Top 10: Lesser Known (but excellent) Zombie Movies

Flick Feast have put up my first Top 10 for the Halloween season:

Click here to read the full list...

Films: Soul Surfer

Soul Surfer
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Sean McNamara
Released: 23rd September 2011
Popcorns: 3/5

Lost in the Multiplex have put up my review of Soul Surfer...

Soul Surfer is the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a semi-pro surfer, on the verge of making it into the professional circuit. She gets close until disaster strikes - a shark takes a bite out of her and tears off her left arm. It’s a tale of overcoming the odds to prove that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

If you want to check out the rest of the review, click here.

Films: 30 Minutes or Less

30 Minutes or Less
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Released: 16th September 2011
Rating: 15
Popcorns: 2.5/5

Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else...

After watching the trailer about four times before I went to see 30 Minutes or Less, I was pretty pumped going in, expecting a lot of laughs and great acting. I got neither!

The movie focuses on two roommates, Eisenberg and Ansari, going through a tough time in their relationship and two self confessed “entrepreneurials”, played by Danny McBride and Nick Swardson, who are actually just idiots that listen to ICP and think up mad schemes to make a quick buck.

Their latest idea consists of kidnapping someone to rob a bank, to get $100,000 to hire a hitman to kill Dwayne’s father, who has about $1,000,000 left of his lottery winnings, which would then go to Dwayne.
The aforementioned kidnapee is Nick, a pizza delivery guy out for an easy life and in love with his best friend Chet’s sister. I’m really not giving anything away by saying that he gets a bomb strapped to him by Dwayne and Travis and is forced to rob a bank to help them on their way in their master plan.

As you can probably tell from my summary, the storyline is absolutely all over the place and this really does reflect in the script. The best lines have been given to Aziz Ansari, who seems to deliver them by just shouting at people when he’s supposed to be saying something funny. I’m not sure how this guy keeps getting cast in things?!
Another point that needs to be addressed is how on earth are these baffoons smart enough to make such a complex bomb vest? Surely if they added that to their CVs, they’d be able to get some sort of job in electronics, or even bomb defusal. They’re just not working to their strengths.

Danny McBride was pretty funny, as always and Jesse Eisenberg was his usual, subtly funny, self. He seems to have found his style and is sticking with it. No complaints from me, as I’m a fan of the Michael Cera ‘awkward’ acting.

The title 30 Minutes or Less only really comes into play for the first part of the film, which really has no effect on the storyline. The only thing it shows is that he’s a good/questionable driver.
This brings me onto the car chases, which were pretty immense and really well filmed. A lot of nice editing and great stunts made these the highlight of the film for me.
Another plus point is the music throughout the film. It has a brilliant soundtrack consisting of tracks from The Beastie Boys, The Hives and even a little Ol’ Dirty bastard thrown in there for good measure.

The marketing team has done a fantastic job and I’m sure there will be bums on seats for this one. The trailer certainly makes it out to be a lot funnier than it is, there’s a slick poster and with Eisenberg’s face and ‘From the Director of Zombieland’ scrawled on there, I’m pretty sure this will be a hit at the box office.

Ruben Fleischer, who directed Zombieland (funnily enough), which was one of my personal favourite films of 2009, has made a film this time around that won’t even touch my top 20 of 2011. Comparing it to Zombieland is a travesty, as it’s not even in the same ball park.

That said, my wife, sister in-law and best mate all seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, so maybe the film is perfectly fine and it’s just me being a grump. I guess you’ll just have to decide for yourself and fork out a nice crisp £10 note for the pleasure. You don’t get much film for your money either, at a measly 83mins long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

News: The Big Year/The Three Stooges

Thanks to the lovely people over at Lost in the Multiplex,  I now write some news pieces for them.
Check out my first couple by clicking on the links below:

The Big Year

The Three Stooges

(pic borrowed from comingsoon.net)

Films: Confetti

Confetti
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Debbie Isitt
Released: 2006
Rating: 15
Popcorns: 2.5/5

A mockumentary that follows three couples as they battle it out to win the coveted title of 'Most Original Wedding of the Year'.

I've been watching quite a few documentaries of late, so I decided I would break the trend and watch a fake one...also known as a 'mockumentary'.

Three couples are picked by Jimmy Carr to compete in Confetti magazine's competition to win a front cover spread with the magazine, featuring their wedding.

The couples are:

• Martin Freeman and Jessica Hynes, as Matt and Sam.  Their dream wedding consists of a huge musical number, with dancers and a huge wedding cake for them to share their first dance atop of.
• Stephen Mangan and Meredith Macneill, as Josef and Isabelle.  They are avid tennis fans, so base their wedding around this, with ball boys, a net and a bouquet of flowers around a tennis racket.
• Robert Webb and Olivia Colman, as Michael and Joanna.  They're the funniest couple of the lot and are naked most of the way through the film, due to being naturists.

My favourite characters of the whole film were the two gay wedding planners, played by Jason Watkins and Vincent Franklin.  It was quite refreshing seeing the comedic side of Watkins, as I've mostly seen him play quite serious roles previously.  They both do a great job of hamming up every scene they're in and there's quite a few touching moments between the two of them.

