CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.

Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) gets and unexpected surprise at dinner with his wife, and finds himself suddenly in the midst of divorce. Whilst drowning his sorrows in a local bar, ladies man Jacob (Ryan Gosling) takes pity on him and teaches him some tricks of the trade in order to build up his confidence and get him back on the horse, as it were.

Cal does well, but despite it all, is determined to win back his wife, both for himself and to prove to his son, Robbie, that soulmates exist. If it sounds pretty corny… well, it is! But it is nevertheless still a decent two hours at the movies. It pretty much did exactly what I expected of it and its success rests entirely on its cast. With a different set of actors in place it would more than likely have been a duffer. But charismatic performances from Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, aided and abetted by the ubiquitous Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei and many others make for a flick that starts to exceed the sum of its parts.

It’s not going to change your life, and it is most definitely overlong. But there are some funny moments along the way and it is an enjoyable if thoroughly undemanding 2 hours. (NOTE: from here on in, there are some mild spoilers!)

However, there are some minus points earned. The ending, for starters, is dreadful! Make no mistake, it is turgid, saccharine, vomit inducing dreck. I’m not averse to a happy ending in the slightest, but the horrible graduation ceremony finale of this movie was just completely and utterly cringeworthy.

Additionally I really am not sure what sort of message it was trying to convey when it essentially boils down to approval of some very creepy stalker behaviour.  By making Robbie a hopeless romantic, persistent in the face of total discouragement, and the declaration that he is making the object of his affection uncomfortable, it seems to be treading on some very very thin ice in regards to the meaning of the word “No”. You might think that such a light and breezy film as this should not be scrutinised by cold hard reality, and perhaps that is true; but this is a mainstream Hollywood film and by having Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) reward Robbie at the end with some racy pictures, it seems that the filmmakers are flat out condoning some exceedingly unsavoury behaviour.

More often than not, that ought to be enough to direct this film straight to the bin. But overall this film wins through on the strength of its principle cast. There are some great moments - Cal’s awkward first encounter with Marisa Tomei’s unhinged primary school teacher; Gosling’s tutoring of his protégé, a couple of genuinely funny one liners and a really rather well executed and unpredictable story twist. At the end of it, although there were certainly elements that I strongly disliked, I mostly walked away having had a decently enjoyable couple of hours in the movies. It’s Saturday night date fodder, and that’s not such a bad thing sometimes.

IMDB: Crazy Stupid Love

THE TOUGHEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Mr T’s 1984 made for TV vehicle holds some very fond childhood memories for me, so when chancing upon it for five Australian dollar-y-doos in cult video shop, I really had no choice but to shell out and see if it held up to my rose tinted, halcyon day, jumpers for goalposts memories of youth.

The grim reality of these things is that once again it seems like I paid good money to give my childhood a right pasting. Much like watching repeats of Knight Rider or MacGuyver – you suddenly realise that they were pretty ruddy awful and so long as there are a few explosions and a dumbass one liner, you could pretty much please any kid in the 1980’s….actually scratch that - those are the things I’m STILL looking for in a movie, but it’s the preachy moralising that my brain seemed to have erased from history’s annals. MacGuyver in particular, has not weathered well in the storms of age. His overt mullet-y moralising is too much to bear at 8am when I’m eating my toast and trying to come to terms with the world before me. There are of course a few exceptions to the rule. The real stone cold classics of 1980’s television still stand tall over their peers. The A Team and Magnum P.I. for example, both hold up magnificently

As an aside I am still outright, genuinely OFFENDED that some shitty make up advert used the Magnum P.I. theme to advertise their nonsense. It should be a criminal offense. It’s almost as bad as when the 118 telephone company used the A Team theme on their adverts. I was coming home from work on the bus one day and some ignorant pre pubescent lout referred to the A Team theme as ‘the 118 music’. And did his parents correct him of this artless, ill informed gaffe? No they did not; And therefore it must have been a conscious effort on their part, to raise their child as a cretin; and that ladies and gentlemen is the World that you and I are living in at this very moment.  Please feel free to take a second to wallow in the abject horror of that thought.

