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Forbidden Ground is a very interesting film about three British Soldiers trapped in no-mans land during World War I. Starring and directed by Johan Earl (indeed watching the credits its apparent he did everything except make the tea) with a cast of little known actors giving very good performances.

The film tended to veer more towards the action of the piece, rather than the futility we are used to seeing in films about the futile World War I conflict. There was certainly enough mud and dismemberment to hint at these things but little development was gone into on this theme.

Running alongside the main story we find out that one of the soldiers wives has been a bit naughty while he is away and is busily shopping around trying to get an illegal abortion. I guess I can sort of see that this was an attempt to show that the war affected everyone in bad ways, but I frankly found it a bit annoying alongside the heroic battlefield story they were trying to tell. The final twist is interesting of course, I won’t spoil it for you.

 

A fairly standard cops and robbers piece with Dolph Lundgren actually giving a pretty good performance. Also unlike too many of his films we are not “treated” to 20 minute fight scenes where suddenly everyone in the melee becomes an Olympic standard martial arts expert.

Instead Lundgren’s trademark fighting is kept to a minimum and the film concentrates on an actual story with characters. Without trying to say it is anywhere near as good, I can see a lot of Casino in the film stylistically and that’s hardly a bad thing.

Perhaps a tad violent at times and a few deaths that resulted in a remarkable lack of any discernible bleeding, but all in all if you enjoy the genre you will enjoy Ambushed.

Recipe: Take the original invasion of the body snatchers from the fifties, add the remake from the eighties, maybe even the Hidden from the late eighties a couple of bad remakes like the Invasion with Nicole Kidman, a couple of seasons of Stargate SG1 and a famous American author of twilight who no-one has the courage to say “by the way you’ve stolen every idea in your novel” too; and there you have The Host.

Don’t get me wrong The Host is not such a bad movie, actually I enjoyed it, but the fact that Stephenie Meyer got accolades for writing it instead of multiple law-suits is simply just appalling.  Yes I know she wrote the Twilight series (not very original either, ever heard of a film called the Lost Boys Stephenie?) but this doesn’t excuse completely misplaced pats on the back.

It kind of asks the question: is there any originality left in the United states? If you liked all of the films I have mentioned you will probably enjoy this one, even if it does steer a bit towards soppy teen romance at times. A very good performance from Irish/American actress Saoirse Ronan who many would remember from her rather chilling role in Hanna missing everyone’s heart..

You might wonder why my response to a film I admit enjoying is somewhat critical when its just a question of who wrote the thing, but the precise problem is that no one seems to be mentioning where the story was ripped from. What got my heckles up here was Meyer produced the film herself and not once mentioned the other classic films she borrowed from. Instead in her interviews we are treated to a George Lucas style lets-talk-about-me-and-how-talented-I-am as if she had just published Gone With the Wind.

This was a very offbeat film from Seth Rogan, featuring an all-star cast of Hollywood greats playing themselves. With lots of cameo’s from people like Rihanna (obviously trying to build on her film career after running from explosions like a runway model in Battleship) and James Franco, Jonah Hill, Emma Watson.

Every actor made hopeless fun of their Hollywood persona’s I think using it as an opportunity to have a snap back at the paparazzi and their constant rumor-mongering.

Without giving too much away the film is about the end of the world and a house full of dysfunctional guys trying to cope with it. There are some really funny moments in this flick, although I don’t think it was quite as hilarious as it could have been.

Apparently based on a short film Seth and his mates all made in a drunken blaze, I think a lot of the jokes are in-jokes and were probably a lot funnier at the time. Unfortunately unlike THX-1138 this was not a film that turned out better from a short film to a major motion picture! Still well worth watching for a few belly laughs.

 

 

 

In my experience Australian films are either very good or extremely bad. This film fell towards the later category.

Careless Love was all in all a bad remake of the french television film Student Services with a quasi-feminist diatribe thrown in your face throughout. Evidence I suppose that Australia still only has soap-opera script writers who can’t change their approach when writing films.

