It's "About Time" I Reviewed This *wink*

Richard Curtis movies are an odd bunch. They're funny, full of character, oh-so-British and yet they all feel so similar. The timing of my post a few days from Valentine's Day (here's some cards if you need them) might suggest what the common, far too heavily trodden theme of his movies is. That's correct: love. Who doesn't love love, right?

"I love that escalated Milwaukee whale's vagina". One-liner movies confuse me. 

Love is done to death. Being mushy to each other is more tired than an anaemic Kenyan with diabetes chasing after someone who stole his aid parcel. Curtis isn't helping the matter either, with Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually all being movies about people falling in love whilst being charming and funny. Well, to be more exact, they're all about Hugh Grant falling in love whilst being charming and funny.

They gradually heighten his hair so we can tell the difference between each movie.

What I hate most about Richard Curtis movies, though, is that I don't hate them. Nay, I can't hate them. The bland, overly squishy premises are made up for tenfold by his uncontested mastery of writing believable characters, fantastical yet real situations and superb British wit. And so, it is with joyous displeasure that I introduce to you his latest movie about love (with a little bit of time travel, as the tagline says): About Time.

Lets get the biggest difference between About Time and the rest of Curtis' back catalogue out of the way: there's not a Hugh Grant to be seen for miles. Now I love his cheeky wee face as much as the next straight guy but sometimes an actor can end up the poster boy for a particular type of movie, and Hugh Grant would be on the front cover of every issue of Quirky British Comedy Quarterly.

I couldn't be bothered photo-shopping a magazine cover so here's a photo of him
being stalked by the two most under-appreciated letters of the alphabet.

The other thing that's different about this movie is it's interpretation of what love is. Those of you who've seen Love Actually will likely contest that Curtis has already covered pretty much any form of love you can think of, but that was an ensemble film; none of the concepts were really able to gain the traction they would have if they were given centre stage. In About Time we follow the story of Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) who, having just discovered that the men in his family have the ability to travel backwards through time, sets out on the typical quest for the big "L word". Sounds pretty much like your bog standard romance with some sci-fi, but what the film ends up becoming is something completely different entirely.

"Lesbians...?"

First, though, lets get the sci-fi out of the way. The time travel in About Time is perfect in its simplicity: you can only travel backwards in your own lifetime and whatever changes you make with butterfly effect their way along to present day. Easy peasy. No further explanation given beyond the apparent need for a dark space and clenched fists. Time travel is treated in a similar way to 2012's Looper, the less you try to Doc Brown your way into paradoxes and parallel dimensions the easier it is for everybody, and with a film like this where the concept is more a plot device than anything else it works nicely. Sci-fi nerds might moan, but they're the ones who went to this movie without a girlfriend so fuck them.

Except this guy; he gets way more poon than me.

The film could, if you were the kind of person to cut things in half (towels, children, etc.), be cut in half around about the mid-point in regards to the main focus of the story and the themes being portrayed. Part one has Tim getting used to his time travelling powers while attempting to work out how he can best use them to get a girlfriend. In a nutshell, the first half of the movie is a creepy as fuck take on the usual boy meets girl and they fall madly in love thing. Imagine what you would say and do if you knew you could just jump into a cupboard, turn the clock back to erase it and start over; now remove all of the terrifying revenge fantasies, tone down the filthy sex stuff to a 15 rating and keep all of the horrifying manipulation of the lives of those around you exactly as is. That's what the first half is like.

Standing in cupboards in the middle of the day is never not odd.

Although Tim is portrayed as a lovably useless young man when it comes to social situations, his inherent awkwardness somehow just manages to make what he does even cringier. Whether or not you believe you might have found the woman of your dreams doesn't give you the right to alter her life without her knowing and, although the movie does become suitably adorable when he and Mary (Rachel McAdams) finally get together (aw come one, it's not a spoiler when it's on the poster), it takes a while for that initial shudder of horror to subside.

There are two things wrong with waiting all day for someone to show up at a Kate Moss
exhibition, only one of them is to do with the art.

