Lawn Dogs

Dir: John Duigan

1997

*****

1997’s Lawn Dogs seemed to come and go without much fanfare, the critics praised it upon its release but it was largely overlooked and forgotten. Such a shame, as Naomi Wallace’s story is heartwarming and the performances and direction were rather special. There was something dream-like about it although there wasn’t actually anything fantastical about it, although it did incorporate the folktale of Baba Yaga. The story explores the societal repercussions of what is seen as an unorthodox friendship between a man and a girl. We follow ten-year-old Devon Stockard (Mischa Barton in her debut performance), a precocious and lonely young girl who has recently moved into a gated community called Camelot Gardens in the suburbs of Louisville, KY with her parents, Morton and Clare (Christopher McDonald and Kathleen Quinlan). The ‘Burbs’ are a scary place in any country but I’ve always found America’s suburban districts to be more sinister than others - probably thanks to Edward Scissorhands – and the two films do feel quite similar in many respects. Recently having recovered from open heart surgery, Devon is encouraged by her parents to make friends and she is pushed to sell cookies for a charity event for the summer. While selling cookies, Devon leaves the gated community against the instruction of her mother, and meets Trent Burns (played by Sam Rockwell), a bit of a loner who does the landscaping in Camelot Gardens who lives in a trailer in the woods. Devon is intrigued by Trent and Trent appreciates Devon’s imagination and independent thought – it is a refreshing change from everyone else in Camelot Gardens. Devon imagines her life to be like the fable of Baba Yaga, a fairy-tale which the film makes parallels to. Like Baba Yaga, Devon sees herself as an outsider, through her way of thinking and in part due to her chest scar that she sees as ugly. Although Baba Yaga is often seen as a villain, she is also seen as a maternal character and Devon finds herself looking after (or at least wanting to) Trent in similar way. Devon, at first an annoyance to Trent, continues to come to his property and slowly befriends him; despite the innocence of their friendship, he insists that she keep it a secret because of their age difference. While working in Camelot Gardens, Trent begins having altercations with two young men who live there; Brett (David Barry Gray), who is having an affair with Devon's mother; and Sean (Eric Mabius), a man with closeted homosexual tendencies who flirts with Trent. During a family barbecue, Devon explores her father's car in their garage. She finds her father's handgun in the glove compartment of his SUV. Brett discovers her with the gun and attempts to molest Devon in the garage, but she escapes. She tells her parents about the incident, but then insists that Brett was only trying to tickle her. Her mother begins to notice Devon's apparent friendship with Trent when he comes to do lawn work at their house, and becomes alarmed. Meanwhile, Brett and Sean terrorize Trent by pouring sugar in the fuel tank of his lawnmower and start a fight with him after they wrongfully believe he stole CDs from Sean's car. Devon and Trent's friendship continues to grow, and the two go to visit Trent's mother and his father, a Korean War veteran who is dying of a lung disease. After leaving Trent's parents' house, Trent and Devon go for a drive in the country. While stopped in a field, Devon insists that since the two are "best friends", she can show him her surgical scar on her chest. She asks him to touch it to his reluctance, and then demands that he show her his abdominal scar which he sustained in a shooting. After showing each other their scars, the two see Sean's dog running through the field, having escaped. While trying to chase the dog down in the truck, they accidentally run him over. Trent kills the badly injured dog in spite of Devon's pleas for him not to, and she runs home in a panic over the incident. Devon’s parents, concerned over their daughter’s frantic behavior, ask her what happened, but she refuses to provide details, only saying that Trent killed Sean's dog and mentions that she and Trent took turns showing each other their scars. Assuming that Trent molested her, Morton drives out to Trent's property with Devon, assisted by Sean and an ex-cop who is a security guard in Camelot Gardens. The three men confront Trent while Devon sits in the car. Morton and Sean take turns beating Trent, and Morton accuses him of raping Devon. Morton attacks Trent with a piece of wood, beating him to the ground, and hands it to Sean; but before Sean can hit him, Devon exits her father's car with his handgun and shoots Sean in the abdomen. As Sean bleeds on the ground, Devon urges Trent to leave, and they say their goodbyes. Armed with her father's gun, Devon orders her dad to lift her up into a tree that she and Trent had decorated with ribbons, and she uses the powers of Baba Yaga to help Trent escape. It’s one of the most wonderful conclusions to a film ever and is up there with Breaking the Waves and It’s a Wonderful Life. The dreamlike nature of the film works incredibly well, considering the film is played straight the whole way through. There is a unique ambiguity about it too that really breathes life into a story that goes against convention. Sadly, Lawn Dogs was to be the final film of the once mighty Rank Organization and it would be the last time we’d see the shirtless muscle man hit the famous gong at the beginning of the film. However, thanks to Mischa Barton and Sam Rockwell’s great performances, Naomi Wallace story and John Duigan perfect direction, it was a great film to go out on.

