#13: MARCHING POWDER

Starring Danny Dyer, Geoff Bell, Stephanie Leonidas, Lex Shrapnel, Callum MacNab, Arty Dyer, Bailey Patrick and Janet Kumah. Written and directed by Nick Love. Running time 96 minutes.

Danny Dyer is Jack – a 45 year-old marching powder-snorting football thug with a failing marriage to Stephanie Leonidas (can't remember her character's name). After getting arrested for some football hooliganism (him not her), he's given six weeks to turn his life around by a judge or risk going to jail. So off he goes to save his marriage and his liberty. If his marriage fails his father-in-law who finances his life and who hates him will cut him off and throw him out. Add to the mix the following a son who adores Jack but is going off the rails. A gang of middle-aged drug addled mates and thugs. 

Over the next 96 minutes, which will feel like six weeks, you'll get to watch the following:
1. Danny Dyer breaking the fourth wall every other minute to talk to us. 
2. Danny Dyer taking drugs, lots of drugs.
3. Danny Dyer narrating, when he's not breaking the fourth wall.
4. Danny Dyer beating up a variety of people.
5. Danny Dyer with his shirt off. A lot.
6. Danny Dyer, much more of him. 

Why did you go and see this, David? I hear you ask. A justified question. Well, in answer I have to say that I saw this so you don't have to. And more importantly my wife doesn't need to either, dear god I almost took her with me. I saw this because oddly enough I found the trailer to be rather good, and it felt like something altogether different in the pantheon of rom coms, it looked fresh and funny, with Danny Dyer deconstructing himself, I like the idea of a middle-aged man trying to turn his life round and plus it looked funny. 

Oddly enough, I knew I was in a shit show when the film started and we were blessed with an atrocious animated prologue featuring the life of Jack from birth to his present and the first use of the word, 'cunt', which it would turn out to be the single most used word in the entire film, it's used as a verb, a noun, an adjective and a pronoun by everyone from Jack, to his wife, father-in-law, friends, son and even a nun in a scene I might have dreamed up when I nodded off. 

There is no redemption arc, or even story arc for our Jack and his long suffering and vastly under used wife character, just scene after scene of Jack and his hilarious coked up friends beating the shit out of every body, getting stoned, wasted and off their tits before midly regretting their actions before doing it all over again. The funniest lines are in the trailer so save yourself by just watching that. 

A dull, rather boring, unfunny and rather shitty little piece of shit of a movie, which Danny Dyer fans will no doubt love. 

I on the other hand think it's worthy of a 2/10 

#12: MICKEY 17

 

STARRING: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Rufalo and Toni Collette. Written and directed by Bong Joon-ho, based on the novel by Edward Ashton. Budget $118 million. Running time 137 mintues long.

It's the near future, Earth is fucked and man is heading for the stars and Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his childhood friend Timo (Steven Yeun) are in deep doo-do. They owe money to a psychotic loanshark who gets his jollies watching torture snuff porn of those who fail to pay him back. 

With nothing to lose the two friends decide to hitch a ride on a 4 1/2 year journey to a new planet, with Timo as a pilot and Mickey, with no skills, as an 'Expendable', a cloned indentured worker who can be printed anew every time he dies. They set sail on a star ship controlled by Donald Trump, known in this film as Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his puppet-master wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette) a food, or should that be sauce obsessed foodie. 

The first 16 Mickeys meet horrible deaths as they're tested for radiation poisoning, experimented on in medical experimentation or just squandered in a series of near trivial accidents until they reach the new planet, a world stuck in seemingly perpetual winter and popluated by giant sentient woodlice. Over the years Mickey has become quite the fixature on the ship and ended up in a longterm, loving relationship with security officer Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie). 

Luck shits on Mickey when he ends up at the bottom of an ice cavern about to be devoured by the woodlice now nicknamed Creepers. However, against the odds, rather than kill and eat him, the Creepers rescue him out of the carven and he returns to his ship only to discover that believing him to be dead, Mickey 18 has been printed. 

And that's against the law...

A lot has been said and expected of Bon Joon-ho, especially after his superb 2019 movie Parasite, which went on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay much to the absolute chagrin of Donald Dump (the worst president in history) who went on a ridiculous rant about it winning. So, perhaps it's hardly surprising Dump plays a major part in this, Bon Joon-ho's eighth film. Some critics are unfairly comparing this, Mickey 17 with Parasite and finding it wanting. But then that's critics for you, not happy unless they're whinging about something. "Oh, why isn't this just like that was? I liked that and now I have to watch this and it's different." Critics are wankers, every last man-jack of them and I should know, I'm not happy unless I'm not only bashing the bishop but smashing the living shit out of him. 

And so to the film. 

Well, it's nothing like Parasite, which I found very annoying, I mean that won three Oscars and this is about something entirely different, even though it's made by the same man. So, I couldn't use any of my previous review on that to use on this. I'm going to have to make up new stuff, which is really annoying. 