Now… on to The Toughest Man In The World. Mr T stars as the fantastically named Bruise Brubaker. Ex Vietman Vet, Security Guard and Youth Worker. He helps kids at a local youth club, carries a torch for a hot young lawyer and tries to hide his secret shame of adult illiteracy. It soon transpires that the local Youth Club is to be shut down, and the only way to raise the funds to save it is for Bruise to win the Toughest Man In The World competition. Cue a bunch of Rocky rip –off training montages as Bruise trains hard in order to compete and beat the reigning champion, and villain of the piece, the stupendously named Tanker Weams!! Now my aged memory was clearly playing tricks on me when I sat down to watch this, as about half way through when Bruise competes in the Toughest man HEATS (note: not the actual finals), there is a triumphant sequence that I would have SWORN was the finale of the movie! Ah well they do say the mind is the first thing to go, and rather that than the bladder.

The Toughest Man competition itself is a weird sort of weightlifting and obstacle course combo that looks quite generic to the sophisticated, new millennium, post-Krypton Factor and Gladiators sensibilities of the likes of you and I; but back in those heady days of 1984 it must have looked like the ultimate of all tests. Anyway Bruise wins and therefore has the right to take on the aforementioned Tanker Weams. The movie then descends into some gangster shenanigans as Bruise tries to extricate one of the youth clubs bad (but good at heart) kids from the clutches of the local mob. It all ends with a big warehouse fight where Bruise defeats Tanker. But surely, this being a warehouse fight and all, this defeat would be unofficial. Bruise would not win the prize money for duffing up Tanker in a dodgy Chicago warehouse. Not unless TheToughest Man In The World contest wanted its public to lose all respect for it as in institution. I mean what about ticket sales and merchandising for a start. Imagine all the excited kids who turn up to the arena on the day, only to be told that unbeknownst to them Bruise had already won the title in an unscheduled downtown smackdown. I really don’t think they thought this through properly!

In any case, as you may be able to tell, this movie is not without its charm. Some fond memories did indeed flood back, and for an unashamed A Team and Mr T fan, this is worth a watch. Let’s face it, it was probably better left to my memories, and it clearly is not the movie I remembered it to be. The A Team, and Mr T in particular, was my ABSOLUTE favourite as a kid. And frankly I’m still as big of a Mr T fan now as I was when I was 8 years old so I’m gonna let all that slide!

IMDB – The Toughest Man In The World

SUPER (M.I.F.F.)

My final film seen at this years M.I.F.F. festival turned out to be the pick of the bunch. Super is 96 minutes of 100% joy. James Gunn’s violent, funny, blackly comic affair delivers on all counts and then some.

Super is the story of Frank (Rainn Wilson), a mildly depressed diner chef, who loses his wife (a recovering addict, played by Liv Tyler) to a shady drug dealing strip club owner (Kevin Bacon). In order to save her and in the midst of his depression Frank decides, with the help of his friend Libby, to become a masked Superhero vigilante. The premise will of course draw comparisons to Kick Ass, but let me assure you that right off the bat, Super is the vastly superior movie. The World it inhabits is our reality. There is no fantasy Gotham-like world here. This is the World outside your door right now.  When the Crimson Bolt hits somebody in the face with a pipe wrench, you know that they feel it!  The movie is flat out hilarious, and punctuated by bouts of sudden and brutal violence; so it is by turn riotously funny and grimly violent.  It has it all, basically.

From the moment it kicks off with a GLORIOUS, kinetic, animated credits sequence, you know that you’re in for a wild ride. It never lets up and left me striding out of the cinema with a grin a mile wide and blabbering like an excited kid.

Super was written and directed by James Gunn, who made the criminally underrated Slither. Slither was for all intents and purposes a fairly shameless ‘homage’ to Night of the Creeps, as alien space slugs invaded the Earth and took control of its inhabitants; but it worked in much the same way as Super does by delivering on both the horror and comedy aspects and managing the tone so it didn’t veer too heavily in one direction.

Cast wise, it couldn’t get any better. Quality all round.  Rainn Wilson, who most will know as Dwight from The Office, is superb. Ellen Page as Libby/Boltie is incredible. Together they lynchpin this movie into complete awesomeness.  Kevin Bacon turns in a suitably slimey performance as the villan, Jock. Bubbles from The Wire is in it! Nathan Fillion shows up as God bothering television superhero, The Holy Avenger (and is fantastic as always); and Michael Rooker plays an intimidating henchman, as only Michael Rooker can (I wonder if Michael Rooker is that intimidating in real life? Something about his movies always makes me think that he must be!)