Part two is where it gets much more interesting, however. I have to say it's either testament to lazy marketing or brilliant marketing (depending on your cynical outlook on life) that all of the film's advertising focussed on Tim and Mary, because about an hour into the film it stops being about them. Mary doesn't quite slip into the background as much as she is more assimilated into the Borg cube of Cornish charm that is Tim's family. Corn cube? Sounds like a particularly difficult bowel movement.

"Resistance is futile. Your poop, as it has been, is over."
And I mocked Trekkies not three paragraphs ago...

The ads for About Time makes you think that this is a film about lovey love, with all the sex and babies and such, but it sneaks up on you in the second act with its real aim: family love. As already mentioned, the men of Tim's family have the unique gift of time travel, which results in a particularly strong bond between Tim and his dad (the glorious Bill Nighy), a relationship that really lets Curtis' knack for believably dynamic human interaction shine through. That said, the love train doesn't have just one stop (oh, god, that was terrible) and you grow to love and cherish each and every one of Tim's beautifully realised family members, which makes watching the hardships they suffer all the more poignant when they come hurtling around the corner.

Sometimes even a Bill Nighy hug can't help.

I feel like I should touch at least a little on the technical side of the movie for a moment. What with being such a plot and character driven affair it's difficult to take the time to appreciate the beautifully framed, natural cinematography and the added little flairs like the recurring sound motif every time Tim travels back in time, but it's all there if you want to find it. There's nothing ground-breaking, but this isn't a film about hiding obscure meaning in baking powder tins and odd camera angles, it's about people, and it's shot to reflect that. Grounded and simple yet beautiful.

Just like dad dancing.

On a whole, this is the sweetest, most sincere story of one man's "extraordinarily ordinary" and ever so slightly creepy life I've ever had the pleasure of watching through floods of tears. Seriously, this will have you bawling by the credits. For once we have ourselves a film about the relationships we have with our families, particularly our parents, and the special little spot we save in our hearts just for them. It's not as forced as Four Weddings and not as cheesy as Love Actually; it's just right. This is by far Richard Curtis' best movie yet.

And just to polish off on as appropriately sentimental a note as possible: I think I can safely say that for as long as I live this movie will be my go-to whenever I need reminded of those things that really matter: how lucky I am to be surrounded by those I love and that those I love are there for me. Mum, dad, I love you guys. Now excuse me while I crawl into a ball and sob for another two hours.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Seeing Your Dad Again for the First Time in Months -

For fucks sake, give him a hug. You've missed him.

Valentine's Day "Love" Counter: 25 uses of the word "love"

Top 5 "Oo, That Looks Good" Movies of 2014

The new year has arrived at long last; we only had to wait 365 days or so for it. And with the new year comes the long wait for the inevitable wave of summer blockbusters that arrive every June with the timing and grace of only the most punctual and voluminous menstrual sloughs.

There is never not a good moment to use this image.

Summer this year seems to be set to flood us like so much body-temperature uterus lining with a veritable smorgasbord of exactly the same movies over and over again. With lots of lasers and jumping and looking seriously into the distance, sci-fi and alien invasion seem to be the aim of the game, so be prepared for, well, lots of sci-fi and aliens; along with the obligatory kids animated movie sequels and another superhero movie, because we're totally not tired of them yet. Yay.

Why can't we all just wait patiently for Ant-Man?

That said, there's still plenty to be excited all through the year so, without further ado (or adon't), I give you my top 5 list of movies that, as the title suggests, make you lean over to your mate in the cinema and shout-whisper, "Dude, we need to see that." Let us begin with:

5. Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (Release: 21st February)

Subtle...

Oh Lars. What are you like? First Antichrist, now this. What with these, your porn films and that Nazi joke at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago, I almost feel like you're trying too hard to be controversial. And after the cataclysmically awful melodrama of Melancholia I'm starting to worry that you've actually lost your film-maker's touch. What happened? Where's another Dogville?

Won't you think of the children?!

I'm not a man to give up hope, however, and so this is your last chance, Lars, to restore my faith in you. I'm always a fan of the films that steer a little closer to the bone and sexuality has always been something that the film industry has shied away from like a young actress from a Hollywood producer's fly (who said that?!), so I commend the steel balls it must take to make a film that's essentially a two-part, five hour long mainstream porn movie. Whether it'll actually be any good of a film or just there for the shock factor (see Antichrist again) will only be a matter of time. I just hope Trier has realised that a little bit of subtlety and room for interpretation can go a long way.

