No.48 : The Wolfman (2010)

The Wolfman at the IMDb

The classic 1940s Universal horror movie gets a modern makeover in this faithful and enjoyable remake.

We open with the familiar sight of a man stumbling through a smoky forest at night. The credits have still to roll so we know it isn’t looking good. Our wolfy hero does a bit of quick slashing and soon we’re in London watching a ropey actor playing an even ropier actor. After the show the actor thinks the groupies have arrived but sadly no, it’s the fiancée of the forest guy who’s our man’s brother and she worried about his going missing.

Although dismissive at first he’s soon compelled by the script to head home to the gothic family pile. On the way he’s given a wolf head cane by Max Von Sydow in a scene that looks more important than it later turns out to be. At the crumbling family home our actor hero (Benicio Del Toro) meets his family’s imaginatively named Indian servant , Singh, and his gun totting Pop Anthony Hopkins. The search for his brother proves a short one as he’s already turned up in a ditch.

Our man decides to hang around and do some sleuthing. He tries out the gypsy camp as there are stories that their dancing bear is the culprit but after consulting with the wise woman and seeing a fragging great wolf eat about 20 people he decides that the legends are true after all. He gets further evidence when he gets chomped too.

As you’d expect he’s soon banging on about feeling fitter and stronger and everyone is most impressed when the wound heals in a couple of days - no MRSA to worry about then. Of course he has the wolf curse flowing through his veins and on the next full moon (which seem to occur at least twice a week) he takes several bites out of the local community. These guys are on the ball however and soon with the help of Jack the Ripper sleuth Abberline (Agent Smith off ‘The Matrix’) he’s captured and shipped off to a London loony bin. Here he’s in the care of a nut job who looks like David Gest who thinks the best curse is to sit him in front of a full moon in front of a large audience - HUGE mistake.

After an extended bite fest through the streets of ye Olde London our man heads back to the family home to try and end the curse once and for all. Can the identity of the main wolf been ascertained - surely it’s not going to be the obvious candidate Tony Hopkins? Might be!

At two hours this film is a bit long for the plot it covers. That said it was enjoyable and the kill rate kept my interest up. The casting of Del Toro seemed a bit strange given that he was meant to be an English society man but that was explained away by his gypsy mother. They don’t manage to explain why he looks nothing like his dad, Tony Hopkins or why he talks like a Mexican doing an English accent but that’s the olden days for you.

Del Toro is good in the lead and seemed to invest a lot in some of the nastier killing and torture scenes. Less good was the normally reliable Hopkins who seemed off his game somewhat umming and ahhing through several lines.

Obviously a wolf man picture hangs on its special effects and the ones employed here were largely good. There was quite a bit of overt CGI but the transformations, killings and evocations of Olde London were all well done. I liked that the film was more or less a straight remake and although that defuses many of the surprises there were a few turns that kept me interested. The Abberline character although largely ineffectual was a good add and it was nice to see a few Victorian cases, real and imagined being married together.

The whole production reeked of class with the grotty Victorian streets and the visceral murders all excellently realised. There may not have been too much to worry the academy but for a remake of a classic horror movie this had a lot to like.

THE Tag Line - Full Moon - Full (ish) Marks 75%

No.47 : The Champ (1979)

The Champ at the IMDb

A real old sob fest next in the shape of ‘The Champ’ a remake of the family struggle boxing drama.

Jon Voight plays the titular pugilist who works as a horse trainer seven years after he last fought in a losing title fight. He has a cutesy pie son , TJ, and a passion for booze and gambling. An early chance at a comeback is lost when he decides to go drumming and boozing in what later turns out to be one of his better decisions.

Sad at letting his son down he makes amends by stealing his boy’s $20 savings and by heading off to the craps table. As Hollywood would have it he transforms the $20 into $6400 and gives his long suffering offspring a horse as a share of the winnings. The horse, as you’d expect, is a cracker and soon it’s running in a class one race. The young lad shows off his potty mouth and attracts the attention of society lady Faye Dunaway who turns out to be the lad’s mother.

