Films: Confessions of a Superhero

Confessions of a Superhero
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Matthew Ogens
Released: 2007
Popcorns: 3.5/5

Chronicles the lives of four mortal men and women who work as characters on the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard.

Ever since I visited Hollywood, when I was about 12, I've always wondered about all the people who stand and pose for photos, dressed as their favourite characters from TV and films.  It fascinated me that these people were stood there all day and didn't realise at the time that it was actually their jobs, or at least a weekend job to get a bit of money on the side.

Confessions of a Superhero focuses upon four of the aforementioned characters, their struggle to make it into show business and how they ended up standing outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.  The four characters are Hulk, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.
Hulk is played by Joe McQueen, who came to Hollywood so keen to pursue his dream of stardom, that he started out his days there homeless and washing in Macdonalds before his auditions.
Batman is played by Maxwell Allen, who considers himself a George Clooney lookalike, has serious anger issue and seems to be a compulsive liar.
Wonder Woman is played by Jennifer Wenger, who came from a town where she was Queen of everything to chase her dream of being a Hollywood actress.
Finally, Superman is played by Christopher Dennis, who is obsessed with the Man of Steel and has been dressing up as him for the past 15ish years.  He also claims to be the son of Sandy Dennis, although the rest of her family deny this.

Surprisingly, these people are actually making a living out of this and sometimes are earning up to $500 a day from 'donations' from tourists.
The Chinese Theatre frown upon them and do not want to be associated with them at all. The police have no qualms with them, as long as they stick to the rules. The main two rules are that they must not ask for money, but they are allowed to accept donations and they have to stay off private property, which is clearly marked on the pavements outside of the shops.

They finally get some recognition because of an incident between Elmo, Mr. Incredible and some tourists, when Elmo and Mr. Incredible were arrested and a few of the other characters are interviewed for the news.
This leads to a few TV spots on the Jimmy Kimmell show and a rise in popularity and donations for each of them.


This is a really well put together documentary, spliced with some great pictures, that really capture all four of the people's lives and personalities.
It's a great look into the human psyche and is sometimes quite sad to see what people put themselves through to try and achieve fame.  Saying that, each one of the people interviewed for the documentary seem truly happy doing what they're doing and still hold that hope that one day they will get their starring role.

Films: Colombiana

Colombiana
Reviewer: J. Leigh
Director: Olivier Megaton
Released: 9th September 2011
Rating: 15
Popcorns: 2.5/5

A young woman, after witnessing her parents' murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin.

Well, Luc Besson never fails when it comes to action movies.  However, Colombiana, in all its rich and sometimes harrowing imagery was somewhat disappointing...

The story begins in Bogota.  Cataleya, the young daughter of a Colombian cartel member, is suddenly thrown into a fight for her life after her father and mother are slaughtered by goons of the angry cartel boss! It's amazing that this 8 or 9 year old girl knows parkour?!?
She is given an SD card, an address in Chicago and a business card for a member of the US embassy and takes to her toes.  The information held on the card turns out to be so important, it's her passport into the USA...Cliche, i hear you say??

Suddenly, we are propelled 15 years into the future and we find Cataleya lives with her father's brother, from time to time.  That is, when she isn't seeking out members of the gang that killed her parents to entice out the cartel boss who ordered the hit!!

Quite frankly, this is a reboot of one of Besson's finest films, Leon. Only, with the focus upon the main protagonist's adult life.
Some really choppy editing in the fight scenes made your head spin and it was very easy to guess what happened next.

Only worthwhile thing to write about is Zoe Saldana herself.  Some amazing outfits throughout the film; especially the catsuit.....Mmmmmm.
To be honest, it's a one watch.
 
Colombiana is out in the UK today (09/09/11) at most respectable and none respectable cinema chains.

Films: Happythankyoumoreplease

Happythankyoumoreplease
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Josh Radnor
Released: 2010
Rating: R (MPAA)
Popcorns: 2/5

I always paste in the plot summaries from imdb, so you can get a taste of the film.  Check out how pretentious this one is:

Captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved. 

Eeeff!  Should have read that before I started watching it, because then I may not have.
If that summary wets your whistle, then read on and see if I can change your mind...

The story centres around a failed freelance writer called Sam, played by Josh Radnor, who is unlucky in love and has a mental block with his work.
On his way to a job interview, he notices that a child is lost on the subway.  Being the good citizen that he is, he takes the child under his wing and heads off to take him to the police station.  Complications ensue and Sam ends up taking him to his job interview, which he, unsurprisingly, fails.
Now, rather than taking Rasheen (the child) to the police station after the interview, Sam decides to hold on to him for a couple of days and lets him stay at his apartment.  In my books, that's known as kidnap!

Sam builds up a bit of a brotherly relationship with Rasheen and he tries to make out to friends and his new beau that because Rasheen doesn't like his foster parents, it's ok and not at all wierd that the boy would be staying with him.  Eventually the police catch up with him and take the kid back into foster care.

I think you're supposed to empathise with Radnor's character, but he's just got a big fat face that you want to punch!  He only seems to be able to play Ted Mosby as well.  Ted is his character from How I Met Your Mother, who is equally pathetic and annoying.  To be fair, this is only the 2nd thing I've seen him in, but 2 out of 2 is 100% to me.