She's the Man

Dir: Andy Fickman

2006

*

While Andy Fickman’s 2006 comedy She’s the Man isn’t completely devoid of humour, it is still fairly awful. However, a few elements – mainly the performances – make it not as awful as it could have been. Just to confirm though, it is still quite awful. It is based on 1985’s Just One of the Guys which was an updated version (of sorts) of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. School killed Shakespeare for me as a child, not because its bad or because I don’t like it, but because we had to analyse it to the point where we couldn’t care less about it. We didn’t read any of the good one’s either like Macbeth, Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, we read Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and all the ones where a girl dresses as a boy to get close to the man she loves. Funnily enough the suggestive homosexuality wasn’t addressed in the Catholic school I went but pretty much everything else was. I hate it. It is only as an adult that I have fallen in love with Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. I think there is a lot to be said for the theory that Shakespeare’s work as we know it is in fact the work of two separate men but I digress. If the Twelfth Night Shakespeare were alive today and working in Hollywood, She’s the Man is probably the sort of thing he’d be filming. I’m outraged by poor adaptions of Shakespeare’s good stories but Twelfth f*ing Night is fair game as far as I’m concerned. The film centers on teenager Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes) who plays for Cornwall College’s soccer team until the team gets cut. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Sebastian (James Kirk – great name, well done his parents), is supposed to enroll in Illyria, an elite boarding school, but he secretly goes to London with his fledgling band instead. Viola agrees to cover for him and decides to pass herself off as him, in hopes of joining their boys' team and beating Cornwall to prove their coach and her cocky ex-boyfriend, Justin (Robert Hoffman), wrong. With the help of her stylist friend, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski as an unfortunate stereotype), she is transformed into "Sebastian" and attends Illyria in his place. We’re not supposed to let the fact that neither twin looks anything like each other bother us and to be totally honest, it really didn’t. While moving in, she meets her roommate, Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum), an attractive soccer player and Illyria's team captain. During tryouts, Viola fails to impress Coach Dinklage (Vinnie ‘shut it you slag’ Jones – who was in fact a football (sorry, Soccer) player back in the day my non-English readers) and is assigned to second string, much to her dismay. Her teammates, including Duke, initially dislike "Sebastian" due to his awkward and strange behavior. However, with help from Paul once again, they begin to accept him into their social circle. "Sebastian" then gets the popular and pretty Olivia (Laura Ramsey) as his lab partner, which frustrates Duke, as he has feelings for her. "Sebastian" agrees to put in a good word for Duke if he promises to train him to be a better soccer player. Coach Dinklage eventually notices "Sebastian's" effort and improvement, thus promoting him to first string. At the Junior League carnival, where her mother has made her volunteer, Viola works a shift at the kissing booth (cold sores ahoy) and shares a kiss with Duke. Duke expresses to "Sebastian" that he might move on from Olivia as he is starting to like Viola now. Viola is delighted as she secretly feels the same way. Olivia who now has a crush on "Sebastian", asks Duke out on a date in hopes that it will make "Sebastian" jealous. Viola, who is unaware of Olivia's true intentions, is enraged instead because Duke has now abandoned his interest in Viola. When Viola finds out the truth, she encourages Olivia to tell "Sebastian" directly about her feelings.The situation becomes even more complicated when the real Sebastian returns from London a day early, unbeknownst to Viola. As soon as he arrives at Illyria, Olivia confesses her feelings and kisses him. Duke, seeing this, believes his roommate has betrayed him. When "Sebastian" returns to their room, the two have an argument and Duke kicks him out. Viola oversleeps and misses the first half of the game, while the real Sebastian is mistaken for "Sebastian" and winds up poorly playing his sister's game instead. At half-time, Viola explains the situation to Sebastian and they switch places again. However, before they get the chance to finish what they started, an army of intergalactic alien mercenaries melt the entire team in a cataclysmic error of mistaken identity. Not really, but that’s how it should have ended. Actually, that’s how it should have started. So Amanda Bynes isn’t without charm and by the film I almost warmed to her. Everyone involved has done better, apart from maybe director Andy Fickman and of course Vinnie Jones – whose career in Hollywood still puzzles me to this day. Go read some Shakespeare or try on some of your mothers dresses instead, it would be a far greater use of your time.

No Man's Land
Dir: Peter Werner
1987
****
He’s no Herzog, but Peter Werner’s cheesy 1987 crime drama No Man’s Land is a classic that has been criminally overlooked for too long. The premise is so good that they copied it and built a multi-million franchise based on its concept (I’m talking about you Fast and the Furious). It’s basically a feature-length episode of Miami Vice which was also written by screenwriter Dick Wolf. I was eight years old and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be the good guy or the bad guy, both were cool, and Charlie Sheen and D. B. Sweeney made me want to wear sunglasses and drive fast cars. It’s about as 80s as a film can be. The film starts with an undercover detective shot dead while investigating a string of Porsche 911 thefts. Lieutenant Vincent Bracey (Randy Quaid before he went nuts) assigns 22-year-old San Diego officer Benjamin "Benjy" Taylor (D. B. Sweeney) to infiltrate a Porsche garage suspected to be a front for the grand theft auto scheme. Benjy is chosen because of his extensive mechanical knowledge of German cars and his rookie status, which dissuades others from suspecting that he is a cop. He looks like a sixteen year old boy desperate to not wet his pants. Bracey wants Benjy to obtain evidence that millionaire playboy Ted Varrick (Charlie Sheen) is the mastermind behind the thefts and the murder of the detective. Using the alias "Billy Ayles", Benjy moves to Los Angeles (sunglasses on) and gets a job at Technique Porsche as a mechanic. After Benjy fixes Ted's Porsche one night, the two men become close friends and Benjy becomes romantically attached to Ted's sister Ann (Lara Harris – who also made me want to wear sunglasses and drive fast cars to be honest). Benjy also discovers the presence of a rival syndicate led by Frank Martin (R. D. Call – who I still think has the best villainous face of all villainous faces), which leads him to believe that Ted is not the prime suspect despite Bracey's insistence. Eventually, Ted brings Benjy into his side business of stealing Porsches, with garage manager Malcolm (played by the mighty Bill Duke) coordinating the operations. Benjy's first few attempts at stealing cars fail miserably, with Martin's syndicate catching on and slashing his hand as a warning. While doing a job at the mall, Benjy and Ted are confronted by Frank and his thugs, but they manage to lose them in one of the most underrated car chases of the 1980s. Ted rewards Benjy with a red Porsche that night. The next day, Ted goes to Technique Porsche and finds Malcolm has been murdered. In retaliation, he kills Frank at a night club. During a phone conversation at a party, corrupt police Lieutenant Curtis Loos - who was hired by Ted to take out the detective in the film's opening - tells Ted about Benjy's real identity. The next night, Ted has Benjy meet Loos at a warehouse for a payoff. When Loos tries to kill Benjy, Ted runs him over to save his friend in spite of what he knows. Later, Benjy stops at Bracey's house to inform him of what happened with Loos, and accuses the Lieutenant of conspiring with him. Bracey kicks Benjy out, but tells him to call in the morning so they can work things out. Benji drives off, unaware that Ted is nearby, spying on him. The next day, Benjy's cover is blown in front of Ann when his uncle Mike pays him a visit at his apartment. He goes to Bracey's house, only to find that Ted has murdered him. Ted is preparing to flee the country when Benjy convinces him to meet up at the mall, where he tries to arrest Ted for the murders. Ted refuses to go quietly and a gunfight breaks out; Benjy is wounded, but manages to shoot and kill Ted. These days I think I would have preferred it if the two had just kissed and run off together, as that was clearly what they wanted to do but at the time this was it for me and I loved every second of it. It hasn’t dated that well in the classical sense but there is something about it that I think has aged well, such is lady nostalgia. It’s a pure gold 80s classic. I don’t expect younger viewers to enjoy it and it will no doubt appeal more to those that saw it the first time round but this is my guilty pleasure and I don’t particularly feel that guilty about it.