The best line of the film has to go to Josef, when he exclaims to his wife to be; "Please get it into your thick head, how much i respect you."

The film is full of amazing British comedy talent and I'm quite shocked that it's not more well known, as most people I've talked to about it have never heard of it.
It was a little bit over acted in parts, but I think it all added to mockumentary feel.
I'd watch it again if it was on the telly, but I wouldn't go out of my way to seek it out, if I was you.

It's certainly not the 'Funniest British comedy in years', as the DVD cover claims.

Films: Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Reviewer: Wally
Director: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Released: 23rd September 2011
Rating: 12a
Popcorns: 4.5/5

A father's life unravels while he deals with a marital crisis and tries to manage his relationship with his children.

Crazy, Stupid, Love was my 250th film watched this year, so far.  I'm very pleased to say that it was a great film to hit that landmark with and I really do urge everyone to go and see this at the cinema.

The story is told through three different love stories, but mainly focuses on the unlikely relationship struck up between Cal and Jacob; played by Carell and Gosling, respectively.
Cal and his wife, Emily (Moore), are going through a divorce, due to her sleeping with another man from her work, David Lindhagan.  The break up hits Cal pretty hard, so he spends his days and nights in a bar, drowning his sorrows with vodka & cranberry, or some other watered down spirit.
This is until he meets Jacob, a womaniser and all round hunk, who vows to help Cal change his life around and eventually win back Emily from the arms of the evil Kevin Bacon.

As you can imagine, hilarity ensues, watching Cal awkwardly try to chat up women in the bar, whilst boring them with tales of his break up and his kid's lives.
Whilst this is going on, elsewhere in the film, Cal's son Robbie has fallen madly in love with his babysitter.  The babysitter has fallen madly in love with Cal and Jacob has fallen madly in love with a girl he met at the bar, called Hannah.  Hannah's played by Emma Stone, who we like very much and she will play a key part in the film later on...which I shall not spoil right here.

It's all a huge mix up and conflict of interests from all of the characters that really make this film something special and the insanely hilarious scene near the end will have even the most hardened movie goer laughing in the aisles.  Even the cringe worthy moments were done so well, that it wasn't too over the top.
Stone and Gosling and Carell and Moore both made for convincing couples, with Bacon and Marisa Tomei thrown in there to shake up the latter's relationship.

Every actor is great in this movie and the chemistry between the whole cast really made it look like they had fun on set.  The only exception I would make to this was Kevin Bacon.  It seemed a bit of a waste of a wage to put such a high profile actor in a bit part and he didn't really add much Bacon-ness to it.

Every man that sees this film will want to be Ryan Gosling and every woman will want to be with him.  I'm pretty sure most of the men will want to be with him too, as I've heard of many a man crush developing for this fine actor.  He's funny, handsome and charming and is the best thing about this film.

I've never seen anything by the directors, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa before, but they seem to be quite a capable duo.  I will most definitely be checking out 'I Love You Phillip Morris' after seeing this.

This is the kind of film I wouldn't have normally seen at the cinema, but it looks like it may well be the surprise comedy hit of the Summer (okay, it's nearly Autumn now).  Save money on Friends With Benefits and see this instead when it comes out on 23/09/11.

Films: Friends With Benefits

Friends With Benefits
Reviewer: J. Leigh
Director: Will Gluck
Released: 9th September 2011
Rating: 15
Popcorns: 3/5

While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan and Jamie soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complications.

If you are thinking of going to see a romantic comedy this summer...don't go see this!!! No, really...
With promises of "rom-com of 2011", this movie was sorely disappointing.  Big names, like Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake really didn't turn the tide with this outing.

The premise of the movie starts with the main characters, Dylan (Timberlake) and Jamie (Kunis), both in quite a rush to get to their respective partners.  Dylan, a workaholic art and graphic designer and Jamie, a Headhunter (in business; not as in assassin killer), are given the rough end of the stick and dumped by cameo parts Emma Stone and Adam Samberg.  Jamie spots the talents of Dylan through his work and offers him a job with the high flying magazine, GQ.  With a very flirty attitude and rich New York culture she manages to convince Dylan to take the job.  This had nothing to do at all with her taking him up to the top of a high rise building and showing him her special place...Not that special place you sick puppies!!

As Dylan has moved from LA to New York, Jamie helps him find a place to stay and they form quite the friendship.  One night, after a few beers, they get onto the discussion of relationships and how they pose so many issues from the opposite sex and get on the topic of sex with no strings attached; 'Tennis' as Dylan puts it euphemistcally.  Both of them agree that they will be FWBs, with no emotions, no attachments, just purely SEX.  Anyone else see where this is going??
Emotional conflict ensues and the characters fall for each other in the typical hollywood movie style.
A good cameo from Woody Harrelson, as a gay sports correspondent, still wasn't quite enough to make it a great film?!

The plot was pretty thin on the ground and coming off the back of oscar winning roles in Social Network and Black Swan respectively; apart from a few good giggles this film didn't quite pull the same punches as Crazy, Stupid, Love. (OMG how fit is Ryan Gosling???)

I would give this movie a 3/5 popcorns only for the crush I have on both the main parts otherwise 2/5

Smurf Out!! (",)