The Champ is less than impressed at the mother being back on the scene seeing as she walked out on him and the boy years ago. She must be good in the sack or something because she now lives on a luxury yacht with a doctor and wants the boy back in her life. Keen to show he’s still an able father The Champ goes out and gets pissed and loses the boy’s horse in a card game. When the gamblers show up to collect The Champ shows off his punching skills but ends up in the pokey for his troubles.

He realises that the Mother ain’t so bad and tries to get the boy to go and stay with her. Unbelievably the boy gives up life on the ocean waves for The Champ’s hotel room and sozzled socker realises that the only way he can show the boy any kind of life is to get back in the ring, despite his ringing headaches (remember that!). After your typical boxing film training montage the big fight is set. TJ is ring side and the ex-wife takes on the Talia Shire role in the stand. Can The Champ regain his former glories? Or will his hard living catch up with him?

I was quite surprised by the gritty edges of ‘The Champ’. Yeah it’s sentimental and schmaltzy but the scenes of parental neglect were pretty full on. The Miami social services clearly got their training off Haringey Council as this was a care case if ever there was one. Voight was good value as the pished up puncher, complete with wide collared shirts and vacant looks.

The longed for happy ending is continually dashed with the horse falling over the least of the troubles for the blue eyed seven year old, who manages to idolise The Champ despite all the evidence staring him in the face. Faye Dunnaway is less good as the estranged Mother whose motivations aren’t really touched on. I think at the end we’re meant to like her but the feeling I was left with was that she’d managed to hook a rich hubby and thought she’s grab the boy for her entertainment.

The film is a bit long for what the plot contains, with the two hour running time at least five rounds too long. There is only one fight in the film but it’s well handled with some real brutality layed on for the baying crowd and crying child.

I’m not sure what conclusion we were meant to reach here but it wasn’t redemption from my angle - something like bad bitches come out smelling of roses would probably cover it. With the suspect ending the whole thing is a bit unsatisfying but as a whole the film is well played and mostly entertaining.

THE Tag Line : Ring Rusty Champ Wins On Points 64%

No.46 : The Accused (1988)

The Accused at the IMDb

I’m not a big fan of court room films, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ notwithstanding. Like many sports films and any old ‘triumph against adversity’ gubbins the end is a foregone conclusion. There has been a slight renaissance with some sports movies like ‘Coach Carter’ and the ‘Bad News Bears’ remake where the big twist was that they lost but they also ‘win’ - but court room films don’t have that option. Either the bad guy gets banged up or he walks - no middle ground. Unless he walks and gets shot on the way out the court or he gets off on appeal off camera.

Yeah I know you’ve got the ‘Mockingbird’ defence and while that was a great film and the good guy lost at least it taught us innocent kids a bit about the realities of life.

Anyway ‘The Accused’ is a decent enough court room drama that is helped by only the last few minutes taking place in a court room. You still get the emotive speeches and pleas to the jury but at least you get a little bit of investigation along the way. Jodie Foster plays a trailer trash waitress, Sarah, who gets gang raped by three men on a pinball table while some jeering louts and a sensitive video game player look on.

After a pretty blow by blow account of the hospital forensic tests the three rapists get fingered and are put on trial. Fearing that her main witness was drunk and a bit slutty the DA, played by the woman out of ‘Top Gun’, plea bargains the rape charge down to reckless endangerment, much to the disgust of her client. Feeling a bit guilty herself Top Gun woman goes after the jeering mob in a hope of atoning for doing her job.

After a lucky break on the Pac-Man machine she traces the sensitive video games player who agrees to testify despite the pressure of his rapist friends. The trial is set and the lawyers have their show stopper speeches ready. Will the fragile waitress get the justice she craves or will the baying mob of louts walk free? It’s the first one!

I quite enjoyed ‘The Accused’ despite its obvious agenda and total lack of strong believable male characters. There’s no doubt that the case as presented was horrendous and brutal but the men were all such stereotype red necks and frat boys that it made the whole thing seem unbelievable. I’m pretty sure in the real case, on which the film was based, the drunken mob didn’t come up with catchy chants.

