A Girl & A Gun

Hot Fuzz (2007), Edgar Wright

FINALLY got round to watching the Spaced team's big screen follow up to Shaun of the Dead with J. Luckily, his extensive experience of Time Splitters/House of the Dead/etc had rendered him unsqueamish, and the spectacularly inventive murder of the journalist didn't phase him.

Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, one half of the love story between two partners in what turns out to be a very funny genre mashup. Nicholas is an over-achieving police officer who has been relocated to rural obscurity for fighting crime a bit too effectively. Nick Frost plays Goose to Nicholas's Maverick.

Easily romps off with the prize for best ever Wicker Man remake. Has a wide selection of swearing. Far funnier than Shaun.   

Capote (2005), Bennett Miller

Philip Seymour Hoffman got an Oscar for his portrayal of Trueman Capote during the research and writing of In Cold Blood. Fair enough, it isn't as if he was going to get one for Happiness, but this is clearly not his best performance. Capote comes across as self-obsessed, insecure, occasionally witty and cruel, and again, fair enough. Maybe the lack of an opinion on why Capote and Perry turned out the way they each did was deliberate. It just seems weird that such a good story and novel could result in such a disengaging film.

Catherine Keener is really good - the best thing about the film, as Capote sidekick and writer Harper Lee.

I haven't seen Infamous yet - the double-whammy of Gwyneth Paltrow and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee puts me off, but I would like to see Toby Jones's version. I would love to see the South Park remake, with Cartman playing Capote, and a giant Sandra Bullock playing Harper Lee. Or even better - just this film with Trey Parker over-dubbing all of Hoffman's lines with Cartman's voice: "Johnny I will keep your spirit going......I will fly that plane to the secret island and find that golden banana!"

AG&AG promo tie-in with added zombies

Do you love A Girl & A Gun but wish there was more of it? Lucky for you I've just started the AG&AG club over at Facebook. Help me compile Lucky 3s, answer post related questions, or just hang out. See you there!

Requiem for a Dream (2000), Darren Aronofsky

Feeling like ending it all but can't quite muster yourself to make that final commitment? Life not really bad enough, but those mainstream movie-mood-matching guides not offering a suicidal category? Here's the perfect rental for you!

Requiem for a Dream tracks the decline and drug-fulled decline of four characters who's dreams are of the getting through the day variety. Ellen Burstyn heads up the cast as widow Sara Goldfarb who really just wants someone to visit her every so often. Jared Leto plays her rubbish son, Jennifer Connelly his rubbish girlfriend, and Marlon Wayans his flaky drug dealing mate.

Life is terrible, whatever your intentions, and you will be punished with prison, electroconvulsive therapy, amputation and/or a sore butt. Ending stolen from Brazil via Time Bandits.

On the plus side, there's some great use of split screen, & you'll never watch Robin Hood in quite the same way again. Or Labyrinth, once you know what happens to Sarah when she grows up. 

One Hour Photo (2002), Mark Romanek

Between them Robin Williams, Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks must be responsible for at least 90% of all movie watching experiences that make you want to devour your own eyes in a futile attempt to feel clean again. Luckily, readers have me to mediate the screaming abyss that is viewing this dross. At least until I completely lose it that is.

Anyhow, this came out around the same time as William's other stab at salvation-through-serious roles - the crappy remake of the really good original Insomnia, for people who can't be arsed to read subtitles. I Maybe he was on medical orders to stop gurning for a while, but this brief foray into purposely not funny roles sure garnered a lot of praise for Williams, disturbingly along the lines of "He was born to play serious psychopaths!". I think its closer to the truth to suggest that after years of full on 'hilarity' it was something of a holiday for reviewers not to be worrying about when the next joke was coming.

One Hour Photo is basically a rip of of the far more interesting Peeping Tom, with anything interesting about Robin William's character Sy removed. You can almost smell the white wash: his character has to be creepy for the whole thing to work, but by the end of the movie the script has back-peddled up its own backside in a misguided attempt to garner sympathy and understanding from the audience.

If for some reason you have to make a decision between this and the Insomnia remake, my advice is that he's in Insomnia a lot less and hasn't got bleached blonde hair.