Chris vs Cinema

The second episode of the Chris Vs Cinema Podcast rolls into town with a squeal of Harley tyres, the thunderous sound of gunfire and four warriors ready to smite the heathens of bad cinema.  Chris is joined by regular co-hosts Jim Whiting and Tom Figures as well as special guest, Professor of Culture Graham Jones.  This week the guys discuss turtles, carpenters and vampires as well as taking a fighting stance with Inception, The Crazies, Religulous, Outpost and the lamentable performance of Scott Pilgrim in the states. We take a boys only trip to the cinema to watch The Expendables for our main review and there are lots and lots of out-takes at the end, including a succinct review of Dolph Lundgren’s action classic BlackJack and more chat about Ryan bloody Reynolds.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:52 — 69.5MB)

Jim Whiting makes his writing debut on the Chris vs Cinema site with an extended look at the film he discussed during Podcast Ep 02. Enjoy…

Outpost (Steve Barker, 2008)

Logic and consistency. Key elements for a script writer to bear in mind, should they want the audience to suspend their disbelief and invest completely in the story they’re crafting.

Or… In Outpost’s case; disposable annoyances which can be chucked aside when it suits, if all you want is your audience to have a killer time occasionally shitting their pants and watching zombies getting strafed with machine gun fire for 90 minutes.

Outpost is a gritty action horror film, which sees a rag tag squad of mercenaries venturing into war-torn Eastern Europe to locate an abandoned WW2 bunker, ultimately facing off against an unrelenting horde of bloody minded Nazi ghouls. (The best kind of ghouls, obviously)

Director Steven Barker opts for a grainy look, reminiscent of HBO’s excellent Band of Brothers, and this adds a sense of authenticity to proceedings, especially during scenes of the squaddies patrolling through the bleak eastern European countryside. There’s some real flair shown with the variety of shots on offer throughout, ranging from well composed, lengthy establishing shots as the squad discover the secrets of the bunker, visceral gunfight sequences and rapid jump cuts for some of the impressively gory, shock shots.

The only weak point of the whole film is, sadly, the logic behind the plot. The explanation for what’s going on is fairly clever, being based on real world scientific principles rather than the usual Zombie virus idea. But while this explanation holds the plot together to a point, throughout the course of the film rules and conventions established earlier on are disregarded to suit the needs of a particular scene. This jars you out of the experience and can often leave you scratching your head as events unfold to progress the plot, at the cost of making much sense.

Thankfully though, everything else is so well done, and the film itself so enjoyable, that I personally found it didn’t matter too much. If you’re going to throw your own rulebook out of the window, you may as well throw it right in a zombie’s stupid, dead face; before peppering him with plenty of bullets. Which is exactly what Outpost does best.

38. The A-Team (Joe Carnahan, 2010)

Although Podcast co-hosts Jim and Tom already discussed this I decided to take it in at the cinema too for the sake of completeness and in case they missed anything.

In the summer of military squads (The Losers, The Expendables) The A-Team probably had the biggest head start.  What a surprise then, that it took a kicking at the box-office from Will Smith’s kid in the remake of The Karate Kid and is on its way to being outstripped by Sly’s crew.

This is big silly high-concept fun with a tasty cast.  Alright, maybe aside from Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson who has the thankless task of following Mr T into the boots of B.A. Baracus.  That said the elaborate Mission Impossible style heists and jobs are a bit daft but plenty of fun.  The choppy editing only pissed me off twice, which is pretty rare for a picky man like myself, and I laughed a fair bit at the broad and simple humour.  Perhaps because I too have been described as both broad and simple.  Where The A-Team goes a bit wrong is in the final set piece.  I won’t ruin it but I will instead say that The Losers had a final scene set in a similar location (imagine the execs faces when they found out that) and they did it better.  Which means that despite being pretty entertaining, The A-Team lost fairly heavily this summer.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next few days. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

36. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) #4 in IMDB top 250

So even mentioning a plot detail about this film is considered to be a spoiler.  The internet has decided, in the wake of Memento and The Prestige, that an original Christopher Nolan film has to be completely shrouded in secrecy and that to even mention that it is about dreams, or contains dreams within dreams is a punishable offence.  Well, it isn’t.  That little detail is revealed in the first scene. The only major surprise is there are no major spoilable plot details, nothing in the M. Night Shyamalan ‘twist’ mould anyway.  Instead what there is, is a smartly crafted original heist thriller with a high concept premise that contains aspects of Heat, The Matrix and Identity.  It is the first film in recent memory that I have found Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance to be living up to his billing as a major star.  He pales next to his excellent support cast though.  Joseph Gordon Levitt is superb as the intense straight man Arthur with a lithe physicality that reminded me of Robert Patrick’s near feline performance in Terminator 2.  Tom Hardy steals every available scene he is in by marrying his meaty presence from Bronson with a wideboy charm and wit. Even Ken Watanabe finally gets some lines in an American film.  It is an original summer blockbuster, not based on a previous toy/video game/book/cartoon/TV series property.  It is well performed, great to look and actually demands your attention during the course of its running time.  We have much to be thankful for, perhaps Christopher Nolan is setting out to save the summer blockbuster with his sharp and intricate visions.