Ah.

So, for those of you looking for plenty of sex, hamfisted imagery, disturbed characters and a little dash of Rammstein, this looks like the movie of the year for you. Here's the trailer (one of them was originally banned from YouTube), see if you can spot the subliminal vagina at the beginning:

4. The Lego Movie (Release: 14th February)

If you went to see Nymphomaniac and you now need a way to stop your children from crying inconsolably or worse, copying what they saw, you could take them to the next screen to see The Lego Movie. Yes, The Motherfucking Lego Movie. I'm a little too excited for this one as it's directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the directors behind the glorious 21 Jump Street remake (the sequel is also coming out this year, but sadly ranked at number six on my list) and the solidly alright Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, features Morgan Freeman as God, co-stars Will Arnett from Arrested Development as Batman and Liam Neeson is in there somewhere too. There's not a single part of the production or casting line-up that makes me too worried about this becoming yet another all-too-formulaic kid's movie and thank Morgan Freeman, because Warner Bros. have the imaginations of countless children and former-children at stake here.

"Put all your money in a bag and hand it over or another beloved household name gets ruined." - Warner Bros. Marketing Department

Almost all of us have fond memories of ourselves or a sibling spending a rainy Sunday afternoon meticulously building a world of colourful blocks complete with characters, stories, drama and heaps of action; then destroying everything with an alien invasion or massive Godzilla earthquake or with whatever other characters or toys you happened to have lying around. The trailer for this movie evokes exactly the same kind of sense of boundless fun and joyously nonsensical carnage of the childhood imagination. Even the animation style is reminiscent of a kid moving Lego men around like hopscotch players before making the calculated executive decision to curtail the hunt for the secret cave of awesome and swallowing the pieces instead.

"Oh my god, it ate the General! All is lost!"

If all goes well, this will be one part loose "save the world" story, a hundred parts hilariously unhinged chaos and all made from the brightly coloured little blocks of nostalgia that we all know and love. Hit it, YouTube embed:

3. Interstellar (Release: 7th November)

Never before has a poster looked so...Nolany.

Let's go all the way to the end of the year and look at Christopher Nolan's next pet project, Interstellar. It's no surprise that pretty much all anyone outside the production team and cast knows about the movie is that it's something to do with astronauts and wormholes. The cast have stayed tight-lipped about any further details, as is customary with a Nolan movie, so all we can do is wait. Something that will obviously build speculation, and hype, and money. You cheeky bastard, Nolan. You wouldn't get away with this if all of your movies weren't so bloody good.

Nearly all of them.

Looking at the crew, it's certainly going to make for an interesting film. There's the production designer from The Dark Knight, the editor from Inception and Elysium (expect lots of fast shots and not a lot of knowing what's going on) and the cinematographer behind the chilling Let the Right One In, which means we're probably looking at a complicated, fast-paced, creepy movie with lots of twists and turns. So, yeah, a Christopher Nolan film. I canny wait! We'll just have to wait and see what he churns out, as the trailer doesn't really shed any further light on things:

2. The Wolf of Wall Street (Release: 17th January)

I'm kind of cheating here seeing as The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's new biopic of another Henry Hill-type sleazeball called Jordan Belfort, came out in the good old US of We'll Show Our Movies a Month Before You Get Them Ner-nee-ner-ner on Christmas Day, but it doesn't come out over here until mid-January, so I think it still counts.

You wouldn't look so happy without all of your missiles and stupid premiers, would you? Noooooo.
Dick.

