John Boorman's 1972 classic, Deliverance, stars Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox as four city slickers who decide to take a canoeing trip in the remote wilderness of Georgia.
The foursome, Reynolds and Beatty in particular, approach the trip with a naive view of the dangers they face and patronising attitude to the country locals.
The sinister nature of the film is providing early on during the famous 'duelling banjo's' scene. Stumbling across a remote petrol station, the locals show hostility to the arrogant foursome and Boorman ensures that the banjo scene where the local inbred boy plays the banjo in almost savant manner is creepy enough so as to be able to use the simple banjo tune throughout the rest of the film as a soundtrack of tension and unease.
Already aware of some of the details of the most harrowing moment of the film, I watched Deliverance with an uneasy tension. The foursome face danger from their surroundings as well as the locals, however it is the locals who strike first in a scene which I can imagine in the early 70's was incredibly shocking to watch. After the male rape scene, the city boys realise the danger and isolation they face and as paranoia begins to set in they take desperate action to survive.
Perhaps unusual in today's cinema, Boorman was certainly not afraid to use long scenes of the actors canoeing down the river to patiently bridge the key scenes.
40 years on, the story remains remarkably simply, but is told in a bold and powerful manner. Each of the four characters are different and all are changed men as the story ends differently for each of them. The acting is fantastic, in particular Voight and Reynolds, although looking back Reynold's character Lewis now perhaps comes across as a bit too macho as the Bear Grylls wannabe.
The hopeless sense of claustrophobic wilderness and isolation portrayed may well have been the inspiration for later films such as Predator and The Edge.
Nowadays the film suffers from some very dated editing but has largely aged well and is a 70's classic well worth a watch.
Enemy of God is the second book in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles trilogy chronicling the story of Arthur and his battle against the Saxons.
Following on from the first book, The Winter King, Arthur has achieved temporary peace across the south of England via shrewd diplomacy and on occasions, war. Cornwell's trilogy portrays Arthur as an oath-bound Lord sworn to protect the kingdom of the infant King Mordred against the Saxons as the country itself is torn apart by warring Christians and pagans. Arthur is a principled leader who remains true to his oaths even as they overpower him and conflict with each other.
As with the first novel, the story is told retrospectively by the main protagonist Derfel, a former warrior and now monk loyal to Arthur. By telling the story in such a way, Cornwell maintains the suspense as the reader is aware of Derfel's present situation (writing the story in a monastery) but unclear how he ends up there from the story he is telling which is a world apart.
The book has an underlying theme of atheism common to modern times as Cornwell narrates the escalating threat to peace of the warring Christians and pagans and Arthur's struggle, despite all his best diplomatic efforts, to bring harmony to the rival religions.
I am largely unfamiliar with the story of Arthur and his knights of Camelot, and I enjoyed Cornwell's attempt to retell the story without all the usual romantic legends, however, in comparison with the first book, Enemy of God does feature more magical goings on as Merlin ropes Derfel into his quest to find the Treasures of Britain. The ending is particularly exciting as Arthur's friend Lancelot shows his true colours and places the story's heroes in danger while setting the scene for the final instalment of the trilogy.
A good mixture of history, legends, magic and religion.
In my opinion, Star Trek was never quite as cool as Star Wars and I remember some of the feature films being particularly poor. J.J Abrams does his best to equal things up by giving the much-loved franchise a much needed modern update with this 2009 reboot.
By setting the action in the infancy of the Enterprise (a prequel to the original TV series), the writers are not only able to base the story around familiar characters but younger, more energetic versions of those seen before. No doubt slightly unpopular with Star Trek die-hards, this results in a film that will attract younger viewers to the franchise. This is summed up by the scene where Kirk is shown in bed with a scantily clad busty green alien at the academy, a scene unlikely to have appeared in any previous Star Trek film. However, Abrams gives enough props to the franchise with some finer details like the transporting CGI and sound effects and Spock using a Vulcan death grip without giving in to the clichéd catchphrases that I had expected.
