Black Widow Photo

Ah, torn between my dislike of Scarlett Johanssen and my undying love of redheads and leather.

Though that hair looks like it came directly from a Cabbage Patch Doll.

RetroReview - THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Synopsis: Just after the turn of the century, a baby is born with all the signs of old age. Growing up an old man, Benjamin Button ages backwards, destined to live his life getting younger as those around him age. As soon as he's mature enough, he sets out to see the world, encountering new experiences as he goes...

Review: A staggering technical achievement and a visual treat, Button is rarely more than the sum of its well-polished parts. Gorgeous cinematography, sets and amazing CGI aside, the film is a victim of its own style, sacrificing character for spectacle.

The joking 'Forrest Gump with A Levels' metaphor is strikingly accurate; the tale of a unique individual told with a more visual flair but with a fraction of the heart. Emotion rarely encroaches on the proceedings, leaving an audience feeling hollow and empty. There is little tragedy felt when Benjamin realises, and indeed meets, his final fate, nor is there joy, just bemusement at the inevitable climax.

Performances are uniformly excellent, the standout of course being Brad Pitt, managing to capture childlike innocence and wonder as on old man and world weariness as he approaches an elderly childhood. Blanchett is as wonderful as ever, despite her character being a spoiled whiner for the early half of the film, as is Tilda Swinton in a role too small for her talents.

A few standout sequences are worthy of note, most of all a short discussion of coincidence and fate which sees several characters intertwining days and how each knock on effect can culminate in disaster. But it's over far too quickly, resuming an otherwise very straightforward narrative. The only emotional beat that came close to touching me was the subplot with Button's estranged biological father, which culminates in a genuinely moving moment.

However, the vaunted tagline of 'Life must be lived backwards to be understood forwards' is irrelevant - managing to be neither implicit, explicit or subtle, there are little life lessons to be gleaned here other than 'life life to the full' and 'don't be ashamed of who you are'. A close-to-three-hour runtime and slow burning pace is to the film's detriment; shaving an hour would give the film far more impact.

It is far from David Fincher's best work - perhaps his most impressive from a visual stance, but sitting alongside Panic Room and The Game as technically proficient but ultimately empty fare.

To say I was disappointed would be fair, though I did enjoy the film - just not as much as I was hoping I would.

Green Lantern Not Bringing Sexy Back!

It's official. Justin Timberlake is NOT the Green Lantern. The fanboy community just breathed a huge sigh of relief.

It's Ryan Reynolds after all.

I, for one, am incredibly pleased with this casting. I've been a fan of Reynolds for a long time, and he's one of those actors I'd watch in anything. He's more than capable of of being the big, bold superhero type, and he'll really bring an emotional depth to Hal Jordan that the character deserves.

And he's not Justin Timberlake, which gets him extra points.

Green Lantern...Justin Timberlake!?!?!

Allegedly casting for The Green Lantern has narrowed ptential Hal Jordan's to three candidates. Man of the moment Bradley Cooper, ubiquitous Ryan Reynolds, and...teen popster and greasy sexbag Justin Timberlake.

This is not reality!

As far as I'm concerned this is a spectacularly dumbass state of affairs. Not to belittle JT's talent as a music star, but his acting leaves something to be desired. From doe-eyed, Killers-singing soldier in the dire Southland Tales, to unfunny cameos in dreck like The Love Guru, JT isn't an actor. He's a money draw with delusions of grandeur.

While I don't mind a renaissance man every now and then, 99% of music stars making the crossver into acting are awful. Trading in on success in one field to force your way into another feels cheap and rarely shows talent. Rappers are the worst offenders, with very few ever rising above mediocrity (aside from Mos Def, I'm hard pressed to think of any), but then there's the likes of Bon Jovi doing as equally a bad job. It works the same the other way too, with thesps trying to sell us their dulcet vocals. Did anybody buy Lindsay Lohan's album? Does anybody really care that Billy Bob Thornton has a band?

I think the failure is largely due to a) talent, or lack thereof and b) over saturation. An audience only wants to see your face so often, and once they've accepted you as an actor, you're going to have to do your damndest to prove that your warblings are worth listening to.

So, is JT's crossover appeal really worth the woeful miscasting and potential ruination of a franchise? Is suspension of disblief strong enough that while he battles intergalactic alien threats, we won't be thinking of him crying rivers or bringing sexy back? And are the hordes of screaming teenage girls that'll blindly line up to see him parade around in lycra or leather worth the stigma the film will get for being 'That one with him from N'Sync in tights'?

Awful casting, awful decision. Fingers crossed we get, if we absolutely must, Cooper or Reynolds.

What do you guys think?

Trailer - DISTRICT 9

The big surprise with the theatrical trailer is that the film isn't just a straight documentary style as previously thought, but looks to be a military vs aliens flick with a political message. Still, it looks absolutely incredible...

Trailer - BOOK OF BLOOD

This shows an inkling of promise, though the decision to expand the frame story from the original, two volume short story collection is an odd one - though filled with rich visual imagery, many of the short stories are far more interesting and this could have been a nice portmanteau piece.

Though I'm still not totally convinced, it's nice to see a horror film not populated entirely by teenagers, and the last Clive Barker adaptation The Midnight Meat Train was very, very good. My review of that, here.

Trailer - JENNIFER'S BODY

Shocktillyoudrop has posted the trailer for the Diablo Cody scripted, Megan Fox starring teen horror flick Jennifer's Body - and, unsurprisingly, it's further proof the horror genre's on its arse.