Talking of annoying; the film is supposed to be documenting 3 blossoming relationships, including Sam's one, but none of them seem that believable really.  Sam stalks a girl from a coffee shop called Mississippi, who still falls for him, even though he is a child snatcher.
Sam's 'cousin', Mary-Catherine, is with a douche bag, who wants to move away to LA, even though she doesn't want to and things are only remedied by her getting pregnant.
Sam's best friend is involved in the 3rd relationship.  She has alopecia, but feels super sorry for herself over it and is incredibly up her own arse at the same time!  The bloke who goes after her is pretty ugly and she does some huge inspirational speech about how she doesn't see that he's an ugly bloke, just because he's given her a bit of attention.

Overall, it just seemed a little bit too forced and like it was trying to be a cute indie flick, but falls right on it's ass, due to the self indulgence of it's writer/director, Josh Radnor.

I could carry on ranting about this film all day and I'm sure some people will like it.  It just makes you wonder why there's been no distribution for it in the UK yet? Maybe they all thought it was a bit poop, like me?!

Films: Vanishing of the Bees

Vanishing of the Bees
Reviewer: Wally
Director: George Langworthy, Maryam Henein
Released: 2009
Rating: U
Popcorns: 3/5

This documentary takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee.

I'm not really sure how other people would view this documentary.  Hopefully, you would think it was informative and interesting and not too boring.  I watched it because I bloody love bees!!

It's basically a one sided view of why the honeybee population is dwindling and bee keepers around the world seem to be discovering empty hives, where there was once a thriving, honey making troop.
It's one sided, because the pesticide companies, who are being blamed for this issue, refused to comment or be filmed.

There's not really much I can say about this documentary, as I fully agree that pesticides can be bad, but without the other side of the arguement, it's pretty pointless to be argueing, because the only people who are going to watch it are the people who agree with you!

Please don't get me wrong on this film.  It's a very well put together documentary of an issue that is quite worrying in the long run and should be addressed by the powers that bee (sorry).

Films: Hop

Hop
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Tim Hill
Released: 2011
Rating: U
Popcorns: 2/5

E.B., the Easter Bunny's teenage son, heads to Hollywood, determined to become a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band. In LA, he's taken in by Fred after the out-of-work slacker hits E.B. with his car.

With Tim Hill being the nephew of the late, great George Roy Hill; director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, to name but a few, you would expect him to follow in his footsteps and not just churn out poor animation films like Garfield 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Poor George would be turning in his grave.

Hop really isn't much of an exception to this.  It's got nothing to make it stand out of the crowd of animation/live action mash ups we've been bombarded with in the past few years.
It did, however, keep me entertained enough over the 95min running time to not turn it off, although my fingered hovered heavily over the eject button when everyone broke out into an impromptu song and dance routine in the middle of the film.  Unless it's King Julien doing 'I like to move it, move it' in Madagascar, then I'm not interested!

The basic premise is that the Easter Bunny (Hugh Laurie) is trying to train up his son to follow in his footsteps, whilst the rebel son, voiced by the hairy and flamboyant Russell Brand, has better ideas of going into the real world and wreaking havoc, trying to start a rock band.  Something along those lines anyway.
Brand was pretty funny in it for the most part, while his human sidekick, played by James Marsden was unfunny and a douche. Oh how far you've come from playing Cyclops in X-Men!

A redeeming feature was the quality of the animation playing along side the live action sets.  They seemed to get all the reflections correct on surfaces and the interaction between characters was spot on.  Also, I found myself LOLing at least 5 times during the film. That works out to about a LOL every 19 minutes, or 0.05 of a LOL per minute. Actually, that's a pretty poor minute to LOL ratio!

I fear I may have written more about this than Blue Valentine.  If you are a child, see this.  If you are anything but, see Blue Valentine, or most other films for that matter.  It was OK, and that was all.

As for Tim Hill...Shame on you for putting your name down to direct the Short Circuit remake in 2013. I spit in your general direction!

Books: List of My Zombie Book Reviews


Check out the links below for my Zombie book reviews posted up on the terror4fun site.  Just click on the titles of the books to go to each review:

Devil’s Plague

The Enemy

Hungry Hearts

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Tide of Souls

Unabridged, Unabashed and Undead

Words of their Roaring

Hope you enjoyed them all (as if you actually read them all...shut up!).  More will be posted, as they are put up on the terror4fun site.


Adios :o)

Films: Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine

Reviewer: Wally
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Released: 2011
Rating: 15
Popcorns: 3.5/5

 The film centres on a contemporary married couple, charting their evolution over a span of years by cross-cutting between time periods.

I can't really say that I enjoyed this film, as it was pretty hard to watch and sad to be witnessing the breakdown of a marriage, especially since I've just got hitched myself.  What I can say, is that it was pretty effective and a great piece of drama.

I loved the way Cianfrance mixed up the narrative and some of the scenes at the beginning of their relationship are very charming and heart warming.  I think this all adds to the fact that you find yourself egging them on to try and sort things out.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both brilliant actors and they are very believable as a couple.  Both characters have their flaws, but it's hard to feel sympathetic towards Gosling's mentally abusive side throughout the later years of their marriage, until the final few scenes when he has a bit of a break down and you can see that he doesn't want to be like that.  It's a very moving scene.

I probably won't watch this film again for a long time, but I would still recommend at least one viewing to everyone.  I'm interested to keep an eye on Derek Cianfrance, as this is only really his second real venture into feature films, mainly focussing his efforts on TV documentaries. 

A great, effective drama and really nicely shot movie!