Furious on Film Movie News Report 04.09.08

Posted by Arnold Furious on 04.09.2008

London, Ashton Kutcher, George Lucas, X-Files, Magnum Force and 3 film reviews including Steve Austin’s “The Condemned”. Be warned, I hated it

HERE IS THE GNUS

Evenin' ladies and gents. I may have indulged in a few pints of beer before writing this report. Any inaccuracies maybe down to alcohol. And by the by, last week's Roger Ebert story came from AP. So blame them if you find it inaccurate in any way. I figured it meant he was resuming a full review schedule rather than just the odd review here and there. But interpretation is nine tenths of the law. Or something. Like I said, beer.



London, J'Accuse

The first film to deal with the 2005 London suicide bombings will roll out in July in British and Indian cinemas. The 4 million pound ($7.9 million) "Shoot on Sight," directed by India-born U.S. citizen Jagmohan Mundhra and produced by Aron Govil of Cineboutique Entertainment, stars Brian Cox, Greta Scacchi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Ralph Ineson and Sadie Frost. Cineboutique will release the movie theatrically July 11 on 30 screens in the U.K. and 80 screens in India. International sales are being handled by American World Pictures. Based on the London police's order to shoot suspected terrorists after the July 7, 2005, bombings, "Shoot" is the first theatrical release to tackle the issue of suicide bombings on U.K. soil and the country's ongoing threat from homegrown terrorists linked to fundamentalist Islam. Mundhra, who was living in London at the time of the attacks, said the bombings have had a profound affect in the way Londoners go about their daily lives. "Having lived and worked in London for many years, I became very aware of and affected by how peoples' attitudes were changing towards me. Taxi drivers would not stop for me in the days following 7/7, and I could completely understand why," he said. "The fact that I had always found London to be an extremely culturally tolerant city made this change in atmosphere all the more shocking."

The London bombings didn't quite have the impact of 9/11 but there's no disguising the historical importance of them. I notice the bombing in Spain have had no film at all but then the UK cinematic scene is way ahead of Spain.

Kutcher does something…

Ashton Kutcher has left his long-time agency home at Endeavor to join CAA. Kutcher had been at Endeavor for 10 years, since the first season of Fox's "That '70s Show," which put the young actor on the map. Since then, he has become a big-screen leading man, with his most recent starrer, comedy "What Happens In Vegas...," opening May 9. Endeavor also helped Kutcher launch Katalyst Films, his production company with Jason Goldberg, that has become a force in television with such hits as "Punk'd" and "Beauty and the Geek." Kutcher continues to be repped by manager Stephanie Simon and attorney Robert Offer.

Wow, no one cares. Literally. Ashton Kutcher has one of those names where people switch off as soon as they hear it. Did someone just get punked? Agency? Who fucking cares? Since Justin Timberlake did a spot on job of spoofing the guy on SNL he's been fading away. "Big screen leading man"? Really? Anyway, here's Timberlake taking the piss out of Kutcher.



Don't mess with Lucas

George Lucas' LucasFilm filed a lawsuit against prop designer Andrew Ainsworth for £10 million awhile back, claiming he has been infringing on Star Wars copyright by reproducing and selling costumes from the film. Ainsworth originally designed the Stormtroopers costume for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope and was apparently paid £30,000 his work. But in 2004, he found a one of the original helmet casts in a cupboard at his home in 2004, and started selling replica helmets and suits to fans for as much as £1,500 apiece. Lucasfilm sued Ainsworth for copyright infringement in 2006 and a Californian judge awarded the company £10m in damages, but as Ainsworth is a British resident, the ruling must now pass through the Chancery Division of the High Court. In response, Ainsworth is countersuing the film giant, claiming that the copyright has expired, and even if it does still exist, the rights are his as designer, thereby entitling him to a cut of the film's lucrative merchandising haul. A spokesman for Lucas Licensing said "We would never want to discourage fans from showcasing their enthusiasm for the movies. However, anyone who tries to profit from using our copyrights and trademarks without authorisation becomes an infringer and we will go after them." The trial is expected to last for 10 days.

I'm not sure how copyright works in this case. I'd have to look it up but George is usually a good sport. Look at what he let's Family Guy get away with. I guess he doesn't like the idea of someone making money from selling his designs. But if Ainsworth designed the suit why shouldn't he be able to sell replicas? I guess there would have to be a contract between him and Lucas somewhere. That should settle the suit. In the meantime…here's the suit!