I really don’t want to say too much more about what happens in this film, lest it diminish some of the outright DELIGHT this film dishes out. Super never really lapses into genre predictability and there are some real unpredictable surprises in store for those of you that get on board with it. Suffice to say the sight of a man in a home made costume, delivering vigilante justice, one brutal pipe wrench beating at a time is a joy to behold.

Super is the kind of movie that makes you want to rush out and tell everyone how great it was. And if they let me decide the Oscar winners this year, Super will win everything (I’ll even find a way to give it best documentary and best foreign film!).

It would be an absolute fucking epic tragedy if this film ends up living in the shadow of Kick Ass or falling into underrated obscurity like Slither. Go see this film, then make your friends go watch it, and then make THEIR friends go watch it.

On the MIFF rating system I attempted to give this film 10 stars out of 5, but mathematical convention prevented me from doing so. Therefore I had to rate it 5 stars out of 5.

IMDB: Super

THE FUTURE (M.I.F.F.)

Miranda July’s follow up to the delightful ‘Me You and Everyone We Know’, turned out to be a wretchedly irritating glimpse into the first world problems of a complete dickhead.

As fair warning, I’m not going to have any qualms about spoilers in this review, on account of the fact you can’t spoil a turd, and I’ll be doing you favour by saving you the anguish of having to sit through it.

Pending their imminent adoption of a cat and thus signalling, you know, adult responsibility and shit, Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) start having a mid 30’s crisis and decide to both quit their jobs and stop going on facebook for 5 minutes so they can spend their days doing awkward, pretentious dance routines and go do volunteer work selling trees respectively. Then, somewhere along the line, out of the blue Sophie decides to start an affair with a bloke she met over the phone. She moves in with him, yet continues to be the most pretentiously annoying human being on Planet Earth. There follows a downright bizarre set of sequences where, amongst other things and for no discernible reason,  the man’s daughter buries herself up to her neck in a hole she dug in the garden (!!); and then later on Sophie climbs inside an oversized t-shirt and proceeds to prat about doing a stupid dance.  Oh and did I mention that the whole thing is narrated by the cat they were due to adopt? Childishly voiced by Miranda July, it’s cloying, saccharine monologues will likely cause the viewer to exhibit feelings of annoyance and irritated rage.

Miranda July’s whole ‘I’m a wacky and unusual creative’ schtick wears real thin, real fast, and her character is just a deeply dislikeable arsehole. I am still unsure as to whether the audience is supposed to be rooting for her character or not, but I really can’t see any reasoning as to why they should. By the time ending trundled into site I was beyond caring about anyone in this movie and was more annoyed with the fact I just wasted 20 bucks on watching such monumental drivel.

So just to be clear, I flat out DESPISED this film.

On the MIFF rating system I gave this film 1 star out of 5, but I would have given it zero if I had been able to.

IMDB: The Future

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (M.I.F.F.)

Despite it’s superb premise, and the presence of the frankly wonderful Rutger Hauer in the lead role, Hobo With A Shotgun failed to deliver. The ‘high concept’ storyline revolves around Rutger Hauer’s Hobo of the title, exacting bloody revenge on the lawless criminals of the city and underworld boss The Drake.

Unfortunately Hobo With A Shotgun just didn’t work. Not even as being an enjoyable piece of nonsense. Rutger Hauer has many entrants in his back catalogue that qualify as enjoyable trash – not least the SUPERB Blind Fury, and the entertaining Salute of the Jugger – but Hobo just couldn’t manage it. It looked good; like 80’s video trash. Reminiscent of Street Trash for example, in both acting ability and aesthetic. Some nice touches were in there – I can’t help but feel when the villains put manhole covers around the necks of their victims, it was a cheeky nod to Rutger Hauer’s 90’s action classic, Wedlock – and there was a spirited 5 or 10 minutes in the middle where the Hobo takes up his vigilante crusade and it seemed like things might fall into place.

But despite the gore and the look of the movie, it felt mean spirited. It was nasty, and perhaps that was the intent, but it ended up meaning that there really was no fun at all to be had here.