Foster was great as Sarah and really pulled off the tough and sexy yet fragile and vulnerable waitress. She rightly got an Oscar for her performance which must have been harrowing given the violent and humiliating subject matter. Top Gun woman was less good as the hard as nails, but has now learned a valuable lesson, DA.

I like the way the film showed various viewpoints of the unseen events before we saw the actual crime in the last half hour. I don’t know if this was a late addition as lots of the court room testimony later referred to was missing. It certainly made the film more real and had a lot more impact than another 30 minutes of court room drama.

The best scene for me was Sarah shopping for tapes when she encounters the most loathsome man you’ll ever see. Think of a male version of the landlady out of ‘Kingpin’ - certainly one worth losing your no claims bonus over.

This is the kind of film you can’t really enjoy. The grim subject matter and the foregoing conclusion rob it of any real thrill or drama and the scenes at the end where they’re all having a good laugh at the outcome don’t sit right. A worthy film definitely, but a watchable one? The jury’s out.

THE Tag Line : Accused of Being Grim & Predictable 62 %

No.45 : The Order (2003)

The Order at the IMDb

I was about 20 minutes into ‘The Order’ when I started getting a sense of déjà vu. I consulted by trusty records and found that I had seen it before on 17/09/2003 under the title ‘The Sin Eater’, which is a better and more accurate name but one word too many for our purposes. So ‘The Order’ it is! I see I saw it on a double bill with ‘The Hard Word’ and I don’t remember anything about that either - I blame the amnesia drugs they put in the pick ‘n mix.

‘The Order’ opens poorly with Heath Ledger as a priest spouting some pretentious mumbo jumbo. You quickly realise that this is going to be one of those ‘here’s the end let’s show you how we get here’ kind of films. That’s ok if the ending is a sexy and spectacular explosion filled thrill fest - not so good when it’s a priest telling you his burdens.

We quickly meet an old priest in Rome who gets a visitor of the deadly kind. Heath is a special kind of detective priest and is sent to Rome by Robo-Cop to see what’s happening. He enlists the help of a dodgily accented Irish priest played by the fat bloke off the Tesco ads. The detective work takes five minutes but there is a pretty cool scene where they go to this underground lair of some baddie priests (is there any other kind?) and they get some leads off a bloke getting hung.

The clues lead them to ‘The Other’ a rich looking German bloke who acts as a sin eater - a kind of ‘get out of jail free card’ for the guilty. On their death beds he says a few words, eats some bread from their chests and after engorging on some poor CGI he takes on their sins leaving the damned a free pass to the after life. This seems like a decent deal for all concerned, but the church isn’t happy with someone muscling in on their racket.

Heath suffers a crisis of faith after some shagging and is defrocked quicker than the lady. With the sin eater getting tired and Heath out of a job it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what’s the next thing being added to the pumping priest's CV.

I’m not a great fan of religious films but I did find a few things to like in ‘The Order’. The other world, unseen by the general public is a well worn theme with films like ‘Interview With the Vampire’ doing it better but I still liked the demonic kids and the hooded secret society. The leads were all pretty good with Robo-Cop, Peter Weller, on fine form as the next pope in line. Heath was OK but a bit too earnest and moody in a role that must have been a hard sell. At least they stuck in a sex scene which must have been a big ask given the subject matter.

Less good was his relationship with the girlfriend who seemed a lot of hard work and certainly not worth giving up a lifetime’s vocation for. Tesco man was ok in a thin role and I did like home getting lured into a cellar by some sins from his past, none of which involved choirboys. He gave good support throughout, just like his neck which must be made of iron.

The special effects were lousy with the accumulated sins of a lifetime being a pile of CGI tentacles and the ‘twist’ at the end was obvious from the off.

I enjoyed the film more than I felt I would and there was enough originality and thought provoking stuff to help you overlook its many flaws. Not great but not something you’d have cringe to confess to liking either.

THE Tag Line : Father Bed in Good Order 67%

No.44 : The Crazies 1973 & 2010

The Crazies (1973) at the IMDb
The Crazies (2010) at the IMDb

Well here’s a treat for our loyal readership, yes both of you, it’s a double bill of all things ‘The Crazies’. Don’t expect this kind of double barrelled excitement on a regular basis although a three letter definitive double of ‘The Fly’ & ‘The Fog’ could just happen. Although probably not.