A Scorsese movie is really best described by itself, so I present to you the trailer for Wolf of Wall Street and dare you to say that this doesn't have absolutely everything you want from a film in it, up to and including Leonardo DiCaprio's adorable smug-face (see poster above):

1. The Wind Rises (Release: Unannounced)

Hayao Miyazaki is retiring! Why, God, why?! His final movie, The Wind Rises, is a fictional account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man behind the design of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter plane used by Japan during World War II, which eventually evolved into the famous "Kamikaze" A5M Zeros that were in that one good bit of Pearl Harbor. It's caused a bit of a stir over in Japan, what with a story humanising the designer of weapons of war seemingly going against Miyazaki's famously pacifist ideologies. The controversy is only fuelling my hunger for this film even more, however, as it has been hailed as Miyazaki's most personal film and apparently focuses on a healthy dose of adult themes not seen before in an anime that has hit number one on the Japanese box office for the whole of the year. It reminds me of another Studio Ghibli movie set in World War II Japan that featured pretty heavy themes and something about dead bugs...

If I think about it too hard I might start crying again.

Grave of the Fireflies is possibly one of the greatest and most devastating films ever made, and now the best anime director ever (Isao Takahata holds just as strong a place in my heart, mind) has made a new film about the same subject. I think it might kill me if I see this...

Worth it.

I would urge those of you who are a little dubious about watching cartoons (particularly anime) to give this a try, you'll be seeing the work of a master of an industry at his very best. Everyone loves him. As for me, I'll have to watch the trailer at least another 5 times before I can get through the whole thing without breaking the laptop from the resulting efflux of drool and tears of joy:

So, my little band of unholy abominations, what films are you looking forward to this year?

The World's End: Not Quite the End for Pegg and Frost

I always feel bad whenever I decide to review a movie that it turns out I like. Reviewing anything you enjoy feels like a cheat; you end up biased in your criticism and just spend the whole thing fawning over it's unadultered epicness instead of, you know, actually saying something worthwhile.

Attempting to explain everything good about David Bowie descends into guttural screaming and a voiding of all bodily fluids.

I'd already decided to review The World's End before I started watching it, and I whole-heartedly regret my choice; this film is awesome. With Edgar Wright back on the writing and directing helm of the last in the fabulously named "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" after Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's disappointing solo effort Paul, The World's End is a funny, painfully self-aware, hyper-violent and utterly charming sci-fi flick that is exactly the same as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in all of the right ways. Plus, it's all entirely a build up to the post-apocalyptic wasteland in the Sisters of Mercy Song, This Corrosion.

Who'd have thought something so epic could come out of the Sisters of Mercy, eh?

Seeing as I've already let the cat out of the bag as to my overall opinion on this movie, I'm going to restrain myself for as long as possible and talk about the few criticisms I do have of possibly the weakest film out of an overall impeccable trilogy.

Then again, how could you possibly be expected to compete with this?

The overarching message of World's End is very simple to grasp. Too simple. As in Joey Essex trying to unlock a door with a teaspoon levels of simple. It's a technophobia parable in a similar vein to a Phillip K. Dick novel without the weird dreamy undertones or, you know, subtlety. Technology is connecting the world but at the same time destroying our small-town values and, in turn, our individuality. Duuuuuuude. The "let's not let technology rule our lives" moral actually gets spoon fed to you so much during the finale that they actually resort to laying out the entire movie's philosophy in the form of a very shiny powerpoint narrated by Bill Nighy.

"If you would like to refer to page 64 of the prescribed reading material..."

That said, simplicity has always been key in the Cornetto Trilogy (or Fuzzy Shaun World as I shall now call it), with a basic plot allowing for a big blank canvas to spray jokes and blood all over. Shaun is a Romero rip-off that glazes over the typical zombie stuff and focuses on the importance of friendship, ice cream and a pint. Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop movie that's all about friendship, ice cream and...hold on a second here. These three movies are all exactly the same!

You cheeky scamp.

The plot isn't the only thing distilled down to it's basic essence either; the ragtag bunch of misfit friends that make up the principal cast are all purposefully clichéd characters; there's Martin Freeman's workaholic, Nick Frost's tee-total bespectacled bore and Eddie Marsan's family man. However, they've saved the best for Pegg in the form of the film's anti-hero, Gary King. After two movies it's nice to see Pegg and Frost swap their respective roles and it's safe to say that they both shine just as well with Frost playing the straight man to the slightly unhinged, gleefully self-destructive King. He's the natural end-point of the character that's classically "living in the past"; terrible haircut, immature personality, Sisters of Mercy t-shirt and an unhealthy obsession with his lost youth.

