Rock of Ages

"This place is about to become a sea of sweat, ear-shattering music and puke"

In 1987 Sherrie (Julianne Hough) sets off from her home in Oklahoma towards L.A with dreams of rock stardom. Almost as soon as she arrives she is mugged and helped by Drew (Diego Boneta) who works at the Bourbon Room, a Sunset Strip rock club. Sherrie gets a job at the club and she and Drew begin a relationship while both dreaming of becoming singers. Meanwhile the club’s owner Dennis (Alec Baldwin) and his right hand man Lonny (Russell Brand) are struggling to keep the club open amid protests from the Mayor’s wife Patricia Whitmore (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Rock legend Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) of the band Arsenal is due to perform at the club with the hopes of beginning a solo carer, if he can get his head back in the game long enough to do so.

I’d read mixed reviews before seeing this film but I’m a fan of a lot of 80s rock music, from Iron Maiden to Metallica to Blue Cheer via Motley Crue, Motorhead and Pantera. Unfortunately this is not the sort of rock music you get with Rock of Ages. Instead you end up with the likes of Bon Jovi and Journey. This is not the type of music I enjoy, especially when the lyrics are used in place of dialogue in an annoying coming of age story. This film is about as much rock n’ roll as a jam sandwich with the crusts removed.

GB Posters Blog - Sam Raimi's Spider-Man

Elaine over at GB Posters asked me to write something about Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy in the build up to the release of The Amazing Spider-Man and below is a link to my piece. 

 http://www.gbposters.com/blog/spiderman-the-trilogy

You can read what I thought about each film in more detail by clicking on the links below.

Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3

"Everybody needs help sometimes Peter, even Spider-Man"

The final part of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy finds Peter Parker finally enjoying life. Things are going well for him; he’s top of his class, closer than ever to MJ and still has time to fight crime as Spider-Man. If anything Peter has become over arrogant with his all round success and this comes back to bite him when an extra terrestrial parasite which amplifies the characteristics of its host attaches itself to Peter and turns his Spidey suit black. Now more cocky and arrogant than ever Peter has little time for MJ and they drift apart. At the same time an escaped criminal accidentally ends up in a particle accelerator filled with sand. The sand fuses with his body and turns him into the Sandman – Spider-Man’s latest nemesis.

This is generally regarded to be the worst of the Raimi Spider-Man films but personally I’d put it second, slightly ahead of Spider-Man While there is an enormous amount wrong with the film, I actually think that the story is the strongest of the three. I like how the film looks at Peter Parker’s psychological state and how the alien parasite is able to effect how and who he is. His relationship with Mary Jane becomes fractured after ending on a high in Spider-Man 2 and this creates plenty of drama and commotion. Add this to Harry’s ever growing disdain for Spider-Man and you have the makings of a decent plot. As a result of focussing more on Parker/Spider-Man’s turmoil, the villain characters suffer a little and the Sandman’s back-story is only briefly touched upon. Venom is only really seen in a few scenes as an arrogant up and comer before becoming a super villain.

Battle: Los Angeles

"Now you got three hours to get your ass back before those bombs drop, and make no mistake THEY WILL DROP! with... or without you"

Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is on the verge of retiring from the US Marines when he gets called back into action one last time to help repel an alien attack on L.A. What scientists first suspect to be meteors turn out to be the ships of an unidentified species of alien who intend to colonise the Earth and drain its resources. Under the leadership of an untested Lieutenant and with a squad of Marines who don’t trust him, Nantz must help a band of civilians to escape Santa Monica before it is blown up by the Air Force.

This is a film with a multitude of problems which start with the character introductions. For a start there are too many, all introduced with a minute or two of back story. They are all stock characters which have been seen a thousand times. We have the guy who’s getting married, the untested Officer, the guy whose brother was killed, the guy in therapy, the guy from New Joizey, the guy from Texas and perhaps more unusually the guy from Nigeria who enlisted for citizenship. I couldn’t tell you any more about the characters than that and never really cared for any of them. Later they are joined by a female Air Force (pilot? I think) (Michelle Rodriguez) along with five civilians, three of which are children.

By the Sea

While on a windy beach The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) turns his attention to two married women and ends up getting in trouble with their husbands. This film feels like a bit of a step back after Chaplin’s previous films. It feels much closer to His New Job than the likes of The Champion or The The Tramp in that it is a knockabout comedy and a farce which lacks character development. Despite this there is still much to like.

I especially enjoyed Chaplin’s use of string attached to his jacket and hat which stops his hat blowing away in the wind. It’s a great idea and it’s almost a shame it didn’t catch on! The idea is used successfully in a couple of ways; Firstly in a scene in which Chaplin and Billy Armstrong get their strings intertwined and end up tangled up and inevitably fighting and in a second scene while trying to woo Bud Jamison’s wife. In this scene Chaplin manipulates the string behind his back to make it seem as though the hat is jumping off his head. It’s a simple, clever and very funny idea.

Apart from those two examples and a brief fight involving ice creams there isn’t much else of note in this film. There are of course Bud Jamison’s over the top eyebrows and the background setting of an almost deserted Los Angeles beach is quite interesting but compared to Chaplin’s later films this feels a little weak.

