Cemetery Junction on DVD now

The directorial film debut of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant is the 1973 set Cemetery Junction, which is an average, vaguely dull suburb of Reading. The film is set around three friends, Freddie (pretty and also vaguely dull), Bruce (anger issues and attitude) and Snork (inappropriate language and chubby) as they all try to meet girls and escape from the Junction. 

Freddie takes a job away from the factory where his father and friend works to wear a suit and tie, selling life insurance overseen by his boss Mr Kendrick (Fiennes) and his right hand man Mike (Goode). Whereas Bruce talks of escaping but seems stuck between the factory and the police lock up as he bounces from work to fights. Whereas Snork on the other hand just wants to (unsuccessfully) get laid. Freddies new job sets in motion a series of changes that move the lads lives on, Freddie himself meets his childhood friend, the bosses daughter Julie. Bruce gets to finally sort out his anger and Snork actually meets a girl who’s interested in him.

Its an ok film, the cast overall are great with Fiennes and Watson leading the star names although for me it all was a little too predictable and apart from the weight of Gervais’s name I doubt it would have been made. Pleasant while watching but ultimately forgettable.  

Director: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

Cast

Christian Cooke – Freddie Taylor

Tom Hughes – Bruce Pearson

Felicity Jones – Julie Kendrick

Ralph Fiennes – Mr Kendrick

Matthew Goode – Mike Ramsay

Emily Watson – Mrs Kendrick 

The Social Network on DVD now

Based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich The Social Network documents the development and rise of Facebook. The film centers on Mark Zuckerberg an extremely talented Harvard student who by a series of events decides to launch Facebook at college. Facebook spreads like wildfire and soon expands over the world to become the phenomenon that it is today, making Zuckerberg the world’s youngest millionaire as well as bringing out his enemies.

A potentially unusual choice of subject matter for a film, an awkward socially isolated geeky genius creating a computer database admittedly one that changes the way the world now communicates but The Social Network is an interesting, informative film which deals with genius, jealousy and power in a very modern context. Eisenberg is great as the rather unlike able driven Zuckerberg who is a socially distant student and therefore more easily able to detach himself from his only friend Eduardo played by the next Spiderman Andrew Garfield. Even Timberlake is good as the napster inventor Parker – I was pleasantly surprised by his acting.

This film succeeds largely because of the amazing script which would manage to hold your interest even if you dont partake in social networking. It’s a modern tale of power and betrayal admittedly with its central character a billionaire who doesn’t even seem to change his clothes!

Well work a watch.

Director: David Fincher
Cast:

Jessie Eisenberg – Mark Zuckerberg
Andrew Garfield – Eduardo Saverin
Justin Timberlake – Sean Parker

Burke and Hare on DVD Now

Director John Landis, famed for such movies as American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers and Animal House, returns to the directors chair to tackle the story of Burke (Pegg) and Hare (Serkis) the infamous body snatchers on the 19th Century. Burke and Hare are skint but luckily (?) for them they are based at the centre of medical excellence so when there is a sudden death they decide to profit from it by selling it to the Dr Knox who is always on the look out for fresh bodies to dissect in front of medical students. Dr Knox cannot seem to get his hands on enough bodies and so Burke and Hare decide to profit from this lucrative trade although they too realise there are not enough fresh corpses – so they decide to take matters into their own hands. 

I would firstly warn against thinking that this will be a in-depth expose or dramatisation into the dealings of the two real life body snatchers, instead we get a slapstick romp through 19th century Edinburgh cadaver business. Pegg and Serkis seem to be enjoying themselves as they take on the Irish born anti heroes who take to their new career as a duck takes to water, and in this task they are ably assisted by Lucky (Hynes) Hare’s missus who gets turned on by the money and her hubbies new career. There are also an amazing amount of famous cameos in this film – I dare you to watch it without spotting them and in some respects that takes the focus away from the main action of the film. Although this film is funny it should also be noted that the blood and guts come with an adult edge – which mirrors that of American Werewolf or Hot Fuzz, your laughing and then suddenly are brought short when face with something a bit too visceral. 

The conclusion for me is that this film falls between two camps, its neither an outright comedy or even in drama – its more Carry On Burke and Hare.

Director: John Landis

Cast:
Simon Pegg – William Burke
Andy Serkis – William Hare
Jessica Hynes – Lucky
Isla Fisher – Ginny Hawkins
Tom Wilkinson – Doctor Robert Knox
Tim Curry – Doctor Monro

 

Buried out now on DVD

Buried is a film in which Paul Conroy (Reynolds) a US citizen working as a truck driver in Iraq awakens to find himself trapped in a coffin, buried underground with only a mobile phone and a cigarette lighter. It’s a race against time for Conroy to contact help, for the help to find and locate him or the ransom demands to be met. 
 
Buried is a good brave film and one for me in which Reynolds shines and the man trapped underground in what must be a situation any human would fear. In fact I couldn’t find anything really wrong with this movie, its paced really well, Conroy is both short tempered, impatient, pleading and repentant and you can feel the helplessness and claustrophobia of the situation. Reynolds as I said is great as the only character you really see in the whole movie for me shows that he can really act and is more than just eye candy. The only negative for this film is that it’s a hard sell – it’s the story of a man trapped underground, its harrowing and not exactly light viewing – its good, although you also do feel like you’ve put yourself through a bit of an ordeal watching it.
 