It felt contrived. Like the dialogue was intentionally terrible. One part in particular, where the Hobo is talking about bears, was excruciating. The script felt like it had been written precisely for hipsters with terrible moustaches and oversized brogues to laugh at ironically.

Most unforgivably of all, it was toweringly unfunny. I’ve nothing against crude or juvenile humour. In fact I positively celebrate it. But just being crude or juvenile does not necessarily make you funny; and that’s the case here. It was a total laugh vacuum.

On the MIFF rating system I gave this film 1 star out of 5. Hobo with a SHITgun.

IMDB: Hobo With A Shotgun

NORWEGIAN WOOD (M.I.F.F.)

A soulful, beautifully filmed, slow burn, based on the Haruki Murakami’s acclaimed novel. Norwegian Wood tells the story of Watanabe and his love for two girls. One, Naoko, a troubled, fragile spirit from his youth; back in his life and still unable to come to terms with a tragedy that haunts them both; and the other, Midori, an intriguing new love.

It has indeed been a very long time since I read the book, so comparison was hard. What I can say was that the film was excellent.  Fully transporting you back to the 60’s, with gorgeous scenery in the Japanese countryside, and it’s captivating storyline, it paints a tragic portrait of grief and love. Nonetheless, I found myself riveted as the story is unfurled.

Sad but ultimately rewarding.

On the MIFF rating system I gave this film 4 stars out of 5.

IMDB: Norwegian Wood

SUBMARINE (M.I.F.F.)

This was the first Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) movie of the season for me. Having been rejected for their film blog reviews project courtesy of a rather patronising email that misspelled the word 'calibre', I had considered not mentioning MIFF in this review. You might even say that I was a bit... ahem... 'MIFFed' about it!  Nonetheless, as you can see from my opening gambit here, I have opted to be the bigger man. Chalk one up for personal growth.

Submarine is the tale of  Oliver growing up in a small town in Wales, charting his forays into first love, and his attempts to scupper his mother’s plans to meet up with an old flame. Sounds like a barrel of laughs right? Well it is in fact extremely funny. Beautifully shot and very well made by The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade (his first feature as a director), it successfully juggles both the comedic and serious tone of the film to get the right balance between humour and melodrama. Similar in a way to how Bunny and the Bull managed to be simultaneously side achingly funny yet also rather touching.

Submarine is narrated from the perspective of central character Oliver, oftentimes with his opinion that his life is a movie. This device had the potential to be a bit trite if mishandled, but this film is so well made and charming across the board that it succeeds triumphantly. Also, unless I am much mistaken, it is a pretty common adolescent fantasy to believe your life is actually a movie. But please all the psychiatrists who read this blog, feel free to correct me.*

The cast is excellent all round, with charisma and likeability in spades. Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige in the lead roles, turn in charming and hugely entertaining performances. Paddy Considine’s character verged on being a bit too silly, but got away with it by virtue of his great comedic turn and the colossal goodwill that this movie conjures.

Noah Taylor was superb. The perfect study of mild mannered melancholy. The sequence about his former job as an Open University TV presenter (“he was an uncomfortable screen presence”) had me bellowing with laughter. And Sally Hawkins was fantastic as Oliver's  highly strung mother, Jill.

I LOVED the shit out of this movie. Submarine is a fantastically enjoyable movie all round. This could quite conceivably be the film of the festival, if not the year, for me.

On the MIFF rating system I gave this film 5 stars out of 5.

IMDB: Submarine

* Incidentally I would imagine there are many psychiatrists who would use this blog in a professional capacity in order to study the long term effects of Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull induced trauma. How can a normal, well adjusted man in his early 30’s, 3 years after the fact, still suffer cold sweats, despondency and crippling Indiana Jones related nightmares? The only peace coming in those 2 to 3 seconds after one wakes up in the morning and having the firm conviction that the fourth movie was all a dream. It was another bad dream – Indiana Jones didn’t fight aliens; it was another bad dream – Indiana Jones didn’t survive a nuclear blast; it was another bad dream – they didn’t use Sean Connery’s IMDB headshot as a family portrait when discussing his death; it was another bad dream – Mutt didn’t swordfight a badly accented Cate Blanchett on top of a FUCKING CGI JEEP!. Excuse me, I need to go have a lie down.