I would make a joke about that essentially being the lead singer of any goth band, but Fiona would disembowel me.

In a movie about the advent of technology and embracing the future, Gary King is literally the past, and this is where Edgar Wright and his spectacular attention to detail take to the stage, with one scene ever so surreptitiously playing Kylie Minogue's Step Back in Time while everyone wanders around in school uniforms. It's the little things that make World's End so great; there's some great wee hints to the unfolding story slipped into the spot-on dialogue and there's as much hidden in the background of the various pubs and clubs as you're willing to look for. The one that I spotted first was the adverts on the walls of the slightly-too-identical pubs, each featuring the number corresponding to that place on Gary's ancient "Golden Mile" pub crawl map. Then there's the great use of colour (blue = nasty alien robots), obvious in the form of gallons of blue robot blood and subtle in costuming choices and set design. All in all, if you're anything like me you'll find the most fun in playing spot the difference in the background, knowing all the while that everything you find was put there by crazy, obsessive compulsive people with way too much free time.

*snigger* blue balls...

I guess I've kind of strayed from the whole criticism thing but ah well, I can't help it. The characters are well formed and interesting, the music is excellent (particularly the original score, which uses some very familiar bleeps and bloops to great effect), the jokes are fast paced but never forced, the story is hilariously self aware and firmly tongue in cheek and my god, it's just too perfect! As such, and also due to me having been infected with some sort of vile pox in the past few days, I have little else to say about this film apart from please, if you haven't already, watch it. And while you're at it, watch the other two movies in the trilogy as well, because they're all exceptional.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Going on a Reunion Pub Crawl with Your Old School Mates - 

The plot of the film is literally the only possible outcome to this situation: utter annihilation. 

Water, Water, Everywhere, But Where's the Feckin' Whisky?

Reviews: now with an introductory poster.

You get a lot of people nowadays who seem to be a little spoiled by colour. Talking to someone about movies, I often hear the same phrase when the conversation moves to older fare: "Oh, I don't like black and white films." The fuck? Are you film racist or something? That's like going for a weekly shop and insisting that you only buy food that is small, round and purple. You're drastically restricting your choice in diet with a sweeping statement that will just make any poor sod who has to spend time with you hate your ignorant, purple-tinted guts.

That said, a diet of nothing but Parma Violets is a diet worth trying.

If you happen to be one of said people who "don't like" black and white, go drown in a bucket of eel hearts, because God made a whoopsie while dragging you into existence. Once you've done that, sit down, preferably on a towel so as not to ruin your sofa with eel juice, and watch any of Psycho, Casablanca, Brief Encounter, Nosferatu, Metropolis, the entirety of George Méliè's back catalogue, Citizen Kane and more. 

If you also refuse to believe that an old film can be good, only watching movies that have come out since Macaulay Culkin's been alive, go shove one of the eels up your own arse and watch one of the modern examples of black and white cinema like Clerks, Eraserhead, Schindler's List, The Artist, La Antena, Young Frankenstein and I think I've made my point.

You may now remove the eel from your anus by doing whatever this guy is doing out of the shot.

Seeing as we've cleared that up we can get onto the film for this week, Whisky Galore! Made in 1949 (that's, like, really old) it tells the true story (with the usual tweaks for artistic licence) of a ship that sank in 1941 near a small island in the Outer Hebrides, carrying thousands of crates of whisky. The locals of the island, on hearing about the cargo, took the opportunity for some free booze and set about nicking it from the ship before it sank.

That's about the gist of the film as well, and although it's funny and has bucket-loads of charm, there is nothing more special to be found here than an hour and a half of plain old fun. If there's nothing special about it, why bother reviewing it? Because of the aforementioned charm, that's why, my good friend. And for the unmissable opportunity to ruin all of the jokes for you.

There's not a bit of this movie, from the utterly fabulous reaction of the islanders to the sudden whisky shortage (dramatic close ups and doom music abound) to the frantic moment when the drink must all be hidden before the army arrives for a surprise inspection, with bottles slipped into violin cases, grandfather clocks and stacked in the guttering, that you won't be able to watch without a massive grin on yer ugly mug. There's something universally appealing about watching a load of islanders leading a merry chase all for a bottle of whisky.

