressive, at its leanest, Riddick is a great movie; a taut game of suspense potentially there for the taking as the aliens' marauding menace places our protagonists under siege. But no, thanks to neanderthal dialogue, and an appalling treatment of a ballsy woman in a sci-fi film (Katee Sackhoff's character is apparently a lesbian, so they just have to make unnecessary comments about it; claims that Riddick will go "balls deep" into her are just utterly disgustingly repugnant, ugly and hideously out of place despite the character being an anti-hero and criminal); add into that, an unwarranted topless shot of Katee Sackhoff and further comments here and there, it all adds up to the squandering of what real potential it could have had for a great moody and atmospheric outing. It even equates to a backward step in terms of the treatment of women in sci-fi, which is disturbing, given how much ground's been covered - and how Katee Sackhoff helped redefine that with her role as Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica.

With interest waning after a stunning opening half hour that pits Riddick against nature and the elements, Riddick generally loses the way and the plot, falling into a horde slaughtering mentality a la Tremors that lacks in visual prowess and feels limp in terms of spectacle and emotional connection.  Instead, despite some impressive sequences and moments, it serves as a queasy, misogynistic and uncomfortable slice of sci-fi that doesn't remotely hit the mark and even scotches any chance of redemption for the film franchise.
Extras: Meet the mercs, Riddick behind the scenes

Rating:

 

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