Man of Flowers

Dir: Paul Cox

1983

*****

Utterly mesmerisng and hauntingly beautiful, Man of Flowers joins the long list of brilliant but underrated and overlooked Australian films. The idea behind the film came out of a discussion director Paul Cox and actor Chris Haywood had about how easy it would be to make a low-budget erotic drama. They asked scriptwriter Bob Ellis on board but instructed him to spend on more than half a day on it, the finished article being written in just nine hours. Haywood’s then girlfriend Alyson Best had been involved in the idea from its conception and agreed to play the leading lady. They then approached the brilliant Norman Kaye to play the lead, as well as Werner Herzog in a supporting role. It’s not quite an erotic drama in a classical sense – there is no mindless titillation – and one man’s idea of eroticism isn’t necessarily to another man’s tastes but it is totally accessible and I found it easy to relate to. It’s astonishing really what they achieved from a simple idea, a nine hour script and just three weeks of filming on a budget of just $240,000. It made a bit of money and was nominated for pretty much every Australian film award going that year but it’s still a relatively unknown film. Indeed, I only stumbled across it because I’m a Werner Herzog completist. Kaye plays Charles, a wealthy recluse who finds erotic satisfaction in the beauty of art, flowers and a young woman who agrees to undress for him. It explores the issue of sexual inversion and how one’s childhood and our parental relationships can leave a permanent mark on us. In the case of Charles, we see that his mother alternately enveloped him in her embrace and rejected him while his father (Werner Herzog), a remote and humourless man, punished him for being a curious child. The result of this upbringing is that he loves beauty deeply, but cannot consummate a relationship of any kind. I wouldn’t suggest the film explores the work of Sigmund Freud as such – its somewhat Freudian with regard to the relationship Charles has with his mother – but this isn’t pop-psychology. Cox simply portrays how those deeply buried torments of childhood can be so tortuously twisted when reemerging within the conscious mind. In Charles’s case, his stifled erotic obsession has metamorphosed into a richly cultured and critical appreciation of the arts, rather than the typical behaviour that would be considered deviant. We learn in the film that Charles is sexually impotent, unable to become naturally aroused unless stimulated by the aesthetics of form and beauty, so when we see him sensuously stroking various pieces of art, we realise that he is pleasuring himself mentally. Cox’s direction and dream-like style make it feel normal, beautiful even, until more of Charles’s personality is revealed. Much of the story is open to interpretation – many things are suggested but never confirmed. Alyson Best’s character Lisa is the only one who sees Charles for the decent, loving person he is and is just as much the film’s protagonist as Charles is. The use of music is second to none within the film, from the great operatic excerpts to Charles himself playing the organ. The climax is striking – disturbing and beautiful – and once again open to interpretation. Again, it’s almost dream-like but Norman Kaye’s captivating performance is so good that you can totally believe it all happened. As serious and sensual as the film is, it’s also full of humour. Nothing about it should work as well as it does, all credit to Paul Cox. Charles is essentially a voyeuristic sexual deviant with a possible history of murder but he is sophisticated, refined, caring and everything that is the opposite of society’s vulgarity. It’s a crime this isn’t considered a well-known classic when Fifty Shades of Grey is such a popular and successful novel/film. It’s a mesmerising masterpiece, cinematic gold and a near perfect film.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Dir: Ron Howard

2018

***

At this point of the Star Wars franchise, film number ten no less, I am starting to loose enthusiasm. It turns out I didn’t really want what I thought I did for all these years. Solo isn’t a bad film but it’s not a Star Wars film and when they call it ‘A Star Wars Story’ what they really mean is that it is Star Wars-ish. Not Star Wars enough in my opinion, although Solo is actually at its best when it’s not being Star Warsy. If that doesn’t make any sense to you then I hope the film does, because I left the cinema baffled but not too bothered by it, indeed, after the last few Star Wars films I’m getting used to the feeling. It is now well known that original director Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (of The Lego Movie fame) were kicked off the project by producer Kathleen Kennedy and scriptwriter Lawrence Kasdan for shifting the story off-course. Lord and Miller stated that they believe that they were making a comedy, where Kennedy pointed out that they were really hired to add a comedic touch to the space fantasy. I feel the film could have done with far more comedy but I actually think Lucasfilm made the right decision because the sound of Star Wars: The improvisation comedy sounds cack and I never thought Lord and Miller were the right directors for the job in the first place. Ron Howard is a hit and miss director but he is a friend of Lucas and he did train under the bearded one back in the day. Plus, he had already directed half the cast in previous films, so it’s not as if everyone would need big introductions for the rest of the film and re-shoots, they mostly all new what to expect. The fact remains though that 70% of the film was re-shot and I’m afraid it really shows. The fact that Alden Ehrenreich doesn’t really look like young Harrison Ford never really bothered me, I didn’t see the two Solos as being the same person but I went with it. I liked him very much. Joonas Suotamo did Peter Mayhew proud, Emilia Clarke sparkled as only Emilia Clarke can and Paul Bettany played the likable but dastardly villain rather well. Christian Bale was up for the role of Han's mentor Tobias Beckett, and I would have liked to have seen that version, but Woody Harrelson was fine. My only criticism was that he has played a few too many similar characters in the past and he was clearly loving being in Star Wars – a bit too much. Two of my very favorite characters of the film were Jon Favreau’s multi-limbed alien Rio Durant and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s liberated droid L3-37 but neither had nearly enough screen time. However, the undisputed stand-out performance came from Childish Gambino himself, Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian. Glover met with Billy Dee Williams before filming to go over the character which clearly worked as he basically steals every scene he’s in and lifts the film every time he’s on screen. He is the most Star Warsy thing about the whole film, as only he convinced me he was the Lando Calrissian. It was nice to see Warwick Davis again but even nicer to see him unmasked and with lines this time. It was good to have Anthony Daniels on board too, making him the only actor to star in every single Star Wars film, although this time as a Wookie and not C3-PO. This actually the first Star Wars film not to feature R2-D2 and C3-PO and I have to say, it didn’t feel right but then this is the Star Wars Anthology series and not the core canon – as Kathleen Kennedy put it: "George Lucas was so clear as to how that works. The canon that he created was the Star Wars saga. Right now, Episode VII falls within that canon. The spin-off movies, the Star Wars Anthology series, exist within that vast universe that he created. There is no attempt being made to carry characters (from the standalone films) in and out of the saga episodes. Consequently, from the creative standpoint, it's a road map that George made pretty clear.” After Rouge One however, what she has said no longer rings true. Rouge One was great, it was a darker Star Wars film but it felt every bit as Star Warsy as the original films and I still rate it as being the third best Star Wars film of the lot so far. It worked because it dealt with a separate issue that we knew about but never saw. The only thing we really knew about (and were interested in) from Solo was the part about Han winning the Millennium Falcon from Lando over a game of cards, and as it happens it is the best bit of the film. The rest just didn’t work for me. Han meeting Chewie should have been a great scene too but it was anything but. I would argue that a Lando origin story would have been much better and I would bet my house that Lucasfilm probably think the same right about now. Solo was original canon and should have been left alone. Overall the film had a couple of decent action scenes but nothing that really stands out. The cast is a likable bunch but it wasn’t quite enough to convince me that all this really did happen ten years before the events of A New Hope. I’ve never seen The Clone Wars or have read the novels or comics because I was always led to believe none of it was canon and to be frank, I was never that interested. So when Darth Maul turned up towards the end I was a little surprised. I’m thrilled Ray Park was back (I met him once and had a wonderfully animated conversation with him where he nearly threw me on the floor while showing me some of his Maul moves) but I’m pretty sure he was cut in half at the end of Phantom Menace but apparently in Clone Wars he survived. He supposedly left all that Sith nonsense behind him and, with the aid of brand new robot legs, became a successful overlord of some crime organisation – or something along those lines. Apparently you can see his robot legs in the film but I certainly didn’t and besides, we saw him as a fuzzy hologram and he had a long cloak on. Me and my wife spend the journey home from the cinema trying to work out the timeline, coming to the conclusion that Han Solo was somehow twenty years older than Darth Vader and thus close to fifty years old in A New Hope. It didn’t make sense to me but more unfortunate than that, I don’t think I care anymore. They’ve already ruined Star Trek and it looks as though Star Wars is next. There are elements of Solo that I did enjoy but overall, it’s real problem is that it claims to be a true Star Wars film and it really isn’t. At this point I think I’d actually welcome a Jar jar binks origin story because at least it wouldn’t mess with the story and in all honesty, he isn’t looking so bad in retrospect.