The film itself is a fast paced action-er with an enjoyable plot, and would be capable of being a decent space action film without all that being a Star Trek film brings to it. Chris Pine's Kirk is cocky but likeable and his rivalry with the young Spock is a source of some of the films funnier moments. I loved Zachary Quinto in Heroes and he is superbly cast as the legendary Spock, who finds himself confused between his Vulcan upbringing and human emotions.
It was great to see Leonard Nimoy make more than a cameo appearance as the older Spock, but as often the case with action film villains, it was shame that Eric Bana wasn't really given much to work as Nero.
The Good Wife is one of the most criminally underrated TV shows around. In the UK it is hidden away on More 4 and deserves a place on a much more prominent channel. For those not in the know, the good wife is Alicia Florrick, the lawyer wife of the disgraced state attorney who struggles to restart her career in the aftermath of her husbands scandal. The show is basically a court room TV drama with very compelling sub-plots and a great cast of interesting characters. Weekly legal cases are combined with long running story arcs involving Alicia's complicated personal life and co-workers.
The third season follows the relationship between Alicia and her old flame and boss Will, as Alicia and Peter keep their separation secret for the benefit of Peter's political career. At work, Alicia questions her future at Lockhart & Gardner and acts as a mentor to new lawyer Caitlin while all the time struggling to keep her personal life separate.
The strongest story-line in the third season is the indictment of Will for bribing judges by Alicia's husband, the current state attorney. Peter hands the investigation over the politically motivated Wendy Scott Carr and the story-line culminates in a fantastic episode where her case spectacularly collapses in front of the grand jury due to Will's clever tactics. The drama reminded me of the court scene from Stieg Larsson's third novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest which is high praise indeed.
The show has an excellent cast of characters and actors, Julianna Margulies and Brit Archie Panjabi are excellent as Alicia and the complex Calinda respectively. Alan Cumming deserves recognition for his character Eli Gold, who provides most of the shows light heart moments with lines such as "the problem with Sun Tzu is that he never fought the Jews". Lighter moments are also provided by all the judges featured on the show, who are portrayed as quirky and particular characters.
Guest stars Michael J. Fox, Jason Biggs and Matthew Perry spice up the action throughout the season.
The season ends with a cliffhanger as it appears that Calinda's mysterious past may have caught up with her and Alicia realises that unintentionally her family has been brought back together, and she must choose if she wants to be a part of it.
Never a show with the cheeriest of characters, season five of the multiple award winning show is the darkest season yet by a clear stretch.
This time around the writers deal with some dark themes throughout the season, depression, suicide, alienation, prostitution and unfulfillment both professionally and personally.
A switch in office dynamics has clearly taken place between seasons, with Pete now far more powerful than before and now rivalling and finally side-lining Roger in terms of bringing in new accounts. Roger initially struggles to deal with suddenly becoming surplus to requirements and attempts to undercut Pete where possible before realising that he used to be as hungry and ambitious as Pete himself.
Don and Megan's honeymoon period lasts longer than I thought it would and Don's initial happiness in having his wife at work alongside him distracts him from his job. The bubble begins to deflate when Megan leaves the company to pursue an acting career and seemingly bursts in the season finale. Although expecting it all season, it was disappointing that the writers appear to have given in and decided that Don's personal life has now gone full circle back to that of the first season.
Sandwiched in amongst the ambitiousness and doom and gloom, there are several heart-warming moments, in particular Don accepting Peggy's resignation with a kiss on her hand and again Don's visit to Joan in an attempt to stop her sacrifice for the company.
I found this season to contain a huge amount of subtly placed humour with Harry, Roger, Bert, Pete and new boy Ginsberg all given some great lines. Given the incredibly dark story-lines Mad Men has almost become a black comedy.
The season's finale lacked the big storyline of previous finales but perhaps this was apt given the places that most of the characters find themselves in heading into season six.
While the themes dealt with in season five allow the writers to deal with some powerful emotions, having what seems like the whole cast trudging around waist deep in doom and gloom for the majority of the season is perhaps overkill. Mad Men is still a hugely enjoyable show and one of the best around but I hope for an improvement next time out.