X-Files D-Tiles

While still not offering specifics, Spotnitz did tell us this about the film: "It's scary. It's about Mulder and Scully, very much. It's about them and their relationship and who they are and it's a personal and emotional movie too, in a way that the series rarely could be, because we're not doing 24 episodes - we're just doing this one standalone movie. And it's designed to reward fans. It certainly touches upon things that fans alone will appreciate. But [it's also designed] to work for people who never saw The X-Files - who were too young. That's what's most exciting, honestly, is the chance to introduce these characters to a new generation." The show ended with Mulder and Scully's legal status in a highly problematic place, and Spotnitz promised that would not be ignored in the film. "We had to and we wanted to address everything that a fan would say 'Well, what about that?' I think we've done that without excluding anybody who never saw the show," Spotnitz explained, adding, "If you remember, in the first movie there was a scene in a bar where Mulder sort of drunkenly explains who he is. We've done it in a very different way this time around, but I think we've managed to make it work both for people who are familiar and who are unfamiliar." There are three actors new to the X-Files franchise who are said to have notable roles in the film, including Amanda Peet, rapper Xzibit and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. Spotnitz discussed each of these actors, explaining "Amanda Peet is an FBI agent, as is Xzibit. In Amanda Peet, we were looking for somebody who was Scully-like in a way – that intelligence, that intensity, that authority that Gillian Anderson naturally commands, so Amanda we thought, especially after seeing her in Studio 60 on television, we thought she was great for this role. Xzibit was just a discovery for us. We knew his music, but we didn't realize what a great actor he was. He's really fantastic. He's another FBI agent. I don't think you would picture him as an FBI agent normally. But he's really quite good." Spotnitz continued, "Billy Connolly was the one person we had in mind before we wrote. We'd been fans of his… he's a very well known comedian in the UK, but we just love him as a dramatic actor. He'd done this movie Mrs. Brown, maybe ten years ago. This is not a funny role at all – I don't think there's a single laugh. It's a very dramatic, creepy role, central to the movie, and we wrote it for him and were able to get him. That was a dream come true for us." So might this be the beginning of a new series of X-Files movies? When asked that question, Spotnitz replied "Hopefully! That would be nice. We had such a good time doing it, it would be nice to keep going."



I used to have an enormous crush on Gilian Anderson. All because of X-Files. I didn't particularly like the first movie but the delay on a sequel will probably help it and I think people are interested. After all…the truth is out there.

That's it for the news…

SHILL – You'll either love this or hate it. You can ignore the video, it's the only one I can find with the music over it. "Big Balls", the AC/DC song that Balls Mahoney used as entrance music, as played by Hayseed Dixie. Wonderful stuff.



What do you mean you've never seen…?

Remember in High Fidelity where the potential record buyer is confronted by Jack Black? "Don't tell anyone you don't own Blonde on Blonde?" Well, if you were to enter a serious film buff's rental place, which sadly doesn't exist nowadays thanks to Blockbuster and online rentals, and happened to make a comment about liking movies then I like to think somewhere out there that a clerk still exists who would chastise you for not having seen certain movies. Seeing as that place doesn't exist you'll just have to imagine you're walking into my rental place and happened to mention Dirty Harry. Clearly one of the great cop movies. Especially relevant with the 6th Dirty Harry movie Gran Torino due in 2008. But what's that? You've never seen…

#4 Magnum Force (1973)



The original Dirty Harry came out in 1971 and made Eastwood a crossover star. Prior to Harry Callahan the work of Eastwood was marginalised as Westerns and a couple of war movies. Dirty Harry put him in the ‘now' and out on the streets. Harry Callahan was a super-cool cop spouting catchphrases and one-liners that became the norm. In Dirty Harry it was "did he fire six shots or only five" and the lines around that. "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk". Wonderful stuff. But everyone and their uncle has seen Dirty Harry. Most people, I find, haven't seen the sequel to Dirty Harry; Magnum Force. Written by John "Apocalypse Now/Jaws" Milius and Michael "Deer Hunter" Cimino it contains just about every cop cliché there is to have. Eastwood's Harry turns up at the airport for a cheeseburger and happens to be on hand to stop a hijacking. It's ridiculous stuff from the partner who seems doomed for just hanging around Harry to the brigade of bright eyed rookies (including David Soul & Tim Matheson) to usual disagreeable chief character (Hal Holbrook). Then it takes all of those clichés and turns them on their head. The renegade Harry finds himself in an almost left-wing political position against police death squads and extreme vigilantism. It also has a great Bullit-esque car chase utilising the San Francisco backdrop, as many films have, and helped establish Eastwood as a Hollywood mainstay. Magnum Force grossed a whopping $45M. Significantly more than Dirty Harry. The character remains beloved to this very day appearing in, to date, five films. As I pointed out at the top Gran Torino is due this year. Whether it's a good idea to return to a character that was aging 20 years ago is anyone's guess but if Sylvester Stallone can do it…

BEST BIT – An assortment of Harry's kills including driving head on into a motorcycle, jumping bikes off roofs and my personal favourite…judo chopping someone in the neck until they stop breathing. Awesome.

