Tag: movie

Daniel Radcliffe Is The Only Stiff Thing About Swiss Army Man

On By outofdavesheadIn film review, Humour, Uncategorized1 Comment

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What if I were to tell you that the most heartwarming, life affirming movie of the year involves the farting corpse of Harry Potter showing Paul Dano the meaning of friendship and love? I should mention that it also verges on being a musical.

If that seems unlikely, then the opening of the film, written and directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, will do little to persuade you. Dano, marooned and hysterically lonely on a tiny desert island, is attempting to commit suicide before being saved by the appearance of Daniel Radcliffe’s flatulent corpse washing up on the beach.

What follows next is a journey, both geographically (although that might be part of a grander delusion) and emotionally, of these two lost souls, who gradually connect with each other and, in that bond, reconnect with the world they left behind.

Dano is charming, desperate and possibly off his rocker, but he makes being delusional seem like a highly likable trait (for most of the running time, at least), while Radcliffe further proves his post-Potter career as being of increasing interest. His corpse is, paradoxically, full of life, showing constant curiosity at the strange new/old world that’s trying to come back into focus around him. Despite the constant farting, he is as likable as his co-star, and their utterly charming relationship is a joy to behold even as it flirts with homo-erotic necrophilia. How many films can you say that about!?

It’s all as strange as it sounds, but the quirkiness is held together by a strong emotional core, never quite tipping over into careless whimsy (though a large chunk of the final act veers dangerously close). This is a film full of beautiful and fragile moments, while at the same being chock full of farts and erections. It’s a bold and beguiling mix and the music score and songs, by Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull and Robert McDowell are magnificently uplifting, adding yet another wondrous layer to this strange confection.

If you’re not put off by the bizarre description you’re likely to be rewarded with a disarming buddy movie quite unlike any other, one that will make you laugh out loud and tug at your heartstrings. It will linger in your mind long after the final hilarious sequence which somehow manages to turn flatulence into something quite emotional.

And if all that doesn’t convince you, where else can you spend so much time focusing on a dead Harry Potter’s rampant erection!? Trust me, there’s nothing stiff about this film (apart from Daniel Radcliffe).

No Bullshit, The Greasy Strangler Is Warped But Brilliant!

On By outofdavesheadIn film review, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Big Ronnie is a grinning grotesquerie who wanders around in a series of bizarre outfits, frequently with his nasty-looking penis dangling halfway to his knees. When he isn’t dragging his poor emotionally stunted, needy son, Big Brayden, around to present a tourist trap disco tour of derelict locations, Ronnie covers himself in layers of thick grease and violently murders anyone who crosses him. Or even poor, hapless souls who don’t cross him. Ronnie is not exactly picky when it comes to strangulation.

Underneath the unwashed y-fronts, (literally) in your face fart gags and dangling penises there beats a curiously affecting, albeit diseased, heart. The murder plot eventually gives way to the story of a father and son finding each other after years of emotional abuse, before tailing off into a deep end of… well, actually, I’m not sure exactly what happens at the end. There might be a point to it all, but I’m not sure it actually matters if there isn’t. At the very least you’re sure to come away from a viewing wanting to sing and dance to the line “Hootie Tootie, Disco Cutie!” As cinematic gifts go, that’s pretty decent.

There’s nothing remotely real-world about Jim Hoskings’ film, and yet it’s not difficult to imagine these characters existing on the fringe of society, too out there even to be featured on reality TV shows and living on the same block as Pink Flamingos’ Egg Man and Connie & Raymond Marbles, or even Blue Velvet’s Frank Booth in a lighter mood.

Imagine a film that has some of the oddball feel of a Napoleon Dynamite sequel as made by John Waters, featuring a synth-driven electro pop score, with lashings of sex, gore and greasy murders, and you’ll get a good feel for what you’re letting yourself in for. There are moments of such out and out goofiness (Ronnie’s spotlit, street disco solo – all wild hair, gangly legs and dangly cock – being a prime example) that you can’t help but warm to the strangeness being thrust in your face.

The three leads (Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo) give fearlessly physical, genuinely off-kilter performances, putting Jared Leto’s pissant Suicide Squad Joker to shame with what they dare to do for the camera, and still manage to make their characters just a little more than cartoons, giving their three way love triangle more heart than the constant anal fingering might suggest. But don’t worry if you think it’s all going to get too touchy-feely… there’ll soon be a phone sex scene of junior furiously fiddling with his infintesimal cock while mouthing sweet nothings to his amore, such as “Imagine me stroking your clitoris with a pink feather and then you cradle my sack.” This might be the film that the acronym WTF was made for.

The Greasy Strangler is, as they say, not a film for everyone. But it is one of the more bizarre and frequently laugh out loud funny films I’ve seen in a long time. It also has the best and most disgusting prosthetic movie wang since Mark Wahlberg’s Boogie Nights dazzler. So you know you’re getting bang for your buck.

Independence Day: Resurgence – bad, but not bad.

On By outofdavesheadIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Let’s get this straight from the start: the very, very belated sequel to Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich’s 1996 blockbuster is utterly predictable, suffers from a mostly leaden script, is occasionally silly, and is definitely not too smart. It is what many would term a ‘bad’ film.

However, for all that, I’m going to defend it for sneaking in a lot of intriguing ideas, and for the fact that not once during its 120 minute running time did I feel bored or was I overwhelmed by Michael Bay/Transformers-style “too many E numbers” compositions or editing. In short, was I not entertained? Well, yes, I was.

The plot itself can be written on the back of a (small) popcorn box – it’s twenty years later, the aliens return in a bigger ship, a bunch of stuff happens, things look bad for mankind and (SPOILER ALERT) we kick their slimy asses.

This all runs pretty much as expected (in fact, exactly as expected). Most of the surviving characters from ID4 crop up and run through their shtick, with the huge exception of Will Smith, who obviously felt this wasn’t going to be his much needed return to blockbusterville. The lack of Smith gives us more time to spend with Jeff Goldblum, and this should always be considered a benefit.

Now, snuck into all this predictable guff are some highly admirable concepts and character arcs, and this is where things get interesting. The world that ID:R posits is that the two decades since the first invasion have seen mankind put aside its petty international squabbling and come together as a unified planet (and boy, as someone from the UK, does that hit home right now), it also expands on the background of the aliens interestingly.

Many of the supporting characters are also shown to be normal people doing good and heroic things in terrible circumstances (above and beyond the super heroics of the chiseled leads): there’s a rather nice arc where Judd Hirsch’s character is saved by some orphaned children and then, later in the narrative, he stops his flight to find his son to save another group of stranded children. It’s a nicely understated piece of karmic business that wouldn’t hope to exist in many modern blockbusters. There’s also a subtle but definite gay relationship gifted to one of the returning characters, it’s a nice addition handled in a nice way.

These positive views of the human race and their heroic acts and ideas shine quite brightly through the otherwise by-the-numbers story and frequently risible, exposition heavy dialogue, and when added to always clear film making (definitely something of a rarity these days), plus some genuinely cool sequences (the climax, involving the alien queen and a whirling fleet of alien ships, while dumb as a box of frogs, is undeniably visually exciting) it shows that Independence Day: Resurgence is far from the complete disaster many reviews have suggested.

For a bad movie it sure has a lot of good qualities.