Coming from J.J Abram's stable and set on the mysterious prison island of the same name, Alcatraz had all the ingredients to be a great show. Unfortunately, it was billed as the new Lost and although this surely attracted viewers to the early episodes, this expectation probably did more harm than good as the show falls a long way short of Abram's work.
I'm sure most viewers did not expect to be tuning in each week to watch a really weak police drama with the occasional scrap of intrigue thrown in relating to the 1963 Alcatraz era. With the exception of the first and final episodes, the episodes are repetitively mechanical and formulaic. Each time we are introduced to a new inmate from 1963 on the loose in modern day San Francisco, each one as clichéd as the last. A sniper, child killer, poisoner, bomber, bank robber are all covered throughout the series. The team then use Dr. Soto's (played by Jorge Garcia) in depth knowledge of the prison along with the inmates personal belongings to track down the escapee within the totally contrived time-frame required.
In casting Jorge Garcia as one of the main characters, the producers did not help but draw similarities to Lost. Garcia does not help matters as his character may as well be Hurley, with his shyness, wit and cuddly teddy bear personality. Just in case the desire to replicate Lost wasn't totally obvious, the producers hired Lost's composer Michael Giacchino. The results are an almost identical Lost-style string loop piece of music.
In replicating Lost's penchant for posing more questions than providing answers with the view to a long run, Alcatraz shot itself in the foot as the result is a show not half as good as Lost and it does not do enough to maintain the viewers intrigue throughout the season. The bulk of the episodes tease by mainly dealing with the inmate's recapture rather than shedding any light on the how and why of their reappearance after 40 years. It was early on that we found out that Lucy was a 63'er, we then discovered that the sinister warden was doing something to do the blood of certain inmates with silver and ultimately that he appears to be behind the reappearance of the inmates, tasked with tracking down keys for a room on Alcatraz.
Sam Neil was the biggest name to sign on for the series but his character was incredibly dislikeable and his cranky and aggressive nature to his colleagues wore me down throughout the season.
Alcatraz is the latest in a few sci-fi based TV shows to not survive past one season (see FlashForward and Terra Nova). Overall I feel the producers made it difficult for the show to be successful and while the show has some serious flaws, I feel that with the unanswered questions and remaining intrigue it did have the potential to grow into something better and probably deserved a second season.
Absorbing historical drama based on the series of interviews between British chat show host David Frost and disgraced former US President Richard Nixon in 1977.
The film is based on the play of the same name and Michael Sheen (Frost) and Frank Langella (Nixon) reprise their characters from the stage version. This continuity gives both actors confidence in their portrayals and both give terrific performances, in particular Langella, who earned an Oscar nod for his initially snarling and defiant and later personal and sombre portrayal of Nixon.
Frost/Nixon deals with the preparation for the interviews by both camps, an unfavoured Frost and team and an over-confident Nixon. The interviews are likened to a boxing match, with both participants retiring to their respective corners in between sparring sessions, and Nixon's chief of staff Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) temporarily 'throwing in the towel' on Nixon's behalf before Frost delivers the knock-out blow.
In dealing with the most significant scandal in American politics, director Ron Howard has an engrossing subject matter to work with and he does a decent job behind the camera mixing in faux-documentary retrospective interviews with some of the bit part players with clever shots of the interviews from behind the camera.
Before the second season of Game of Thrones began, I decided to read the first book and this gave me an appreciation of how true to George Martin's story the writers stayed with the first season's adaptation. It also helped provide some additional background and detail to the characters in the way that only a several hundred page book can.
Fresh from sorting out all the loose ends at the end of the last season, the new season begins in earnest with Robb at war with the Lannisters, Tyrion appointed the Hand of King Joffrey, Arya on the road and Daenerys struggling to forge a way home with her infant dragons.
The season then injects a huge influx of new characters, including Stannis and Renly Barratheon, the township of Qarth, the Tyrell siblings, the house of Greyjoy and Jaqen H'ghar. Certain characters from the first season are given much more screen time this time around, most notably Tywin Lannister, who is superbly played by Charles Dance.