I don't have YouTube of any of it, sadly, so you'll have to settle for this classic scene from 1971's Dirty Harry.



THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS

Brick, Red Road, The Condemned

Brick (2006)



EXPECTATIONS – I've seen the trailer on half a dozen releases and it always looked entertaining. I've also read strong reviews suggesting it's "noir to its very bones". Well, I love a good noir as much as the next guy. Especially if the next guy loves a good noir.

TRAILER –



PLOT – High school student Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets a note on his locker one morning from his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin). Turns out she's in trouble and needs his help. Before he can get to helping her she winds up dead. Now Brendan finds himself involved with junkies, femme fatales, hired muscle and underground dope lords in an attempt to find out why?

OPINION – I've always been of the opinion that noir never should have died out when it did. Although there have been noir films being made over the years there's never been a huge number of them since the heyday of noir. Brick falls into a new category called neo-noir. Unlike great modern noirs like LA Confidential or Chinatown it brings the noir into a modern setting. In theory this shouldn't work because noir is almost as much about the time as it is the locations. But Brick successfully takes the elements of a classic noir (sleazy underworld, detective, femme fatale) and brings them all into the modern world while still maintaining a degree of dialogue that would feel at home in that noir era. In many ways it feels like the first really new noir in a long time. Transposing the action from the 30's to present day and from the usual gin joints & private eyes to high school & a high school student doesn't hurt it one bit. The backdrop to the action feels like a classic noir. The "Halloween in January" party has a real noir vibe about it as does Brendan's use of public telephones. It's almost like a narrative without having a narrative. The script is really sharp for a first timer (Rian Johnson – next film Brothers Bloom starring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo & Rachel Weisz) and there's certainly strong hope this guy will be making worthwhile movies for some time to come. The acting from a young cast is pretty good too. Especially Nora Zehetner who plays a mean femme fatale. She's been waiting patiently for a break appearing in several movies in smaller roles and playing Eden McCain (the persuasive one) in Heroes. Also due some praise is Joseph Gordon-Levitt who turns in a career making performance. He was already a child star courtesy of Third Rock from the Sun but that was no guarantee of transforming himself into a legitimate Hollywood actor. His Bogart Junior performance in Brick should see him landing plenty of choice roles in the next few years (starting with Stop-Loss & GI Joe). The comparison I've heard is with Bugsy Malone. Kids playing gangsters. But Brick is one serious noir. There's no gags anywhere in sight. Even a crippled Lukas Hass plays it right down the middle with a character who could have comical traits (especially with a standing lamp in the back of his car). But he comes across as every bit as nasty as he should. Much like his hired muscle (Noah Fleiss). You'll not see a high school movie this ambitious and gritty in a long time.

BEST BIT – "Come on at me, if you want, Hash-head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up against the lot of you." – Brendan makes friends among the drug community.

RATING - ****. Doing something original is always a challenge. While this isn't 100% original, as it borrows heavily from almost every classic noir ever written, the setting is unique. And everything plays out as it should do. What's better is it all makes good logical sense and might even turn some of today's audience on to some classic noir. Start with the Maltese Falcon kids.

Red Road (2006) (although it debuted Stateside at Sundance 2007)



EXPECTATIONS – This came up as a recommendation on Lovefilm.com. I've taken to looking at whether or not those recommendations have good reviews. If they have positive reviews then I'm sold. Red Road is the first film I've rented under that policy (recommended for my tastes & positively reviewed by critics on RottenTomatoes). This is a debut for director Andrea Arnold although she won an Oscar for short film "Wasp" a few years ago. I really knew very little about it other than it involved CCTV. That said, let's get on with the review.

TRAILER –



PLOT – Glasgow CCTV operator Jackie (Kate Dickie) has a pretty dull life. While not working she's screwing a married man and living alone with a deshevelled garden and microwave dinners. But one night when keeping tabs on the people of Glasgow she spots a man she thought was gone from her life forever; former jailbird Clyde Henderson (Tony Curran). She becomes obsessed with his movements and goes from tracking him on camera to tracking him in person. He seems pretty harmless; trying to reach out to his past and attempting to find honest work that's not forthcoming. But what does the ex-con have to do with her?