Fanboys

Dir: Kyle Newman

2009

**

Fanboys is a film I really wanted to like. It has plenty of aspects I do like but overall it’s a complete mess and misses all of the targets it sets out to achieve. I’m a Star Wars fan – much like 98% of the planet’s population – but I suppose I couldn’t consider myself a fanboy as such. I’ve got the autographs and had my photo taken with many of the original Star Wars cast but I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what planet Han Solo comes from. I did however get all of the references and nerd jokes and I would argue that the film wouldn’t go over the heads of the mainstream or of casual viewers. The idea is better than the finished product, which is frustrating because with a few tweaks here and there it could have been brilliant. I think the first real problem is that none of the main characters seem like fanboys. The Big Bang Theory had been running for almost two years when Fanboys eventually came out and I dare say I showed it up for everything it got wrong. Neither Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler or Jay Baruchel were convincing as a nerd. Simply liking Star Wars, working in a comic book store, wearing a Rush t-shirt and needing glasses does not automatically make one a nerd or Fanboy. The use of stereotype is a bit tired and is nothing clever or original. The road trip element of the film is cliché-ridden with a mild nerd twist. The casual drug taking, accidental homosexual encounter and the ‘oh, you’re a prostitute – I thought you actually liked me’ scenarios are all lame, boring and at this point should only be attempted if an extra element is added, making it 100% original/different/new. Kristen Bell playing female nerd (ie. everything the Fanboys want in a girl) but not being recognised as a potential girlfriend is also tiresome. The premise of the story is based on the films most clumsy element however. The four friends have supposedly lost touch over the years with best friends Eric and Linus falling out. The two friends are said to have fallen out because for years the pair spoke of going to George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch and breaking in to watch the unreleased episode 1 – Eric decided to ‘give up on the dream’ to work for his father, thus the pair haven’t spoken for two years. The thing is, this idea that is supposedly something the group have spoken about for years, ‘since they were young’ in fact, doesn’t make any sense because the Star Wars film in question didn’t exist when they were young, nor was it really ever on the cards until four years before Fanboys is set. Even then, there would have been no film to break in and watch until maybe a year before. Eric – who has just been given his father’s company – only decides to go with his old friends because Linus is dying of cancer. This never seems like its real and I kept expecting the others to admit it was a ruse to get him to come but this wasn’t the case. In fact the shoddy cancer story – which I find the big problem with the film – was the reason the film took two years to be released and was the subject of much concern. Harvey Weinstein ordered re-shoots after seeing the first cut, deciding that the cancer story just didn’t work. He asked for more raunchy, vulgar humor to be added instead and it was argued that the group could have just got drunk and broke into Skywalker Ranch on a whim. Because all the actors had other work commitments, the re-shoot was delayed by some time and director Kyle Newman was unavailable. The re-shoots were done by Steven Brill who agreed that the original didn’t work. He was pretty rude to would-be fans and soon enough a huge on-line campaign was started, asking for the original cut to be released instead of the new version. It remains the most underwhelming campaign of all time. I agree it didn’t need raunchy or vulgar additions (a few laughs wouldn’t have gone a miss) but the cancer story, in the end, is so badly handled that it should have been left out. In fact all of the back stories and moral dilemmas should have been removed as they were cliché and rubbish. Why can’t fanboys just do fanboy things, because isn’t that what makes them fanboys in the first place? The characters were desperate for some development and none of them were well performed or likable. I don’t think there really is much rivalry between Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans, isn’t that just a stupid idea cooked up by the media, I’m pretty sure you can be both, and many people are. Such a shame really as the references were good and the cameos were amazing (William Shatner, Carre Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Ray Park being the best). I loved the poster too (referencing The 40 Year Old Virgin) and they did well to get Lucas to agree to use the official Star Wars sound effects. My favorite reference in the film was how the security guards at Skywalker Ranch all dressed like the police in THX 1138, something that might have gone over people’s heads but a true treat for the fans. It could have been one of two things – an oddball comedy about four nerds who do something funny and ridiculous (staring four capable and funny actors) or a tender last wish drama. It tried to do both and failed.

