From Mr Potato Head, With Love

I don't get John Travolta. Or to be more precise, I don't get post-1978 John Travolta. He's infrequently handed in decent turns in heavyweight movies (Pulp Fiction; Get Shorty; Primary Colors; the underrated Mad City), but he's managed to offset that with a career chocked full of banal clag. It would appear every time a casting director offers him the olive branch of a potential resurrection, he lets it slip out of his grasp in favour of films like Lucky Numbers. Or Look Who's Talking Now. Or Wild Hogs. Or Ladder 49. Or Shout. Or Be Cool. Or Basic. Or... Well, you get the idea.

He can mark up another clanger with new release From Paris With Love, which takes misguided pride in proclaiming to be from the director of last year's abhorrent Taken. Pairing up unorthodox government spook with straight-laced Jonathan Rhys Meyers (so bland I can't really say anything else about him other than that he's... bland), it's little more than an excuse to have Travolta (looking remarkably like a potato with a goatee drawn on it) run around some scenic Parisian locations, spout some obscenities, snort some gakk from an antique vase, and beat up a few ethnic stereotypes. It's a movie that desperately wants to mimic early-90s John Woo, but alas JT is all Fat and no Chow Yun. The star seems keen to rekindle the appeal of his manic turns in Woo's messy Broken Arrow and startlingly-overpraised Face/Off, but no amount of lingering slo-mo shots of the one-time Danny Zuko shooting Asians in the face manage to come close to even those middling heights. Action movies never used to be this dull, surely?

"Dull" isn't a word that can be leveled at a film which offers up profane razor-teethed grannies, demented spindly ice cream men and angels who prefer to wield rocket launchers over harps - and those are just some of the delights Legion has to offer viewers stupid enough to buy a ticket for it. Essentially a rehash of 1995's The Prophecy with all the thematic debate (i.e. the interesting bits) removed, Scott Stewart's debut pic seems so desperate to please the Friday night crowd that he just throws everything that comes to mind onto the screen and hopes that some of it will stick. Occasionally, it works - a stoic Paul Bettany keeps a commendable straight face delivering his shitty angelic dialogue; it's gleefully OTT with its fetishizing of weapons hardware; Charles S. Dutton's in it for a bit - but by the time the third act arrives, fatigue sets in and the denouement is so ridiculously weak, you can't help but feel short-changed.

If you're thinking of remaking something from George A Romero's back catalogue, it's worth your while remembering that opening the proceedings with a Johnny Cash track will work wonders in your favour. Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn of the Dead retread did it and achieved some success; the 2008 redux of Day of the Dead didn't, and was a steaming load of cack. Thankfully The Crazies adheres to the rule, and the result is a watchable zip through the Government-sponsored decimation of a small Iowa town by its increasingly-crazed (Hey! That's like the title!) residents. Director Breck Eisner wrangles some terse set-pieces, and while the film never really reaches the all-important heights of actually being scary, it's a cut above other recent horror remakes thanks to both a (none-too-subtle) politically-analogous plot and actual grown-up leads (take a bow, Olyphantastic and genre-staple Radha Mitchell). Although poor show for setting up what could have been some wonderful farm machinery-induced carnage, and then settling for a simple house fire instead. Didn't the climax of Universal Soldier teach us anything?



The Crazies and From Paris With Love are in cinemas now.
Legion opens on Friday 5th March.

Hey, Oscar! You dropped these!

So at the risk of this turning into an awards blog, let's do the whole Oscar nomination shuffle (I hear this is how Tom Sherak gratifies himself) and do something wholly unique for this whole internet fandango: bitch about what's been left out.


M.I.A: Any trace of a nomination for "Where The Wild Things Are".
Alright, Max Records for best actor was a long shot, as was Jonze for best director. But no adapted screenplay? Come on - they turned a 40-page picture-book into one of the warmest, most heart-wrenching movies of the year. Shocking oversight. And don't even get me started on why Karen O's magnificent soundtrack was deemed ineligible. Fools.


M.I.A: Mélaine Laurent for either of the acting plaudits.
That single static shot of Laurent's face as she realises, over lunch, that Hans Landa has entered the room behind her? Best bit of acting in any movie last year, regardless of gender. Not a word uttered, but a spread of emotions spilled across the screen nonetheless.



M.I.A: Peter Capaldi for Best Supporting Actor.
I love Christophe Waltz in "Basterds". Love him - it's a blisteringly good performance. But the addition of Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker would have made this a two-horse race for me to care about. "In The Loop'"s adapted screenplay nod was well-deserved, but it's a shame the Academy couldn't extend their good taste as far as a blissfully sweary spin doctor.



M.I.A: Michael Stuhlbarg for Best Actor.
Anyone who's listened to me rant about Terrence Howard losing to Phillip Seymour Hoffman back in '05 will know my stance on biographical portraits. They're just impressions, based on a wealth of pre-existing material for research. I value original interpretations far higher, and as such I'd rather see Stuhlbarg's awfully-oppressed Larry Gopnik on the list ahead of Morgan Freeman's Mandela.



M.I.A: The Academy's balls, via Haneke and Von Trier
Alright, alright, I get that these guys are divise to extreme measures (and yes, I'm aware "The White Ribbon" did get two nods), but seriously - I'd much rather see some filmmaking with great big cajones - like "Antichrist" - walk off with the golden baldie than safe, fuzzy fare like "Up in the Air" or "The Blind Side". I suppose the upshot is we'll get to see Jason Reitman's grumpy expression trotted out again when Bigelow spanks him to Best Director.