OPINION – Red Road is a quite remarkable film. I can understand why it wasn't a hit. It's very slow paced and the opening 30-40 minutes creeps along almost devoid of dialogue. It's like an auteur's wet dream. Like Slither…only not rubbish. Kate Dickie's performance is absolutely central to this film working. Without her doing what she does it wouldn't go anywhere. But she shows such inner pain that it's clear we're missing something that happened in her past. As soon as it comes up that she knows Henderson from his crime I was wondering what that crime was. I guess the hints are there if you're looking for them but you're never really quite sure until it's revealed. The slow pacing is guaranteed to put people off but the third act is so worth waiting for it's untrue. Seeing all the characters go on an arc is amazing. Usually a film will see one maybe two characters go from where they are to where they need to be. In this film there are five. One of which barely has any dialogue and is never named. That's the joy of CCTV. It's telling a story through images and nothing more. This allows Andrea Arnold to sneak in a lot of symbolism. My favourite being the fox. When panning around to find Clyde on the CCTV she sees a fox instead crossing the road. If you've ever been to Glasgow you'll know there's bloody thousands of the things up there so it's not just a metaphor for something else its also realistic. The subtlety disappears towards the film's conclusion and it gets a wee bit cliched and sentimental. The feeling from the rest of the film was that they wouldn't take the cheap route out. Not after the sex scene. Not after the party scene with the vomitting in the elevator. But there is it. The thing I liked best about Red Road is it isn't a cliché in of itself. Not like Nick Love & Guy Ritchie who want to make Long Good Friday all the time (or in Love's case just flat out steal from other directors). Not like Danny Boyle who's films have become increasingly Americanised. Not like the Notting Hill/Pride and Prejudice crowd that seems to absorb 90% of all British cinematic releases. This is a film about the UK. It's not made in London, which gives it a flavour of it's own and it's not an attempt to be like any other film. It's original. And I'm not alone in thinking so. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes. My only major concern with the film is it had a fine opportunity to address the CCTV culture. Is it an invasion of privacy? Who's actually watching the footage? And who watches the Watchmen? None of this gets raised, which is a pity. But the obsession and redemption tones are played heavy in Red Road and both come through beautifully. Every character feels like someone I know. Especially the charismatic scumbag Clyde. A potential block for American viewers would be the Scottish accents. I was fine with everything but Stevie who has an incredibly thick accent. The true sign of whether a film works or not is whether you feel something when the film is over. Like when Indy rides off into the sunset at the end of the Last Crusade. I always get a tingle down my spine. When "Love Will Tear Us Apart" kicks in at the end of Red Road I got a lump in my throat. Kudos Andrea Arnold, kudos.

BEST BIT – The moment where Clyde thinks he recognises Jackie and slow dances with her. Not sure where she's from he's his usual sleazy self, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and hands all over her. But whatever he's done is eating away at Jackie and she runs out of the party before vomitting in the lift. But job done, she's got his attention.

RATING - ****1/4. One of the best film's of the year. It won't suit everyone with it's slow build but it's worth the journey. Layered with subtle references (the locksmith van with fresh paint) and concepts Red Road is brutally honest about Britain while keeping Jackie's past buried in half-conversations to build the tension. Same with Clyde who's far more disturbing at the start of the film. After all, what was his crime? Is he a paedophile? A murderer? A rapist? To quote Andrea Arnold at the Oscars a few years ago. "It's the dog's bollocks".

The Condemned (2007)



EXPECTATIONS – I made a point of watching the Marine because I got so many requests for it. While I slated the film, because it is terrible, it has a lot of explosions and car chases. Sometimes that's a good film to kick back to. Just relax and watch stuff blow up. While it was emotionally immature and badly written and directed it at least had the explosions to fall back on. They blew up pretty much everything in that movie. So, I'd been drinking and decided to rent the Condemned. After all there are times when everyone needs that no-brainer flick with a bunch of explosions. Let's see how WWE films fairs this time out. Having seen clips I actually felt this had an opportunity to be WWE Films best effort to date.

TRAILER –



PLOT – Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) is on death row in El Salvador but gets released by media tycoon Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) to compete on a reality TV show broadcast over the internet where 10 death row prisoners fight to the death on a remote island.