The Saragossa Manuscript

Dir: Wojciech Jerzy Has

1965

*****

When Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola (among many top directors) suggest the same film is their favorite, then you really have to sit up and take notice. Wojciech Has’s 1965 classic The Saragossa Manuscript was loved by Greatful Dead front-man Jerry Garcia so much, that that he purchased a print and donated it to Pacific Film Archive, stipulating only that he could screen it there any time he liked. Based on the 1815 novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki, the story collects intertwining stories, all of them set in whole or in part in Spain, with a large and colorful cast of Romani, thieves, inquisitors, a cabbalist, a geometer, the cabbalist's beautiful sister, two Moorish princesses (Emina and Zubeida) and others that the brave, perhaps foolhardy, Walloon Guard Alphonse van Worden meets, imagines or reads about in the Sierra Morena mountains of 18th-century Spain while en route to Madrid. Recounted to the narrator over the course of sixty-six days, the film's stories quickly overshadow van Worden's frame story. The bulk of the stories revolve around the Gypsy chief Avadoro, whose story becomes a frame story itself. Eventually the narrative focus moves again toward van Worden's frame story and a conspiracy involving an underground - or perhaps entirely hallucinated - Muslim society, revealing the connections and correspondences between the hundred or so stories told over the film's sixty-six days. The stories cover a wide range of genres and subjects, including the gothic, the picaresque, the erotic, the historical, the moral and the philosophic; and as a whole, the film reflects Potocki's far-ranging interests, especially his deep fascination with secret societies, the supernatural and oriental cultures. The film's stories-within-stories sometimes reach several levels of depth, and characters and themes - a few prominent themes being honor, disguise, metamorphosis and conspiracy - recur and change shape throughout. Because of its rich and varied interlocking structure, the story echoes favorable comparison to many celebrated literary antecedents such as the ancient BCE Jatakas and Panchatantra as well as the medieval Arabian Nights and Decameron. The film begins beautifully in a deserted house during the Napoleonic Wars. Two officers from opposing sides find a manuscript, which tells the tale of the Spanish officer's grandfather, Alphonso van Worden. Van Worden traveled in the region many years before, being plagued by evil spirits, and meeting such figures as a Qabalist, a sultan and a gypsy, who tell him further stories, and so the story begins. It’s a fantasy heaped in history but with a dream-like surrealism about it. It’s no surprising that the kids of the 1960s were into, as it can be quite trippy at times. It has a dizzying beauty to it that makes you question every aspect of what you are actually watching, like Alejandro Jodorowsky directing an adaptation of a M. C. Escher picture. I mention Jodorowsky and Escher – not just because of their methods of surrealism and repetition, but because of their broad uses of humour. The Saragossa Manuscript is a broad comedy, by the hundredth time the story begins again, the audience knows its part of a subtle joke. It’s a sprawling epic with smaller interlocking mini-narratives, something of a contradiction that somehow works perfectly. It plays on itself brilliantly, it’s aware of its conceit and playful absurdity and it amplifies this more and more as the film goes and to great effect. The direction is superb and the film is always rich in it visuals. The editing too is superb. Zbigniew Cybulski is brilliant as Alfonse Van Worden and he carries much of the film on his shoulders, and it’s probably the only time you’ll ever see the actor without his trademark dark sunglasses. It’s a fascinating surrealist epic that has always been a cult favorite and has enjoyed waves of populism throughout the decades. I would say it is one of the best Polish films ever made which is saying something, as the Polish makes superb films, many that I would consider classics. Like I said though, if the favorite film of Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Jerry Garcia sounds good to you, you will not be disappointed.

Suburbicon

Dir: George Clooney

2017

**

I like the films George Clooney has directed and I adore the Coen Brothers and every actor in Suburbicon – I just didn’t like the film much. The direction is just fine, the performances are strong and the story is good. The cinematography is excellent and the set and costumes are second to none. It’s hard to decipher where it all goes wrong really. Brothers’ Joel and ethan Coen first wrote a draft for Suburbicon back in 1986 just after they made Blood Simple. It remained unmade until George Clooney took interest in it and asked if he could make it in 2005. The Coens’ agreed and suggested they produce. They then sat on it for another decade. During that time, the script developed into two different stories rather than one. The first story – featuring a family who deal with a late-night home invasion – was the original, the second story – featuring the arrival of a black family in a white surburbon community, was based 1957 incident in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in which a black family moved into the previously all-white neighborhood, leading to racial-charged harassment and violence against the family – another idea for a film the Coens had pondered. Both great ideas and both could have worked together if the film had been more about the suburb they were in, rather than about the main story. Always beware of a Coen brothers’ film that the Coen brothers’ haven’t directed. I’m not saying they’re all terrible because they’re not (Crimewave – directed by Sam Raimi – is one of my favorite films of all time) but none of them ever do well, so it’s a warning more to actors than it is audiences. That said, out of Crimewave, The Naked Man, Gambit, Unbroken and Bridge of Spies, only half of them are any good. I actually see a lot of Crimewave in Suburbicon, Crimewave however being a millions times better. I think one of the biggest problems with Suburbicon is that it feels like a poor Coen brothers imitation. The set is amazing and so is the cinematography but the soul of the film is missing. I get that it is suggesting that this golden image most people have of 50s suburbia is false but I think they could have played around with the idea a little more. We have a racist community on one side and murder, fraud, infidelity and pretty much every crime you can think of on the other. It needed to be more spread out to justify the title. The inclusion of a third family with their own problems might have worked better, three neighbours with interlinking secrets and problems in the middle of a would-be perfect suburban paradise. As it is it just feels like there are two good stories being half told. I believe there is a lot more to the true story of the black family who moved to Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1957 and I’m not sure mixing theirs with a fictional story of a family murder is suitable. The problem is that this doesn’t work as a black comedy. There is nothing about the black family’s story that is remotely funny and it never tries to be. This makes for a strange contrast with the other story which, its has to be said, isn’t really that funny. The Coen brothers are masters of black comedy but their usual flare is missing from this script, which is why I would guess they never made it themselves. Julianne Moore, Gary Basaraba and Oscar Isaac know they’re in a Coen brothers film and know how to play it – all three are great. Young Noah Jupe is great too. Matt Damon however looks to be miscast somewhat. He doesn’t do anything wrong as such but I can think of a hundred other actors who would have been better suited to the role. If it were to have been more of a black comedy it should have been more exaggerated. Indeed, this must have been originally written around the same time as Crimewave, and Crimewave is essentially the film this wasn’t and probably why it was never made. It’s the sort of film that looks good in a trailer but the finished article is a let down. It just doesn’t work and it left a bad taste in my mouth. The ball was dropped, hard to say who is at fault but from now on I think the Coens should direct their own scripts and George Clooney should concentrate on being George Clooney again and not the third Coen brother. It's such a shame really, as everything is perfect other than the story and the leading actor.