Where is the catch then? Well, it’ll need a second watch to be completely comfortable with the plot details, a lot is left unexplained but is possible to be reasoned out with a bit of thought.  Ellen Page gets to play exposition machine which is something a better script could have been a little more naturalistic about.  Nolan’s idea of dreaming is actually quite dull.  This is no Lynchian journey to the subconscious but rather a pragmatic and structured vision of the mind – the film wouldn’t work any other way though.  But the major problem, and this is becoming a real issue in Nolan’s films, is that he might have a genuine issue with women.  I think Christopher Nolan might actually loathe women.  In his original films they are the agents of destruction in his stories (Both Batman films and Scandinavian remake Insomnia are based on other material but even then the women don’t get off lightly).  Witness Carrie Anne Moss in Memento and Marion Cotillard in Inception, actively destroying the very worlds of the male protagonists.  But hey, Hollywood isn’t exactly the leader of the feminist march in any respect so maybe we should let it slide along with the rest, given that this is otherwise a very good film?  Nah, I had to mention it, I’m a contrarian at heart.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next few days. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

35. Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, 2008)

Once again a film we discussed in PodcastEpisode 1, this is the Bond film that feels like an afterthought to the far superior Casino Royale.  That aside the action is fast paced (a bit too choppy in places) and the photography is never less than sumptuous.  But the story is non-existent and there isn’t one iota of character development.  I think it is this last point that disappointed so many people after the well received, more human Bond of Daniel Craig’s first outing who actually went on some form of character journey.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next few days. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

34. JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008)

Roll up, roll up and enjoy ‘The Muscles from Brussels’ having a nervous breakdown in film form!  About 70 minutes into this film Jean-Claude Van Damme, playing himself, breaks (roundhouse kicks?) the fourth wall as he talks directly to the audience about a rambling array of topics from his estranged daughter, his career, living in America and his philosophy on life.  It is a bizarre and uncomfortable moment as the man seems to be treating the whole thing as a therapy session and venting his soul.  That aside this is a passable, tongue in cheek thriller where JCVD gets caught up in a post office robbery (he really is slumming it) whilst trying to arrange payment to his lawyer for the custody battle he is involved in.  An odd but honest little film and the Belgian’s best bit of acting since, well, since ever.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next week or so. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

33. Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009)

Perhaps I was in the mood to test my brain over this period of time but Triangle is no walk in the park plotwise.  But before I get ahead of myself this is easier to follow than Primer (I doubt I’ve ever seen anything quite as narratively complex as Primer).  Melissa George is Jess, a very troubled young woman.  When on a sailing trip Jess and a group of friends are rescued from the debris of a flash squall by what appears to be an abandoned cruise liner.  Then things get weird.  Creep and Severance director Christopher Smith has made his most assured film yet, anchored by a strong performance from George and a smart time-loop script – this is an excellent distraction.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next week or two. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

32. Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)

As discussed on Podcast Episode 1 this is the hardest of hard sci-fi, destined to break your brain in the nicest possible way.  Filmed for $3000 and using only the most basic equipment available this is an extraordinary triumph of script writing.  It is almost unfeasibly complex, to the point where I guarantee that you will be lost.  But fear not, for the internet is brimming with explanations.  The only problem is that they are ridiculous in their complexity also.  Basically, two blokes invent a fairly complicated time machine and attempt to swindle the stock market. Then things get complicated, well, more complicated.  To say any more would entail spoilers and suggest that I understood it.  I didn’t, but I did enjoy it, it may be low-fi but has seriously high expectations of its audience.  I use the word ‘complicated’ a lot in this review but it is pretty much the best word for it.

Due to podcast shenanigans my reviews have been on the slide so I’ve done a bunch of micro reviews and they’ll be going up at 9.30 am every morning for the next week or two. Check back every day for a mini-dose of film reviewing goodness.

31. The Good, The Bad, The Wierd (Ji-Woon Kim, 2008)

Korean madness infuses every bead of this excellently glossy Western homage.  The big selling point was a recommendation from Adam Quigley of the Slashfilmcast to me about the action.  It is wonderfully clean and clearly directed and edited.  There is a great deal of creativity in this film, it falls squarely into the exciting wave of Korean cinema that has emerged over the last five years or so.  They have a national cinema that despite budget limitations feels fresher than any other.  Gung-ho action, stoic heroes, malicious villains and a crazy bloke in a motorcycle sidecar – what more do you want?

Welcome to the inaugral Versus Cinema Podcast with your host Chris Warrington and regular (?) co-hosts Jim Whiting and Tom Figures. This week we apologise, and swear, regularly whilst discussing Cargo, Quantum of Solace, The A-Team, Green Lantern and the lovely Ryan Reynolds, Entourage being a bit crap, Avatar being a bit wet, Sly being a bit desperate and round things off with a look at the Predator: Hunter Edition Blu-Ray release.

The file is a bit big, the editing is occasionally a bit clunky, you can occasionally hear my blocked nose breathing, Tom’s synopsis go on forever and Jim is still from the midlands – but this is a first time. C’mon, give me a break. All feedback is greatly appreciated. This post might even shift a bit over the next day or two whilst I get it working a bit better, shrink the file size and have it running in a slightly more user friendly format but for now, here are all your options let us know how you think it has gone via Facebook, Twitter or the comments on this site. I’m hoping it will soon be on iTunes too.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:18:44 — 36.0MB)