5/10

Spider-Man 2

"I'm Spider-Man no more, no more"

Two years after his transformation into Spider-Man, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is struggling to balance the demands of being a super hero with a job and studying while these all impact on his personal life. His secret love Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is now a big hit on Broadway but after the open ended conclusion to their relationship at the end of Spider-Man, the two have since drifted apart. Peter is writing a paper about the scientist Dr. Octavius (Alfred Molina) and goes to the unveiling of his latest experiment. Things go wrong though and Octavius becomes attached to four tentacle like instruments and becomes Dr. Octopus, a villain hell bent on completing his experiments, even if they destroy the whole city.  

If you read my review of Spider-Man then you’ll be aware of how bitterly disappointed I was with it. Thankfully Spider-Man 2 lived up to my memory and if anything exceeded it. The story is focussed on Peter Parker’s split lives and how he manages to cope with the responsibility of being Spider-Man. His relationship with Mary Jane is also at the centre and the will they/wont they or will they/can they nature of their relationship is played out in full. Peter’s relationship with other characters including his Aunt and friend Harry are also featured with the later continuing an obvious thread which leads to a third film.

Spider-Man

"Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man"

A geeky high school kid, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is on a field trip to a genetics laboratory when he is bitten by a genetically engineered spider. Soon after he feels unwell but wakes up the next morning to discover that he is feeling better than ever, can see without his glasses and has new muscle tone in place of his once scrawny physique. Peter also discovers that his reactions are greatly heightened and that he is stronger and faster than ever before. After the untimely death of his Uncle, Peter decides to put his new found attributes to the test and adopts the moniker Spider-Man. This is just in time it seems as New York City comes under attack from The Green Goblin and only Spider-Man can stop him.

I saw this film ten years ago when it was first released and although I’ve never been into Comics, even I knew the Spider-Man origins story at that time. At the time I remember thinking that it was really good but after ten years I’ve changed my mind. Perhaps it is because the film has aged, maybe it’s because I’ve seen it before or maybe it’s just because it doesn’t match recent Comic book adaptations but this time around I was unimpressed.

Drive

"... I don't sit in while you're running it down. I don't carry a gun. I drive"

A Hollywood stunt driver / part time wheelman for L.A’s criminals (Ryan Gosling) gets embroiled in a crime that puts him on a collision course with the Mob after taking a job in order to protect perhaps the only two people in the world that he has any feelings for. The cool and unflappable Driver seeks out those who have wronged him and attempts to save his own and his love interest’s lives.

This was easily one of the top 10 best films of 2011 and possibly inside my top ten of the last several years. The film and its central character are effortlessly cool and both have become both instant classics and cult favourites. Although the film’s time period is never specified it seems to have a foot both in the present and in the 1980s. The style, design and music reminded me of the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as it has that kind of 80s Miami almost art deco style-stucco style. The colour palette is beautiful and dominated by the colour gold, perhaps in a nod to its L.A setting and also the Driver’s nostalgic view of L.A with its strong silent movie stars and dames in need of rescue. The whole film has a very Noir feel to it. The gold is most noticeable in Gosling’s wardrobe as he sports golden shoes and a fantastic gold scorpion jacket. More subtlety though the sun kissed L.A streets also glisten gold.

Like Crazy

"I just have to say one thing and it's really important that you just listen to me. I just... "

Like Crazy is a 2011 Romantic Drama in which two young students fall in love but get torn apart by problems with immigration. Anna (Felicity Jones) is studying Journalism at college in L.A. on a student visa when she meets and falls in love with Jacob (Anton Yelchin). The two begin a heartfelt and romantic relationship during which Anna overstays her visa. After returning briefly to the UK for a Wedding she is denied re-entry to the US and is forcibly deported. The couple then struggle to maintain a relationship or even a friendship over a distance of several thousand miles and discover that the time and distance is not the only thing that is capable of keeping them apart.

This film produced a flurry of emotions from me. During the first act I kept saying “awww” as it is incredibly cute. The two actors felt like a very realistic and sweet couple and reminded me of being in the first throws of love. By the second act I was screaming at the US Immigration Officials and then ended up telling the central characters off, even though I’m about 80% sure they couldn’t hear me. The film goes up and down, in and out, backwards and forwards, roundabout and back again and I went with it every step of the way.

Cosmopolis

"It's not the sex I've had, it's the sex I want that you can smell"

Young billionaire Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) decides to take his stretch limo across New York City for a haircut. Along the way he conducts business, meets friends, family and acquaintances before being mobbed by anarchists and confronting someone who has malicious intent to harm him. 

This film reminded me of a good Shakespearean play; I only understood about half of it but enjoyed it a lot. There are long elongated stretches of duelling dialogue which are spoken in a half alien language of metaphors and double meanings. The word ‘this’ takes on new meanings and is used in – it feels like – almost every sentence. Much like a Shakespearean play there are odd comic moments and in keeping with Director David Cronenberg’s cannon, brief scenes of extreme violence. These few instances ignited some of the more drawn out and dare I say duller scenes to keep the audience on tenterhooks. Despite these flashes this wont be a film for everyone and a man next to me in an early afternoon screening fell asleep while a couple on the row in front left about half way in.