Ring 0 (AKA Ring 0: Birthday)

Dir: Norio Tsuruta

2000

**

If there is one thing that destroys a horror franchise, it’s the dreaded prequel. Ring was phenomenal, a story already known in Japan, suddenly taking the entire world by storm and changing the horror genre forever. The original story was based on Koji Suzuki’s novel which would be the beginning of a series of stories. The novel had been made into a popular TV film so they knew they had to do one better for the theatrical feature, and that is exactly what they did – to world-wide acclaim. An adaption of he novel’s follow up, Spiral, was ordered immediately but early test audiences gave it the thumbs down and a new sequel was written for Ring 2. It was a strong sequel too but far from Suzuki’s novel. For the third installment it was decided that they should return to Suzuki’s series and so they skipped Spiral and the third novel Loop and went to the forth book in the Ring series that was a collection of three short stories; Coffin in the sky, Lemonheart and Happy Birthday. The book itself was called Birthday, as is the film, but the plot deals entirely with the Lemonheart story that looks into a particular point in Sadako’s life, before she became a television-dwelling ghost. It’s great they went back to Suzuki’s work but I find that the worst thing you can do with a horror icon, is to tell its background story and somehow justify its behavior. Sadako is terrifying in Ring and in Ring 2 but in Ring 0: Birthday, she’s just a girl with long hair and not in the least bit scary. It is set thirty years before the events of Ring – although it doesn’t look anything like the 1960s. We follow Akiko Miyaji, a reporter whose fiancé and fellow reporter was killed during Shizuko Yamamura's publicized ESP demonstration years before. She begins the film by interviewing Sudo, an elementary school principal and a former teacher of Shizuko's daughter, Sadako, in an attempt to gain information and evidence that Sadako inherited her mother's nensha powers (also known as Thoughtography or projected thermography, psychic photography and nengraphy, the ability to burn images from one's mind onto surfaces such as photographic film by psychic means). Meanwhile, a 19-year-old Sadako (played by Yukie Nakama who auditioned for the part after being constantly teased by friends that she looked like the character since the first Ring film had come out) joins an acting troupe as an understudy as a form of therapy suggested by her doctor to rid her of her nightmares. Sadako has natural beauty and charisma for the play, infuriating her senior, Aiko Hazuki, whose relationship with the troupe director, Yusaku Shigemori, sours due to the latter's newfound favour for the young trainee. Aiko is later found murdered by a figure in white, thus Sadako takes her place for the upcoming play as the lead character. Sadako attracts and reciprocates the attention of the troupe sound director, Hiroshi Toyama, much to the disappointment of costume designer and Toyama's girlfriend, Etsuko Tachihara. While praised by Shigemori and Toyama, other troupe members grow to distrust and fear her, as they suspect that she is the one who caused Aiko's death and other supernatural occurrences, including strange dreams pertaining to a well and an apparition of a girl in white with long hair very similar to Sadako. At this point I really wanted them all to have television sets. Meanwhile, Akiko is told by Sudo that though initially pleasant, Shizuko descended to madness before her suicide after moving in with Dr. Heihachiro Ikuma, and that Sudo often heard strange childlike noises in the attic. Etsuko, wanting to discover Sadako's origins, contacts Sadako's psychiatrist, but he refuses to answer and throws away Sadako's résumé; the résumé is taken by Akiko's assistant, allowing him and Akiko to locate Sadako in the troupe. Once they find her they begin to photograph her, only for her to break their camera telekinetically. The pair later discover that all photographs contain ghostly faces and a girl with long hair, confirming Akiko's suspicion of the existence of two Sadakos. Shigemori, having been obsessed with Sadako, says that he knows of her dark past and tells that he will kill her if she tries to kill him so they could be together. However, Toyama interrupts the process and Shigemori is killed through a cut that also wounds Toyama. However, Sadako manages to heal him just by touching him and later is able to make a disabled man regain his ability to walk. The two confess their love for each other and promise to leave the troupe and live together after finishing their last play. The play is a disaster as Sadako, influenced by recordings of her mother's demonstration played by Etsuko, sees visions of her mother and other reporters during the demonstration and kills her psychiatrist. The troupe members, except Toyama, beat her to death, though is informed by Akiko that their job is not yet done. They visit Ikuma who tells them that Sadako, once a single individual, split into two beings resembling each of her parents; the malevolent one who resembled her unknown father is kept from growing by Ikuma in the attic. Before they can kill it, both Sadakos merge with each other and escape with Toyama. Then, in the somewhat anti-climactic finale, the combined Sadako goes on a killing spree. It is as exciting as the film gets but it arrives too little too late for real horror fans. The horror is missing and the terror is non-existent. The well comes into play again but I wouldn’t say it ties up the story particularly well and the original Ring is still far superior. There is little intensity and absolutely no payoff. It’s actually rather boring, which is probably why we haven’t seen adaptations of any of the other novels in the Ring series. The Grudge got it right and also knew when to call it a day, such a shame after such a great first chapter.