A bit like watching celebrities die, but without the betting pool.

Whisky Galore! also does a fine job of getting you to know the locals; every character is adorably northern with that little tinge of inbred quirkiness you only find in the harder to reach parts of Scotland. For those of you unaware, island mentality essentially boils down to a small loss in IQ due to alcohol abuse and inadequate schooling being made up for with Casper levels of cheerful friendliness and the uncanny ability to smell tomorrow's weather. That's not really a good description to be honest, the best thing to do would probably be to go visit these places for yourself; the ways of the islanders cannot be done justice with mere words.

Actions really do speak a lot louder.

I don't think there's a person on this island that you can't help but like, even the crotchety old barman who rats on where the whisky is being stored just so he doesn't lose business is still endearing in his own way. But the sweetest soul by far must be the poor bed-ridden old man who wants nothing more than one last dram before he "joins the old woman". This guy is the embodiment of the entire population of the island: simple, honest folk ("honest here meaning wily as old nick himself" - Fiona) with simple needs and simple lives, and this single five minute scene pretty much ensures that we are firmly on the side of the islanders when it comes to the dilemma of whether or not stealing the whisky is a good idea.

If he waits to get one more drink then kicks it with the empty glass in his hand
I'll cry myself to sleep for the rest of my life.

While we're on this guy, actually, you might be wondering who the other bloke in the picture is. It would be the island's only doctor, and he must be the single most irresponsible doctor to ever be portrayed on film, and Hannibal Lecter has had three movies (we don't count Hannibal Rising, because...well, it's Hannibal Rising). The only two points in the film where he asserts his medical authority are in the above scene and one other. In this scene, he insists that our kindly old gentleman take his pipe and some tobacco in order to puff away, only saying that he was sorry he "couldn't bring a wee dram too". This man is encouraging, nay, actively insisting that this poorly gentleman partake in both smoking and alcohol consumption, the two biggest causes of death in the modern world. That said, maybe this is actually the island's only hospital bed and he's just trying to free up room for someone else with acute liver failure or lung cancer.

In the other scene, he is in the company of a young man, hammered on a few glasses of the water o' life, who is about to confront his own mother (think the one from Carrie, but Scottish. So about 300% more terrifying). The doctor's only advice to him is that he should have just one more, so that he'll be "in the ring in the peak of condition", before pouring a large glass and assuring him it's the "right dose". This would all be ok if everyone laughed about it, but they take his word as gospel, being the resident doctor and all, so he essentially spends the entire film finding new ways to horrifically abuse his medical licence. 

"I mixed up all the prescription bottles again. Take this and let me know what it does to you."

It's all in good humour though, and they didn't know much better then anyway, what with drilling holes in skulls to let out the demons and such...that was back in the 40's right? Speaking of old ways that have long since been lost to the ages, the very devout religious views of the islanders lead to one of the best moments in the film. The boat is wrecked, the crew having abandoned it and been taken to the mainland, the men have gathered together on the shore to go grab the loot when suddenly the clock strikes midnight. One man turns round with despair to look at the others. It's the Sabbath. 

"Bollocks."

They have no choice but to go home and wait for the day to end while the head of the Home Guard on the island, and resident Scrooge, Captain Waggett, tries to get a band of soldiers together to protect the cargo, a task also made all the more difficult by the holy day, as his second in command isn't allowed to use the telephone by his mother. 

It's the culmination of all of these moments and more that makes Whisky Galore! a joy to watch; wonderfully staged situational comedy mixed with ridiculous small-town traditions and a rag-tag bunch of memorable characters. There's romance. There's comedy. There's car chases. There's booze. There's suspense. And every last minute of it is utterly wonderful to watch.

He even gets his dram and lives beyond the credits.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Listening to Stories About Your Grandad - 

Ridiculous, over the top, alcohol-fuelled tales of illegal romps through wartime Britain that you could listen to a hundred times over. And every last bit of them is true.