OPINION – Ok, ok, think of something positive to say. The stunts are good. That chick Emelia Burns, the girl off the beach in the trailer, is pretty hot. That's all I've got. It's terrible. Where do WWE Films dig up these directors from? Scott Wiper? He's an actor. He's never had a budget to handle and he's got no idea what he's doing. The script was written by him and is abysmal. To be fair he shouldn't get all the credit for the bad screenplay. It was tidied up, if you can call it that, by Rob Hedden who wrote such gems as Jason Takes Manhattan and Knight Rider 2000. The dialogue is clunky. The characters are one dimensional and cliched. Although some of the characters don't even have one dimension. The one should just have been billed as "irrritating Hispanic" because that's all he's got. So, basically the saving grace of this film should have been the action, right? Wrong. Wiper has seen the Bourne Identity one too many times and moves the camera everytime something happens of interest. Which means you can't see anything. So when blur #1 is fighting blur #2 towards the conclusion and someone gets stabbed you won't know who it is. Thankfully, you won't care. The plot and characters are so badly realised I just wanted the film to end. The preachy conclusion and bunch of bullshit about how killing innocents is wrong immediately preceeds Steve Austin blowing up a helicopter. The pilot's crime? The Condemned is a nasty film that's morally ambigious but not in a deliberate or challenging fashion. It's a film that glorifies violence and is made to be aimed at the WWE's younger audience. Only they've inserted a load of violence and foul language. It's like they want their own demographic to be exposed to realistic violence. That is irresponsible filmmaking. The Marine was harmless fun. The Condemned is spiteful, unpleasant and leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The supporting cast is largely superfluous so it's no shock the final battle comes down to Austin and co-star Vinnie Jones, a man I've personally disliked ever since he played Juggernaut in X-Men 3, in more terrible shakycam action. Oddly enough he's hamming it up to high hell here and gets out-acted by Steve Austin delivering bad one liners in a monotone voice. Funny how Hollywood isn't sure how to use The Rock and yet WWE Films can't even use their own talent. Cena barely got over his personality in the Marine but Austin doesn't have a personality at all in this film. But don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at some respected reviewers and their comments.

"This is a fast-paced, well-made piece of garbage." – Richard Roeper.

"The Condemned is the latest action film from director Scott Wiper. It is also a noun describing those poor viewers who end up stuck in a theater showing this film." – James Berardinelli.

"Scott Wiper's hopelessly inept directorial choices - coupled with an overall vibe of ugliness - ensures that the movie ultimately fares about as well as its straight-to-video action brethren..." – David Nusair

"What a base, and baseless, film this is." – Steven Snyder.

"two hours of mindless violence and then have the nerve to lecture the audience on why violence is wrong." – Sean McBride

"The Condemned tries to have its cake and eat it, too, alternating between a preachy scene about the depravity of reality entertainment followed by sequences of remorseless carnage, such as when Vinnie Jones guns down a roomful of unarmed people in cold blood" – Stax

BEST BIT – As the cons are being dropped off on the island the irritating Hispanic guy won't jump when he's supposed to and while shouting abuse at his fellow prisoners about how he's going to cut their throats he lands on a spike along the beach impaling himself. At that point I thought they were playing it for comedy. The various torture scenes that followed changed my mind.

RATING – ¼*. A truly awful film experience complete with bad acting, bad directing and bad choices all round. If WWE really intends to carry on making films they need to hire some film makers. At the moment they're just pissing movie budgets up the wall and not enough of their audience wants to see their films. Look at it like this. I'm a lifetime wrestling fan. I watch at least 4 films a week. I would not have rented this if it weren't for requests from people who read my column. It's got bad reviews, it had bad box office and it's got no experience behind it. I'm all for first time movie makers and giving new people a shot but if you're making a film that's on a par with straight to DVD action films then why should anyone see it at the cinema? Or care about it at all? Because Steve Austin is in it? That seems to be all it has going for it.

Sidenote – WWE Films was hoping The Condemned would out perform it's previous releases. It took $8.3M at the box office. A paltry return for an action flick although it did rack up another $22M on DVD rentals. The Marine remains the WWE's most successful venture to date. Less edgy/violent, more fun and a box office of $22M and rentals of another $50M. Lesson learned yet? Next up is a John Cena flick called 12 Rounds. Now, the WWE has *kinda* followed advice and hired an experienced and well known director. Unfortunataly it's Renny Harlin the biggest hack in Hollywood. More worryingly 12 Rounds sounds like a Marine re-hash as Cena battles to recover his kidnapped girlfriend. Also in 2009 is Journey of Death starring Triple H. This time directed by John Milius (director of Conan the Barbarian & Red Dawn)…who wrote Magnum Force. And everything comes neatly together.



You stay classy…The World.