In covering all the characters, locations and story lines, the scope of the show can only be described as epic. As with all good shows of such grandeur (The Wire and Treme), the writers manage to maintain interest through rich character development and intricate story telling despite the meandering pace of the action. Given the scope of the show, the story arc for each character within each book/season is relatively shallow, for instance, Stannis takes almost all 10 episodes to mount his attack on Kings Landing, Robb sits at camp and really does nothing more than deal with his mother and his new love interest, Jon sets out north of the wall and achieves relatively little and Daenerys enters Qarth and struggles with the local politics, but through the structure of the episodes the writers manage to not make you feel short changed at all as the action progresses.
The season really belongs to Peter Dinklage, who as Tyrion, with the confidence of his father behind him, really comes into his own as he schemes and plots with the best of them at Joffrey's court. All in all the acting and production is superb, and as a Northerner, I love to hear the broad Northern accents when the action switches to Winterfell and beyond the wall.
For both seasons I have watched the TV adaptation before reading the associated book and I appreciated the penchant Martin shows for killing off seemingly important characters, for season one read Ned Stark, for season two read Renly Barratheon, removed in the fourth episode. As TV shows go, it is a pretty rare occurrence to kill off the main headlining character and this is what sets Game of Thrones apart. In choosing to remain (relatively) true to the books, the writers are lead by Martin's hand and the show is richer for it.
As with the first season, the final episode follows the climax of the season's central theme in the previous episode, and serves to set each character on course for season three. The only difference this time around being that Daenerys dragon's development is bumped up to the penultimate scene of the episode to give the cliffhanger to the White Walkers. Season three looks like it could be along the lines of Lord of Rings meets The Walking Dead, I can hardly wait.
Hands down, the best show on TV at the moment.
Fresh from the gripping end to the third season, Simon Baker returns as Patrick Jane for the fourth season of The Mentalist.
The beginning of the season is a huge disappointment following the events at the end of season three. Jane begins the season in prison after shooting the man he believed to be Red John at the end of season three. I wondered how the series would continue with Jane locked away but in ridiculous fashion he argues his case at trial and is out by the end of the first episode. Oh and surprise surprise, it wasn't Red John he shot and killed.
The series is at its best when dealing with Red John and the writers know it. Ending the Red John storyline would effectively end the series so the writers can only afford to drip feed the Red John story throughout the seasons to keep interest.
When not dealing with Red John, the series is very run of the mill and after four seasons Jane's tricks and schemes are beginning to become slightly repetitive. Also, it now feels as though the CBI have solved almost every type of homicide imaginable in the four seasons. Originally the unit were only called in on special high profile cases and I must have missed the point at which this no longer became the case. Lisbon apart, the other three members of the team are really just there to make up the numbers and serve as part of Jane's charades. As is often the case in this season, I find it bemusing to believe that Jane allows the other four members of the team to hopelessly pursue an entirely different lead for an entire episode while he goes it alone having already solved the case.
Simon Baker's charismatic and cheeky portrayal of Jane still remains a positive note for the show.
As ever, the season ramps up the Red John drama to a climatic ending but it all feels slightly too familiar and unfulfilling this time around. Renewed for a fifth season, the main question remains when will Patrick catch his man?
Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx play the lead roles in Law Abiding Citizen, a brutal thriller in which a father and husband (Butler) makes an example of the legal system that wronged him.
Jamie Foxx plays the prosecutor who makes a plea deal with the man who killed Butler's wife and child. In exacting payback on an attorney for his previous decisions, the film is similar to Cape Fear but LAC actually shares more in common with Saw as Butler cleverly butchers his way through the cast.
LAC begins in an interesting manner and tries to argue the case for both flawed sides of the justice system. However, once Butler lands himself in jail and puts his plan into effect this balanced view disappears and is replaced by a violent killing spree. Butler's logic seems confused as he vehemently denies that his actions are revenge, but by killing everyone close to his case, I struggle to see what else they could be described as. Mass murder of the local justice system seems overkill for ensuring that lessons are learnt. The film will no doubt promote some discussion as to the point at which Butler's character's actions become unjustified and he transgresses from the film's hero to ruthless villain.
Butler outshines Foxx, initially as the troubled father and husband with a cause to fight before his descent into his role as psychopathic murderer.