The film drew heavily on the tragic legacy of Jane Champion: the only good men are father-figures every other man is an evil-in-some-way-complete-bastard. Of course in fairness it is hard to find too many redeeming men in a film about Asian prostitutes being exploited and maybe redeeming men would have been inconsistent with the sordid little world they were trying to paint.

The film lacked all the emotion and psychology of the original and its sex scenes were quite unbelievable due to the contrived feminist discourse in play (but then you only have to watch Underbelly to see the same problem). In its sordidness the sex scenes in the original film found a beauty and some artistic interplay, Careless Love was far too busy applying middle class feminist values to what is commonplace in Vietnam today and Vietmanese culture, to try and be artistic or ask questions about sexuality in such a situation. The central character represented as a hardcore working prostitute throughout, a far cry from the French film in which the central character is an awkward, wary amateur forced as a last resort by circumstances.

Student Services left the viewer feeling nothing but sadness for the central character and even somewhat for her protagonists, Careless Love left me feeling completely indifferent toward pretty much all of the characters.

If like me you are a big fan of Asian horror ghost stories this is one for you. The film is not Asian, but American and to an extent independent.

I say it is Asian-Horror-like because it is made in much the same style as films like Ringu or other greats with sudden twists, shakes and violet scares. It might be a bit of a stretch to compare it to Ringu as I guess most films tend to borrow from everything good that has gone before it but I could see elements in there.

The only thing I probably didn’t like about the film was the ghost getting around in a sheet at times (spoiler alert) which bordered on comedic. One is also left with the feeling the young couple sort of deserved what they got after carelessly inviting harm on themselves at the films beginning.

Still all in all a great ghost flick with lots of seat-leaping screams.

From the beginning I was tending to think R.I.P.D. was a bit of a remake of the Men in Black franchise with a slight twist to stave off the law suits.. Well yes there were some definite similarities (except of course Men in Black was about aliens, R.I.P.D. is about ghosts), but more than anything it reminded me of the Ghost busters films.

R.I.P.D. was essentially a religious comedy assuming your agreement with American Jesus fervour in the spirit of so many films of the fifties. Once you get over this (if like me you tend to switch off when it pops up in films..) it was a quite entertaining film with 5/10 cgi effects.

Without wanting to give the whole film away, a cop dies goes to heaven and gets the option to return as part of the R.I.P.D. to police the ghosts of dead people who refuse to leave the earth after they die.

The twists and turns kept you guessing until the end. Not one I’d watch again or put in the top 50 movies but some mild entertainment to kill a few hours.

As a visual fan of Amanda Seyfried as I am sure are many, many red blooded male film goers I watched this movie with few expectations other than the above.

I was delightfully surprised by a very enjoyable film about finding lost love after many years. You could sort of pick the plot as it went along and there were some distinctly fairy-tale elements at work, much in the style of Hollywood Musicals of years gone by.

If like me you believe that films should not always be about super serious, reality, but rather make you feel a bit better than your own miserable life, this is the film for you. After having just seen Seyfried in Lovelace this was a very different film, but then I remember her almost on key singing from Mama Mia which had a lot of the same sparkly glazed view of love.

Of course if you are a woman, you will absolutely adore this film and rave about it to your friends for days afterwards…Guys watch it with your girlfriend and she will love you for it and its ok if you enjoy it a bit too (the film I mean..).

After a massive media build up I was looking forward to finally seeing World War Z. If I was to summarize the film in a few words I’d say it was an average Zombie Flick with some interesting ideas.

Brad Pitt just didn’t seem to suit the role very well and the family scenes that dominate the earlier part of the film were frankly fairly unconvincing. Unless of course this is how American families really are, in which case I was kinda glad when the Zombies started chasing them…

The middle of the film broke some new and interesting ground in the Zombie genre and its quite a shame that the film had a poor beginning (and ending as it turned out), almost like two different people wrote those sections of the script.

Frankly if you want to watch this film I would suggest you get the DVD of the 2002 film 28 days later (or even its not as good American money 2007 sequel 28 Weeks later..) and enjoy a good Zombie flick.