Ring 2
Dir: Hideo Nakata
1999
****
Ring was huge upon its release in 1999 – not only in Japan but around the world. Koji Suzuki’s novel was well known in Japan and Ring – the first in his Ring series – had already been adapted for television. As the first was so popular, well known and so hotly anticipated, it was decided that Suzuki’s second novel – Rasen (Spiral) – should be adapted back to back with Ring. Unfortunately, audiences hated it, so the makers of Ring decided to quickly write a totally new follow up story that has nothing to do with Suzuki’s series and simply called it Ring 2. It’s shame in many respects as it would be great to see a series of films – possibly from different directors – following the other books in the series; Loop, Birthday, S and Tide but rather surprisingly, Ring 2 is a very strong film in its own right. I would call it more of an eerie mystery rather than a horror and I can’t say I was as scared as I was during the first, but I was far more intrigued by the bigger story. The film picks up a weeks after the events of the first. After the body of Sadako Yamamura is retrieved from the well, her uncle Takaishi is summoned by police to identify her. Detective Omuta explains to Takaishi that forensics concluded Sadako may have survived in the well for thirty years. Forensics experts reconstruct her body, giving it to Takaishi, who gives his niece a burial at sea, hoping to be free from the guilt he has carried since her mother Shizuko committed suicide because of his actions. The police search for Reiko Asakawa following the sudden death of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama and her father Koichi a week later. Mai Takano, Ryuji’s university assistant, investigates his death, visiting Reiko’s news office where her colleague Okazaki joins Mai in her search for answers. They find a burnt out videotape in Reiko’s apartment, Mai sensing Reiko’s father died the same way as Ryuji. Investigating the urban legend of the cursed videotape, Okazaki meets a high school student Kanae Sawaguchi, who gives him a copy of the tape but admits she watched it herself. She begs Okazaki to watch the tape before the week is up, but he chickens out and hides his copy in his desk drawer at work. Mai and Okazaki go to a mental hospital to speak to Masami Kurahashi, a friend of Reiko’s niece Tomoko, but learn she is both mute and has a phobia of televisions, having witnessed Tomoko’s death. They meet Doctor Oisho Kawajiri, Masami’s doctor, and a paranormal researcher, who is trying to expel the psychic energy within Masami through experimentation. Mai steps out for some air, encountering Masami, whose presence causes Sadako to materialise on a television and terrify the patients. Mai finds Reiko’s son Yoichi alone in a shopping centre. Mai learns Yoichi has been mute since his father and grandfather’s deaths and his psychic abilities intensified. Returning to the hospital, Mai, Okazaki, and Detective Omuta observe Kawajiri’s experiment to exorcise the psychic energy from Masami by projecting her mental imagery onto a blank tape. However, it causes the cursed videotape’s imagery to appear and the horror of the first film begins all over again. You have to wait a long time for the scares – which aren’t terrifying it must be said – but the anticipation is enough. There are a couple of stand-out scenes that I absolutely love; one including disappearing mirrors and the other that takes place in a well. The videotape scenes are much better than the first also and they wisely try out new ideas rather than repeat anything. There is something refreshingly forensic about the sequel, making it a great mystery full of suspense and intrigue. The new and returning actors are all great and I also really loved the music. I personally think that Hideo Nakata’s direction in the second film is far greater than in the first, although I think I will always prefer the original film. Most horror franchises stumble in the second chapter, Ring however switches things around and produces something unexpected and solid.

Ring (Rungu)

Dir: Hideo Nakata

1998

*****

It’s fair to say that director Hideo Nakata changed the world of horror dramatically when he released his 1998 adaption of Kôji Suzuki’s novel Ring. The impact of the film was huge but its origins are easy to spot. The themes deal with folk-tale devils and simply mixes mythology within a contemporary situation. Suzuki was inspired by two things; the story of Chizuko Mifune 1982’s Poltergeist (although he clearly saw David Cronenberg's Videodrome)  Mifune was born in 1886 in Kumamoto Prefecture and was rumored to have the gift of foresight. After a demonstration in 1910, she was proclaimed a charlatan and committed suicide a year later by ingesting poison. It is essentially Mifune’s ghost that our protagonists are being haunted by. The story begins with two teenagers, Masami and Tomoko, who talk about a videotape recorded by a boy in Izu which is fabled to bear a curse that kills the viewer seven days after watching. Tomoko reveals that a week ago, she and three of her friends watched a weird tape and received a call after watching. Tomoko goes downstairs and witnesses her TV turn on by itself. She later hears startling noises and turns around, only to be killed by an unseen force. It’s a classic horror opener, highlighted by the film Scream that was released two years previous and every bit as compelling. We then follow Reiko Asakawa, a reporter investigating the popularity of the video curse who discovers that it was her niece Tomoko, along with her three other friends, who mysteriously died at the same time, on the same night, with their faces twisted in fear. She also discovers that Masami became insane from witnessing Tomoko's death and is institutionalised in a mental hospital. After stumbling upon Tomoko's photos from the past week, Reiko finds that the four teenagers stayed in a rental cabin in Izu. It all gets a bit ‘Evil Dead’ from there on in but with a certain X-Files vibe. It’s quite a slow-building film with many gaps between horror but it has an eerie quality that influenced many horror films that followed. However, the now infamous scene whereby the film’s evil spirit breaks down the wall between recording and reality is iconic. Sure, Pennywise did it eight year before to great effect and it has happened elsewhere in sci-fi many time over, but somehow Nakata made it his own and the most terrifying it had been. Many have speculated was Ring is about, with a majority agreeing that it is an exploration of contemporary anxieties, technology being the method in which the repressed past reasserts itself. It’s tradition vs technology, old Japan fighting against new. Others have suggested that it is about ambivalence about motherhood and the dangers that come from it – again, a bit of old world thinking. I think its just a neat idea, and not really original. The 90s saw the rise of home video to the high of its success. What is scarier than watching a video come to life and kill you while you are yourself watching a similarly themed video. It’s like that scene in Arachnophobia when the spider comes out of the popcorn – I’ve never heard screams like that come from a cinema, a brilliant and simple move. It is Ring’s simplicity that make it so clever, indeed, it was simplicity that saw a resurgence in modern horror rather than technology – technology making things simpler. The special effects are very simple too, Nakata being the first to develop the now overused method of filming backwards and forwarding the tapes during the editing process. I also think the found footage horror sub-genre owe a great deal to Ring. I’m not too sure what is so scary about long-haired Japanese women and pale Japanese boys that have seen them appear time and time again in such horror movies but somehow they become more frightening the more we see them. I found Hideo Nakata's Dark Water to be a more intriguing film and Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge far more terrifying but you have to give credit Ring for upping the game.