I had never heard of ‘The Crazies’ franchise until I recently saw a TV ad for the new version. This consisted of a load of screaming people and then an earnest voiceover announce ‘THE CRAZIES’ - "I wonder what that’s about" I sarcastically said to the long suffering wife. Rubbish looking or not I thought I’d have a look for this quest and was pleasantly surprised. I then found it was a remake of a 1973 George Romero film and I was unpleasantly disappointed. Still one out of two ain’t bad as a downsized Meatloaf might say.

Both films, as you’d expect, have basically the same premise : the military tries to contain the outbreak of a virus that makes people crazy and homicidal. We follow the lead through his attempts to avoid capture before a downbeat ending. There are differences along the way but the essence is the same with the values and talent being the deciding factor between the relative success and failure of the two films.

The original sees a fireman and his nurse girlfriend getting it on. He’s a bit scared to have some loving as she’s pregnant and he’s worried about getting his cock bitten by the baby. She dances around in the buff for a while in one of the film’s few highlights before he’s called to a big fire. A man has gone crazy and has killed his wife, toasted his kids and burnt his house down. Meanwhile the preggers nurse has been called into work to find loads of guys in haz-mat suits barking orders and acting badly.

We soon learn that a military plane went down in the nearby hills and its bio-weapon has escaped. As the population start to exhibit signs of the virus all hands get to work finding a cure while the president’s finger hovers over the ‘nuke’ button. The local population, who seem very red neck, take up arms against the military and shoot up plenty, spoiling their nice white suits. Will our heroes survive and can the virus be contained?



Meanwhile in 2010 the sheriff out of ‘Deadwood’ has been cunningly recast as a sheriff in a small town. He’s got a doctor wife who’s pregnant - eat that 70’s fireman - and a bit of a problem at the baseball field. A local man has gone crazy, well he’s more sleepwalking, and the sheriff has to shoot him down in the middle of the game - one foul ball too many methinks.

He’s a bit upset but more so when other people start acting mental and filling up his jail. He does some digging and soon finds a massive underwater plane and a dead ejected pilot and realises that bio-weapon transport has not improved one inch in 27 years. He figures the water is tainted with the toxin and the trail of crazy people follows the water’s path into town. With this information in hand he tries to shut down the water but is stopped by the mayor and then the military who shove everyone into the high school and strap them to beds.

Before long it kicks off big style with crazies, the military and local vigilantes all shooting the place up. With no regard for quarantine our man heads out of town with his flaky deputy and foxy wife with a slight niggle that the craziness may be in one of them already.

This is a rare occasion where the remake totally trumps the original. The idea is a good one but in the original the ‘crazy’ aspect is hardly seen in favour of lots of middle aged men shouting a lot and looking at test tubes to a soundtrack of annoying military drummimg. In the remake the cure isn’t touched on with containment being the military’s focus. The sequel also does a good job in keeping you unnerved as to who is crazy and who is just having a really bad day.

Both films didn’t really sell the motivation of the main character too well. I may be a soft touch but if I were a sheriff told by the army that there was a lethal virus about I wouldn’t be trying to get out of town. Both films also have a high kill rate with the former probably having the most. Virtually all of these were gun shots though and it seems like the local marksmen have a good chance at the Olympics. The newer film has a lot of inventive gore and a couple of scenes where the jeopardy was really well handled to the point I couldn’t see a way out.

The first film clearly suffered from a lack of budget with amateur actors delivering some horrendously crappy dialogue. The second is a no expense spared high tech extravaganza with a lot of similarities to the ‘Resident Evil’ films with the on screen text and satellite shots all present and correct.

You aficionados out there may scream that the remake is a triumph of style over substance but when you are dealing with a crazy person plague I’ll take all the style going.

THE Tag Line : Modern Master Triumphs Over 70’s Shite

1973 - 53% 2010 - 74%

No.43 : The Losers (2010)

The Losers at the IMDb

This ‘men on a mission’ thriller isn’t anything ground breaking or original but it has a lot of laughs and action which I imagine is pretty much what it sets out to do.