With the Queen of Vacuous, Megan Fox in the lead as a demonic shagger, this looks somwhere between Juno, Species, and every other bad teen horror movie you've ever seen, regardless of how much hype this'll generate because it's written by an Oscar winner.

Don't get me wrong, I like Juno, though largely due to its performances. The dialogue was often stylised to within an inch of its life and far beyond the realm of suspension of disbelief. Nobody, regardless of intelligence, really speaks like that.

Review - TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Synopsis: Alien robots hit each other. What were you expecting, Shakespeare?

Review: I'm not going to waste a lot of column space on this review, because it's just one of those movies that will get a critical kicking and make shedloads of money, and regardless what I say, the so-called smug cineastes will still maul it, crying out 'I'm an intelligent movie goer and I'm above this kind of thing.' I feel all the people writing endless slurs are missing the point. If ever a film typified 'brainless entertainment' it's the Transformers franchise - complaining that the dialogue's terrible (it is), the focus is often too sexual (it is), and it's all an excerising in money making (I hate to be the one to break it to you - it is), is the equivalent of starting a kicking contest with a man with no legs. Big and dumb? You're joking me!

So, the things you've heard are indeed all true. Robotic, racist stereoptypes abound. Whenever there's a female on screen, the camera generally hovers about two inches below their impossibly bronzed thighs. It's waaaay too long, with a good hour's worth of material that shouldn't have even been written down in the first place, let alone hit the cutting room floor.

But it's a big, loud dose of eye candy straight to the very dumbest parts of your brain, and no matter how hard I try, I find it impossible to dislike cars going fast, growing legs and shooting each other - no matter how much I may pretend not to when discussing it with some high-brow cine-snob extolling the virtues of There Will Be Blood for the thirtieth time. You know what - I was probably sitting next to you during There Will Be Blood, and loving it just as much as you. Genuinely great movie, ain't it?

Now shush, the robots are fighting again.

Guilt is not something I feel when stating that I enjoyed the movie, and I certainly won't aplogise for said enjoyment. I also won't apologise for everything movie doesn't succeed at - it's often spectacularly closed minded, too smutty for the youngsters and borders on offensive in its cultural depictions. It's instantly disposable and forgetable, and it's not as good as the first one.

But I couldn't give enough of a toss to cry about it - it's not as if a flick about alien robots twatting each other set out with an agenda to ruffle the feathers of the left wing. A third franchise entry is inevitable, and likely to be as empty and moronic as this one.

Can I book my ticket now?

RetroReview - EAGLE EYE

Spoilers ahead...

Synopsis: Loser Jerry Shaw finds a huge amount of cash in his account and weapons in his apartment. Suddenly, his phone rings, telling him he needs to run...

Review: Hitchcock for the Myspace generation, so goes the buzz. I say, nonsense for the ADD crowd. A techno thriller that starts of with a slick premise and slicker direction ploughs into incredulity in its second act and downright farce in its third. You can boil the entire plot down to: "Skynet-lite attempts to assassinate the president using an exploding trumpet." That is in no way an exaggeration or a lie. It's the third act of Get Smart without the irony or the good will.

DJ Caruso's follow up to the enjoyable Disturbia is certainly sharply shot and edited, and the action for the most part is exciting as long as it stays in the realms of sanity. Performances throughout are its saving grace, with Shia LaBoeuf consistently likeable and Michelle Monaghan always worth a watch. But people like Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson stumble around with little to do but fill underwritten cliches. Thornton gets the film's only good line: "If you don't have this thing sorted, I'll see it you're demoted to a job that involves touching shit with your hands."

You really have to wonder... A supercomputer that can hack any CCTV camera, any phone, any electrical device on the grid and even, and this is where one of the films buggest guffaws comes, decypher voice patterns and speech through vibrations in a coffee cup... Is the plan to save the USA by way of a pitch-activated exploding brass band really the best it could come up with? Why not just cruise-control all of the White House cars off a cliff somewhere?

And why does no bugger think to just turn it off?

This Is Not Reality!

Every now and then, a movie or an idea comes along which is so bad, dumb, pointless and worthless that it'll leave you sitting, staring blankly at the screen wondering if you're really living your life in a world where the laws or physics and logic exist, or if you've drifted into a parallel universe where nothing makes any semblance of sense.

You think... This is not reality.

Inspired by Sam Neill's breakdown in John Carpenter's underrated horror gem In The Mouth Of Madness, the this is not reality can strike at any time. Sometimes, sitting with your popcorn, you're not sure whether to laugh or cry, so it pays to do both.

It's kind of my equivalent of a zero star review. Incidentally, I watched Hitman at the weekend. That gets the honour of this site's first newest tag.

Newswise, today's TINR comes with news of a remake of An American Werewolf In London.

American Werewolf is one of those movies that really shouldn't be tarred with the remake brush - it's pretty much perfect in its intentions and execution. From it's groundbreaking makeup effects (which still look amazing, by the way), to its humour, to its tragedy, it does horror and comedy in equally effective measure.

If you need proof of it's success, just look at the attempt to make a sequel, An American Werewolf In Paris. That's the kind of film TINR moments were born of. Do we really need an update aimed at teens with a sexed up cast and endless pop culture references?

Stick to the road, lads. And beware the moon. And repeat after me...

This is not reality!