Well this is a much more light-hearted and funny outing than Parasite, it deftly explores notions of what it means to be human, and mankind's relentless decline, climate change and immigration, although the out and out comedy and tongue in cheek approach does lessen the blows. Robert Pattison is excellent as all the Mickeys, giving each a slight spin, but the standout performance is that of Ruffalo's Kenneth Marshall, a Donnie Dump of the ages, an arrogant, oafish, bore and utter asshole just out to make a fast buck for himself while proclaming himself the best at everything. Together with a superb Toni Collette as Ylfa, his wife, they give us pantomine villains we can boo and hiss at with glee.

With excellent special effects, some inspired creature design and CGI in the Creepers and a gripping action packed third act this is a satisfying but emotionally flat comedy romp that feels vastly different from the usual Hollywood comedy fair and coupled with the fact this isn't a franchise, or sequel but something new makes it worth a butchers, even if it is based on a book.

A time machine of a movie that makes the 117 minutes simply fly by, Pattison is great, but Rufallo and Collette steal the film and Naomi Ackie is a delight. 

8/10

  

#11: THE BIG LEBOWSKI

STARRING: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Tururro, Sam Elliot, Tara Reid,  and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Written by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Photography by Roger Deakins. Directed by Joel Coen. Originally released in 1998, budget $15 million. Running time 117 minutes. 

Thank god for the release of classic movies, cause I think otherwise I doubt I'd go half as often as I have been, the cinema just seems bereft of new films to watch, or at least variety and so when Cineworld threw this up for viewing I jumped. And I'm glad I did.

The story sees bowling-loving professional slacker Jeffrey Lebowski aka The Dude (Jeff Bridges) mistaken for local millionaire business man Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), whose ex-pornstar wife, Bunny (Tara Reid) has run up huge debts to local porn movie director Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazarra) who sends two of his henchmen to get his money back. Confusing Jeff Lebowski, the Dude, for Jeffrey Lebowski, the henchmen beat him up and piss on his carpet triggering a ludicrous and escalating series of events that drag The Dude into a world filled with German Nihilists, kidnapping plots, blackmail and the daughter of Jeffrey Lebowski (Julianne Moore) who is rather keen for The Dude to impregnate her, while a sentient tumbleweed called The Stranger (Sam Elliot) watches and ponders. 

I truly love films about nothing and despite an insanely stuffed plot, this truly is a film about nothing and it's glorious as a result. Painfully slow, filled with pure nonsense and perfect dialogue this is the Coen Brothers best film and certainly the most accessible. Jeff Bridges delivers in The Dude perhaps his finest character making him utterly believable and likeable, as a viewer you want him to succeed, he's just so good damn mellow and charming even if he's as annoying as hell. 

The story meanders along from one plot point to the next, there's the odd death, a lot of bowling and a series of beatings delivered almost exclusively to the Dude. It's filled with charming oddball characters and the relationships and some marvellous dream sequences, and yet for some reason, I don't love it, sure I really like it but it doesn't get a 10/10 from me. I think it's the length, I find my patience tested and my attention wandering, I sort of find myself thinking it could be a little tighter in places and I just wish that characters would actually finish their sentences. 

Still, it was great to see it back up on the big screen, but for the life of me I can't work out why this is an 18 certificate. 

8/10

#10: THE MONKEY

STARRING: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin P'Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy Adam Scott, Elijah Wood. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins. Based on a Stephen King short story. Budget $11 million. Running time 98 minutes.

A pair of twin boys, living with their mom inherit a wind-up monkey from their dead-beat father, the only thing he left them. When the monkey's key is turned and it starts to drum, someone will die. After the death of their mother, the boys get passed to family after family until they grow up to be a dysfunctional pair of neurotic deadbeats, both with their own crosses to bear. The Monkey, long believed to have lost resurfaces in their lives the two Theo Jameses battle over the monkey leading to an extraordinary level of death, mayhem and relentless gore. 

From the man who brought us Longlegs, a film I did not like, no sir, comes this. But, unusually instead of a intriguing and clever attempt to create something different out of the King shortstory, Perkins opts instead to make an out-and-out wacky comedy, mixing the style of the Final Destination films with a liberal slice of American gross out humour, because this film is equal measures horror and comedy. Now, I've always been interested in how the two seemingly different genres can work well together, give the audience something horrific or gory but then add a joke at the end and the spell is broken and you can get away with murder, so to speak. However in this 'hilarious' film, Perkins goes one better by making sure that the shits and giggles starts from the very beginning and as such this film has no teeth, bite, or anything interesting or new to say. If you enjoy the fantastically inventive of the FD franchise then this will be your cup of tea. The deaths get more ridiculous and comical as the film goes along leading to a blow-out ending that will either have you laughing your head off, or just sighing. Me, I just sighed. 

It's not a bad film, in fact it's quite funny, Theo James is a game actor and gives it his all and the deaths are ingenious, but robbed of any sense of reality this just becomes a series of outlandish deaths each more outrageous than the last and that's about it.

Nothing else to say. 7/10