Trouble Every Day

Dir: Claire Denis

2001

****

Claire Denis isn’t the first filmmaker you might associate with the vampire/cannibalism horror sub-genre but she just so happens to have made one of the best films in the category. That said, 2001’s Trouble Every Day isn’t quite a vampire film or a film about cannibalism. It is a horror but not in the classical sense. It’s a strange one and a bit of a slow-burner but worth the wait in my opinion. I love Vincent Gallo, even though he is frightening weirdo, he’s perfectly cast in many respects. It follows Gallo who plays Doctor Shane Brown and wife June (Tricia Vessey) as they travel to Paris on holiday. June believes it is their honeymoon but Shane has an ulterior motive to track down an old friend – Dr. Léo Sémeneau (played by Alex Descas), a neuroscientist and his wife, Coré, whom he once was obsessed with. It seems his recent marrage to June has triggered something and, as well as catching up with his old friend, he feels drawn to Coré (played by the stunning Béatrice Dalle). Nothing is really explained, we know little about any of the characters and the audience is left to fill in many of the blanks but if you give it your full attention, you will become transfixed by it. I generally hate existential films but this one held my attention because as slow as the story was, there is something uniquely watchable about both Gallo and Dalle. We learn that Léo is now working as a General practitioner to keep a low profile. He locks Coré up in their house every day due to her ‘condition’ – something that is never explained until we see her escape and violently murder some men. It seems to be a regular occurrence, with many escape attempts and many murders. To protect her, Léo buries the bodies himself. It takes a while for the film to kick in, it’s all very mysterious and unpredictable, so when two burglars break into Leo’s home and find Coré locked up and alone – leading to their very gory deaths, following a raunchy sex scene – you could be forgiven for giving up on the film. Personally it was a twist to embrace, it came from out of know where and got the story going but I can see why a few would ask more from the time they had already invested. Coré’s condition is never explained, it’s not really vampirism but it could be included in the genre, and the same could be said for cannibalism but personally I see her condition being more symbolic. I think there is an exploration of ownership, of addiction and of obsession. It’s a raw venture and its existential nature won’t be to everyone’s taste but for me it is a rare example of it actually working for the benefit of the story. Shane arrives at the house just as Coré has murdered the two intruders. She is covered in blood and emotionless. She sets the house on fire but her intentions are unknown, its impossible to tell whether she is remorseful, suicidal or mad. However, upon seeing him, she becomes enraged and desperately tries to bite him until he manages to overpower and strangle her, leaving her to burn with the house. Leo arrives just in time to watch her burn. The relationships between the characters is unspoken and all the more fascinating because of it. The most revealing part of the film is also it’s most puzzling moment. As later that day, Shane becomes strange and distant, stopping in the middle of sex with his wife and finishing by masturbating, running away from her and adopting a puppy from a nearby pet shop. Finally he returns to the hotel where he has sex with a maid, eventually biting her to death in her nether-regions. I think it can all be interpreted in many different ways but personally I think it is making comment on obsession - self-obsessed to be specific and the various versions there are of betrayal related to pretty much everything we do. Self-victimization. I could be wrong though. Either way, it is the thinking persons horror, not easy to watch but rewarding if you let it.

The Disaster Artist

Dir: James Franco

2017

****

The Disaster Artist is a great concept and a very unique tribute of sorts to one of the worst films ever made. Tommy Wiseau's 2003 TheRoom is now infamous in its awfulness and has amassed a huge cult following – mainly thanks to Wiseau's outlandish acting, the film’s bizarre narrative and one of the oddest scripts ever written. The film is based on Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell's non-fiction book of the same name that chronicles the making of The Room – Sestero being one of the film’s leading actors, and journalist Bissell writing a few pieces about the film when it was first released. James Franco was a fan of the film and decided to make the book into a film as soon as he read it, casting himself as Tommy Wiseau and his brother Dave Franco as Greg Sestero. It’s only really when you know the story behind the film that you begin to realise what the film is about and how it all came together. James Franco is actually mentioned in the book and he and Wiseau are passionate about the work of James Dean. Wiseau actually said years before The Disaster Artist was an idea that if a film were ever made about him he’d either want Johnny Depp or James Franco to play him, Franco’s performance as James Dean in 2002’s Sonny being one of his favorites and an inspiration to make his own film. Both Wiseau and Greg Sestero gave the film their blessing, even though it doesn’t quite tell the real story and only shows half of what really happened. Weirdly, it actually makes a few things up – such as Sestero missing out on a chance to star in Malcolm in the Middle – which never actually happened. What it does do well however is address the bigger questions and explores The Room’s greatest hits – all those bizarre scenes that made the film a cult hit in the first place. Some of the frame for frame re-shoots are near perfect copies and in this film he get the joy of seeing the reactions of those who were behind the camera at the time. This is the film at its best. For example, the awkward sex scene between Wiseau’s Johnny and Juliette Danielle’s Lisa is best remembered for his leathery backside bobbing up and down. It is unpleasant and questionable when you first watch it. It’s well known now that he insisted upon it, suggesting that his ass was going to sell the film but what viewers might not have known is that the crew kicked-off when it happened and many an angry word was shouted. It was a treat watching each actor in turn ask why their characters were saying the things they were and why the film suddenly stops following their story-lines. Wiseau had money but he didn’t have a clue, so as a crew member you did as you were told or you left. When the paychecks actually cleared, the crew stayed on, even when the forty-day shoot took the best part of a year. It was fascinating to learn that one of the film’s most infamous scenes, that included the immortal lines: “I did not hit her, it’s not true! It’s Bullshit! I did not hit her. I did not…… Oh, hi Mark.”, took around fifty takes to get right because Wiseau couldn’t remember the lines – even though he wrote them. I very much doubt Seth Rogen looks or sounds anything like scriptwriter and eventual uncredited director Sandy Schklair but there is something golden about hearing him mumble all the questions that audiences had been asking themselves all these years. It is odd for a film to recount the making of a film that wasn’t made that long ago when all the main players are still around. I would say that none of them resembled the original actors, although they got all the lines right and sounded a bit like them. It didn’t matter too much though, as this film really only had to get Wiseau right. I personally wouldn’t have cast James Franco, he would have been one of the last actors to have crossed my mind, but he does an amazing job of it. He looks and sounds as close to Wiseau as you could possibly get and the film really is all about him and his performance. It’s nice to see a film with two brothers in the main roles but it was a bit tough on Dave really, as his character isn’t half as interesting as Wiseau. The comedy is handled well and in all honesty the film is clearly a heartfelt tribute to The Room and all involved are obviously big fans. I still think the parts of the real story that they changed were unnecessarily interfered with and the fake interviews with J. J. Abrams, Lizzy Caplan, Kristen Bell, Keegan-Michael Key, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Angelyne, Kevin Smith and Ike Barinholtz brought nothing to the film other than false interest in the films promotion but I get it, they were filming in LA, why not take advantage. Even though it didn’t really happen, I also liked the Bryan Cranston scene, if only to see him as Malcolm’s dad again. I think one’s interest in this film really will depend on whether you have seen The Room and/or understand how the ‘So bad its good’ cult phenomena works and/or are a believer. It’s a great character piece though and a hilarious true-ish story.