The Return of the British Rom-Com: ‘I Give It a Year’ Trailer

UK Release Date: 8th February 2013

Stars: Dan Mazer (director), Anna Faris, Rose Byrne, Simon Baker, Rafe Spall, Minnie Driver, Jason Flemyng, Olivia Colman, Stephen Merchant.

Plot: A look at the trials and tribulations of a pair of newlyweds during their first year as a married couple.

There aren’t many good British rom-coms. That’s the truth of the matter; the majority of them follow the same formula and recycle the same jokes over and over again. So it is great that I Give It a Year seems to be something fresh and, even better, it actually has a funny trailer. And a funny trailer is something that a lot of rom-coms lack.

The cast looks exciting, although there aren’t many high profile names they are taken from some great television shows: The Mentalist, Peep Show, Extras. It’s great to see Jason Flemyng here too! From the trailer it looks like every single character is going to inject some humour into the story which is fantastic.

A lot of good jokes are in the trailer and hopefully there will be more in the film. I don’t think British cinema can take another romantic comedy flop.

Ruby Sparks Trailer – Most Exciting Comedy for a Long Time!

UK Release Date: 12th October 2012.

Stars: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris (directors), Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Elliott Gould, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Chris Messina.

Plot: A novelist struggling with writer’s block finds romance in a most unusual way: by creating a female character he thinks will love him, then willing her into existence.

This trailer had me excited from the very beginning as it features someone who I am very keen to see more of and that is Paul Dano, a very under rated part of the tripod from The Girl Next Door. Ruby Sparks sees him remain in the romantic comedy world and it looks as though this will have just as much fun as The Girl Next Door and could even, dare I say it, be better.

I just think that even in the trailer Ruby Sparks looks funny, it has some real comedy moments and parts that made me laugh out loud: a good sign for a trailer. Hopefully the full length feature will include even more of these moments!

The story is very creative and inventive with a lot of potential for character growth and comedy moments. With a cast that includes several big names and a soundtrack that combines Vampire Weekend and Kaiser Chiefs you have to believe that this is going to be a hit with teenagers and young adults on both sides of the Atlantic. I certainly hope so, I can’t put into words how much I like the trailer, it seems almost perfect! Hopefully you’ll see what I mean when you watch it for yourself.

 

Why I Love… The Girl Next Door

Obviously, I mean the film… I am not about to randomly profess my love on the internet for some girl who lives on my street, that would be stupid. But The Girl Next Door is one of my favourite films and has been ever since the first time I saw it back in 2004. The Girl Next Door is a romantic comedy aimed at a male teenage audience and that genre of film doesn’t usually go down well with the target audience so it has to be something that will make them watch it so what’s the plot? Pretty much every stereotypical teenage boy’s fantasy: a high school boy starts dating a girl only to find out that she is, in fact, a porn star. Brilliant!

All the characters are really well thought out (if not a little stereotypical) but all of them seem to have layers and layers of character if you look for it in the right place. The casting really does go a long way in this film as well because you can’t imagine anyone else in any of the roles. Let’s start with the three high school friends: Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch), Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz ‘with a k’ (Paul Dano). These three characters encapsulate different three different parts of a teenage boy’s personality. Matthew is the one who is awkwardly and hopelessly romantic who falls in love, but he is also lost in his life and feels that he needs to really find out who he is; Eli is the one who just seems incredibly horny every second of every day and is obsessed with women and pornography; Klitz is the shy, reserved, quiet one who just sort of goes along with the ride rather begrudgingly and together their friendship is absolutely fantastic!

Elisha Cuthbert is Danielle the pornstar and as well as being really attractive Cuthbert really plays on the innocence of her character and her longing to be something more, whilst Timothy Olyphant as Kelly is probably one of my favourite movie villains of all time, he is hilarious! I like the fact his character’s name is Kelly; Kelly’s a girl’s name!