Director: Rodrigo Cortés

Cast:
Ryan Reynolds – Paul Conroy

Taken on DVD now

I had previously steered clear of watching this movie after reading some not so glowing reviews but I found myself promising my 20 year old nephew I would watch it before casting judgement (which I was doing), which is why I’m writing this review.
 
Taken is the story of Bryan Mills (Neeson) who travels to France to find his daughter after Eastern European sex traffickers kidnap her. Mills isn’t just an ordinary Joe – oh no he’s a retired CIA agent and he has revenge and blood on his mind. 
 
Hmmm I guess I don’t want to really lay into this film but I found so many things wrong with it I actually got to the point where I started laughing which I’m sure wasn’t the desired effect. Yes there’s fighting which is well done and if you want to watch Neeson strutting his stuff with a gravely voice then this film is probably the one for you, I would on the other hand rather watch a Bourne movie if I wanted close up combat – its better done in Bourne with a much better story holding it together.  I suppose if this film handled itself like the Transporter – a little tongue in cheek it would be more fun but I get the feeling that this film takes itself a little to seriously (like Mills himself) and in that respect it for me fell flat.
 
The air of the whole film is one of paranoia – Mills is paranoid about his daughter travelling in Europe where all manner of dark and shady people lurk and of course his paranoia is fully justified when the ‘evil men’ are lurking to kidnap young women straight off the plane – those dastardly foreigners!  The technology Mill’s uses is laughable – two words are recorded of the kidnapper and that’s enough to get a voice / person match and whole history, it is though handy (no pun intended) that the ‘evil foreigners’ have all decided to get a distinctive tattoo on all of their hands so they can be easily identified.
 
There is also the matter of all the ‘sex trafficked’ women. Why would any prospective kidnapper choose to take women who were not alone and friendless? – Hasn’t anyone else complained that this seems to be going on in Paris – its not exactly the third world is it and there are rather a lot of drugged women scattered throughout the city. The girls are drugged and chained to the bed, I don’t profess to know much about prostitution but I would have thought that a punter would at least want to have his girl looking ‘clean’ and not like she hasn’t had a bath in a month with needle marks all over her arms…. maybe its just me though, and that’s not me even getting started on the weird shipping tanker brothel (so classy) and the peep show auction.  Of course this all boils down to the ‘Jabba the Hutt’ like nasty foreign geezer who wants pure western girls so he can pop their cherries.  I guess as a European woman I didn’t realise thing were quite this lawless here, there again if you can kill 15 people in Paris and have no repercussions its probably quite handy Europe is a wild – a bit like the wild west was but with better architecture.
 
Give this one a miss and put on a Bourne or Casino Royale instead. 
 
Director: Pierre Morel

Cast:

Liam Neeson – Bryan Mills

Maggie Grace – Kim  

 

 

Easy A on DVD now

Easy A charts the story of Olive, a likeable, smart, quick witted and intelligent  American teenager, (yes you did read that correctly) who tells a lie about losing her virginity a lie that soon grows. Olive goes from being non-existent in high school to being the center of attention and she decides to use her newfound notoriety to help out a friend and for financial gain. Soon the rumours circulate and the lie grows and grows and Olive has to find a way to salvage her reputation and to silence the religious fever her ‘promiscuity’ has stirred up.

Emma Stone, soon to be seen in the Amazing Spiderman, is great as Olive – smart, funny and even more surprising she’s likeable and that’s not something I say about American teenage girls often. Her little lie throws her into a dilemma which is paralleled to the book she is studying – The Scarlet Letter, so Olive decides to take it to the extreme and then has difficulty containing the genie once it was out of the bottle. Stone is so important on this movie as most of it rests on her young shoulders –she succeeds in running away with the film and launching herself onto the A List. The script is great and all of the supporting characters are interesting and suitably skewed and distorted which keeps you interested. If you like Mean Girls or Clueless or even if you older Heathers, this would be perfect viewing.

Director: Will Glut

Cast:
Emma Stone                      - Olive
Penn Badgley                    -  Woodchuck Todd
Amanda Bynes                  -  Marianne
Dan Byrd                            - Brandon
Thomas Haden Church    - Mr Griffith

 

A Single Man on DVD now

A Single Man that is based on the book of the same name by Michael Isherwood, is the story of a day in the life of a college professor George (Firth), a man struggling with grief after his partner Jim (Goode) has died in a car accident.  Months after Jim’s death George is slowly unravelling and is looking for a reason to carry on.

Firstly this film is beautiful in a way that isn’t often seen, its almost a work or art, Ford the fashion designer turned director is in his element, not only do the characters look like they are straight off the catwalk there is also something ethereal, almost dreamy about the way in which the film was shot. There are some amazing shots that are almost in sepia until George takes a deep breath in and in doing so breathes life into the footage, it’s a simple technique but is done so wonderfully you don’t even realise what you have seen until it has passed.

The story is great, and also tragic, Firth is excellent as the outwardly controlled, repressed and yet deeply grieving George, the heart of the film.  We follow him through a day in his life where we see him largely detached from his surroundings as if his grief has made him an observer in his own life. Georges situation is made all the more tragic as you realise that in the 60’s when the film was set George wasn’t allowed closure on his lovers death – not allowed to attend the funeral and apart from his friend, the beautiful gin soaked Charlie (Moore) he has to live in denial as to what has happened to him.

It’s a slow moving, dreamlike beautful movie both in look as well as sentiment and it is the unsaid lines in the film where it speaks its loudest.

Director: Tom Ford


Cast:

Colin Firth             George
Julianne Moore    Charlie
Nicholas Hoult      Kenny
Matthew Goode   Jim