Law Abiding Citizen had the potential to be a cat and mouse thriller with a conscience but is ultimately just a reasonably decent thriller, but one lacking the clever twists and intelligent ending of Saw.
Based on a comic book series of the same name, Wanted tells the story of a secret fraternity of assassins striving to keep order in the world. As you would expect from the Hollywood debut of Daywatch and Nigthwatch director Timur Bekmambetov, the film is fast paced and contains some stunning action sequences and stunts.
James McAvoy is well cast as the pathetic office worker recruited by the fraternity to avenge his father. McAvoy is supported by big hitters Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. In contrast with most of her action roles, Jolie delivers a much more restrained performance while Freeman is simply allowed to do his stuff.
Bekmambetov has a penchant for using slow motion sequences (in the vein of Zack Snyder) followed by pauses in both picture and sound. This works in places but is used rather a lot, most often when bullets are flying, and does become slightly tedious as the film goes on. He also employs an annoying pulse effect during the slow motion scenes. Initially this seems unnecessary but the effect serves a purpose once McAvoy's abilities are explained.
Despite the pace, Bekmambetov allows the plot time to develop and the film delivers a few decent twists as McAvoy hunts down his father's killer. Wanted's script is exactly what you would expect from the writing team that penned a large part of the Fast and Furious series. Danny Elfman provides a pretty heavy soundtrack which suits the film's angry and intense action sequences.
Overall, Wanted is a stylish and fun ride although you may need to suspend your disbelief from the offset.
After nine years(!), the main cast return to the American Pie series, presumably after accepting being typecast forever as Jim and co. Interesting that screenplay duty is given to new hands and not to Adam Herz, who wrote all three original films. Unfortunately, the change of writers does not result in a contemporary update to the series.
Never the wittiest of comedies, the humour hasn't changed in the slightest and this time around some of the gags are a little too crude and predictable. Guess what, the pages are stuck together in Jim's old porno mags when his Dad catches him (again) having a look for old times sake. That's not to say that the film isn't funny, it definitely has its moments, and those mostly revolve around Stifler. Stifler always was the funniest character and Seann William Scott steals every scene he appears in with his juvenile enthusiasm and foul mouth. Jim and his Dad share some quite intimate scenes and Jason Biggs and Eugene Levy must be credited for the on-screen relationship they have developed over the years.
Appearing to have grown up, the characters return for a 13 year high school reunion. Similar to the other films, Jim manages to get in yet another predicament due to his ineptitude with girls and digs his way out of the hole with the help of the gang as they struggle to realise that times have changed. My sympathy with Jim was waning this time, supposedly nine years older and wiser, it is slightly tedious and quite depressing that he fails to cope with the most basic of social situations around the opposite sex and becomes tangled up for the fourth time.
By playing on the nostalgia of the series, gags revolving around Jim and his porn stash and footage of his dance and premature ejaculation from the original, the writers are acknowledging that Reunion doesn't hit the highs of previous ones by itself. Although the fact that the audience in the cinema still laughed at these moments suggests the writers are simply giving the viewers what they want.
Worth watching, if just to see the cast back together one last time and for Stifler's revenge on Finch.
The first in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles trilogy is a fictional depiction of early Saxon Britain retrospectively told through the eyes of one of Arthur's warriors. Cornwell turns his back on the typically romanticised version of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and portrays Arthur as the more historically accurate military leader. This is a refreshing change and allows Cornwell to ground the story in realism rather than magical fairy tales of ladies in lakes and wizards. However, Cornwell does allow himself the artistic license to introduce characters such as Merlin (a druid rather than wizard), Lancelot (a crown prince from Brittany) and Guinevere into the action.
The story tells of Arthur's return from exile in France to act as protector to the infant king of Dummonia and his attempts to unite the warring kingdoms of southern Britain and Wales against the growing Saxon threat.
Cornwell delivers the story in sufficient detail and depth to give the reader plenty to go on. Often historical authors can fall into the trap of either glossing over or dedicating too much time and detail to battle scenes but Cornwell seems to find the middle ground well in describing the book's final scenes.
An enjoyable read for any fan of fictionalised history.