The plot is the familiar ‘fish out of water’ scenario which sees our five man CIA black ops unit go on the run when a mission goes awry. Their mission, to take out a drug lord, goes ahead despite the baddy’s compound being full of kids - just like in ‘Clear and Present Danger’. Our men can’t let a big missile blow up the kids (and the bad guys) so they decide to steam in and save the brats in what seemed a bit of an unlikely decision for a bunch of hard assed mercenaries. Still we need to know they are the good guys early on, so fair enough.

They manage to get the kids out but are targets for death themselves and only survive due to them giving up their ride for the soon to be angelic infants. Now off the radar our guys set out and a revenge mission of their own against the mysterious Max who is keen for a big war to start so he can deal weapons and seize power. With our men without money and arms they are stuck in Bolivia until a sexy babe offers them a deal to get back to the USA, in return for offing Max Headcase.

Our team are soon back in the arms of Uncle Sam and set up some elaborate plans to track down and take out the bad guys. Of course there are bumps in the road in the shape of a traitor in the gang and some hidden agendas but essentially it’s just a big man hunt with a sequel looming large at the end.

The plot summary there may make this sound a pretty simplistic film and that’s because it is. The plot goes from A to B to C with no real deviations. It’s kind of like an A*Team set up with our guys on the run and trying to clear their names while righting some wrongs.

I enjoyed the film throughout and I was glad to see it’s comic book origins weren’t hidden like a dirty secret. A few times the characters dissolve into their cartoon equivalents and the cracking opening credits had Jock infused panels all over the place.

The characters were all spot on and it was good to see a few familiar faces bring the strip to life. Of the main five you have Stringer Bell, Johnny Storm and The Comedian with a couple of decent turns making up the numbers. I particularly liked the hat fetishised sniper who, like every movie sniper in history, never misses a shot. Also good was Zoe Saldana who spent most of the film in her bra and acting mysterious and the always reliable (apart from all the time) Jason Patric as Max, whom I bet was written as enigmatic but just came across as a tit.

The action scenes were all well done with the armoured car hijack and money plane show down both great sequences. I also liked Johnny Storm picking off the guards with his lethal fingers in one of several funny set pieces that set the film above many of its contemporaries.

Over all the film is largely mindless and forgettable, but for the 90 minutes you are watching it you’ll have a few laughs, some sexy action and plenty of explosions - sound like a good deal to me.

THE Tag Line : Losers : A Winner! 69%

No.42 : The Jerk (1979)

The Jerk at the IMDb

‘The Jerk’ is probably Steve Martin’s best film along with ‘The Man With Two Brains’ - “They aren’t assholes, it’s pronounced azaleas”. People will tell you that ‘Three Amigos!’ is good and the sentimental among you will always pipe up for ‘Trains Planes and Automobiles’ but to my mind Martin’s career has been on a more or less downward trajectory since the Navin R. Johnson bio-pic.

The film from 1979 sees Martin play what became his trademark wacky and a bit dumb character. His later attempts at straight acting in stuff like ‘Shop Girl’ serve only to remind you how he’s so much better when wandering around with a chair with his trousers at his ankles.

‘The Jerk’ ,which is a pretty poor title by the way but I imagine Dostoevsky had copyrighted ‘The Idiot’, sees a young white boy grow up with a dirt poor family in Mississippi. We aren’t told how he got there but as he nears maturity he begins to realise that he doesn’t quite fit in. After getting advice of variable worth from his family he sets out into the world to find his destiny.

He soon finds work and lodgings at Jackie Mason’s gas station but has to run away with the carnival when he attracts the attention of a gun toting loony who happens across Navin’s phone book entry. At the carnival he finds employment as a weight guesser and as the latest squeeze of the motorcycle stunt lady. She shows him his ’special purpose’ and soon his name is on her ass “right under the N’s’ . The tawdry relationship soon falls by the wayside when he meets the sexy Bernadette Peters who despite loving him leaves for a better life.

Distraught at his loss Navin soon finds his fortune in a glasses handle and with his wealth he buys a tacky house complete with a disco room full of friends and wins back his girl. Alas his fortune is soon lost and Navin is back on the street with only his thermos for company. Can it all come good for the lovable loser?

This is a relentlessly funny film that’s a bit shy on plot but big on laughs. Every scene is bursting at the edges with the number of gags shoved in, mostly revolving around Navin’s naivety and stupidity.

The cast is excellent with everyone note perfect from the serial killer turned private eye to the eccentric shit seller who turns the Opti-Grab into the quickest money spinner and loser in history. Peters is a stand out on two fronts - singing and acting. And her tits. She wears a sequence of sexy outfits and deadpans some great scenes as Martin licks her face and the like.

The film is a bit short and as I mentioned the plot - stupid guy gets rich and then poor while winning his girl - can be reduced to a line in the middle of a sentence like that one there. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to leave you wanting more - no one came out of ‘Date Movie’ wanting another half hour!

Unlike less esteemed critics I’ve not listed endless jokes from the film in the belief that it’ll make me seem witty and clever and you really have to see it to understand how funny and crazy it is. OK then just a couple of punch lines ‘Navin R Johnston - sounds like a real bastard’ ‘He’s really got it in for these cans’ and ‘I couldn’t have afforded this place anyway’.

THE Tag Line - Don’t Be Stupid - See ‘The Jerk’ 80%

No.41 : The Howling (1981)

The Howling at the IMDb

Back in the 80s I used to have a copy of ‘The Howling’ that was mysteriously worn out around the 48 minute mark. I can’t remember having ever watched the film the whole way through but certain scenes seemed to resonate more with my teenage mind than others.

Having now seen the film in its entirety that certain scene remains the highlight but the whole thing is certainly worth a look. In a cluttered and clichéd genre it’s good to see a werewolf film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and isn’t afraid to play fast and loose with the ‘rules’.

Our heroine is Dee Wallace a sexy news anchor with big hair. As the film opens we find her out on an investigative report where she aims to rip the lid off some sleazy antics. She is to make contact with her source, Eddie, who quickly leads her to a porno theatre. As the 25c action hots up in the booth Eddie starts to change before he is shot up by a trigger happy cop.

Dee is traumatised by the event, as are we, having spent nearly 30 minutes without a hint of a wolf mask. Dee takes the advice of John Steed and take a convalescence break at his community upstate - HUGE mistake. Dee takes her husband who looks like a walking tribute to ‘Back to the Future’ with his body warmer and tight jeans.

They soon hears some howling in the night and the hubby gets a bite from a stuffed bear like creature. Meanwhile back in the city Dee’s team are following up leads and discover that Eddie’s body has gone awol. After a quick stop at Dick Miller’s book shop of the occult they start to figure out what is happening. Back at the ranch the bitten vegetarian hubby is getting a taste for meat and for the sexy weird chick who lives in a shack.

It soon becomes clear that Dee has found herself in a colony of werewolves and as the intrepid nerd news hound rushes to the rescue we have to wonder who’s wolfie and who just forgot to shave that day.

After a slow start I found this film really enjoyable despite it’s cruddy acting and ropey effects. It’s directed by Joe Dante who did ‘Gremlins’ and the Spider-Man films and his tongue in cheek style is evident throughout. The august cast that includes John Steed and John Carradine in his second definite article in a row ham it up something awful but it’s all good fun. The transformation effects are OK in the snout sprouting department but the over reliance on air bladders is a bit distracting. Talking of distracting the score is a nightmare of overly earnest organ playing and plinky plonk synth - give it a rest I could hardly make out the dialogue in some scenes.

As alluded to earlier there is a bit of full frontal nudity which I remembered from my youth - what I’d forgotten is that after the act they turn into cartoons - my Jessica Rabbit fetish is explained!

It’s not out the park great but for a slightly off beat take on an old genre you could do a lot worse than ‘The Howling’ - just stop at 1 - the many, many sequel prove the law of diminishing returns holds fast.

THE Tag Line : Not Just For Minute 48! 70%