The Girl Next Door is one of the funniest films I have ever seen and I have watched it plenty of times (maybe more than any other film now that I think about it) but it still manages to make me laugh with every joke. There is great verbal humour and physical and Timothy Olyphant’s aggressiveness to the jocks is really funny. There are some absolutely fantastic lines, mainly from Eli, including “take her to a motel and bang her like a beast!”, “I just wanna bang hot chicks!” and the outrageous “I just gotta f**k something!”.  Eli’s phone conversation with Matthew whilst Matthew (rather really pervertedly) watches Danielle get undressed is top comedy too, as well as Matthew’s reaction.

The romantic element to the story holds it’s own against the comedy and it is really wonderful to watch the relationship grown between Matthew and Danielle. They are so perfect for each other; Danielle will push Matthew to be the person he wants to be and Matthew is her escape to the real world and a better life, keeping her on the right track. You can really feel for their relationship as they go through the ups and the downs together.

The end is particularly satisfying. I am a big fan of character development and I think that the majority of characters have completed a full arc in the entirety of the film: Matthew goes off to DC, taking Danielle with him, Eli has become a famous director thanks to the sex education video the group made, Klitz is pretty much the biggest thing in town (that’s a little pun you’ll get if you remember the end of the film) and I really like Kelly’s ending. Kelly on set making the porn movies he loves to receive a box of cigars from Matthew with the famous quote from the film “the juice was worth the squeeze”.

I love The Girl Next Door and everybody else should too!

Bandslam (2009) Review

Bandslam is an American musical romantic comedy set in a high school. The film centres around Will, a teenager with an unhealthy musical obsession with David Bowie, and his move to a new school. Here, he meets Charlotte and the pair form an unlikely bond and friendship through their appreciation of music. Together they assemble a like-minded group of misfits to form a rock band and compete in a battle of the bands competition names Bandslam.

In the main role of Will is Gaelen Connell and this was his first main part. It’s a part that he isn’t bad in but he doesn’t actually do anything all that good either and is outshone by other members of the cast. Aly Michalka and Vanessa Hudgens play the two love interests and were both praised for their performances upon original release. This surprised me as I didn’t think either of them were particularly fantastic although Hudgens did pull off her character pretty well and Michalka manages to convey the two sides of her character Charlotte’ personality very well. Lisa Kudrow puts in a humorous performance as Will’s caring mother but has limited screen time.

It would be pretty easy to sit there and nit pick what is wrong with Bandslam. The movie has a strange quality in that it seems to move at a pretty fast pace with nothing of note actually taking place throughout many of the scenes; the character’s have very little to them for the first three quarters of the film and we are left in a position where we don’t really care what actually happens to them because we don’t know anything about them. The relationships between Will and both Charlotte (Michalka) and Sa5m (Hudgens) seem to come from nowhere and have absolutely no substance to them, although as the movie progresses the relationships do get more attention and become more personal which is a good point.

For a comedy, Bandslam is not very funny and has very very little laugh out loud moments. Other than a brilliant scene showcasing Will and Sa5m’s first kiss there are no other real funny moments in the film, which is a shame because if every scene was of the same quality as this one Bandslam would have had some serious potential. However, the musical aspects of the film are fantastic and the songs written specifically for Bandlsam are actually really good and really well written. They provide great story telling devices and provide further, much needed insight to the characters.

Thankfully, despite a poor start Bandslam has a pretty good ending which manages to save itself from being a poor film all round. The final half an hour finally gives us some back story of the characters and actually makes them seem like real people which we could have done with a lot sooner. The climatic battle of the bands scenes are okay but nothing to really shout about but a great little cameo from Will’s idol David Bowie at the end really concludes the film in a nice way.

Bandslam is by no means a classic but if you have nothing else to do one day it might be worth a watch. It’s an all round enjoyable film that provides light relief without ever challenging anything.

My Rating: 6/10

Why I Love… (500) Days of Summer

“This is not a love story, this is a story about love” – even the tagline for this film is brilliant!

(500) Days of Summer is a romantic comedy which chronicles the story of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the 500 days that it takes him to meet Summer (Zooey Deschanel), have a relationship with her and then deal with the heartbreak that she causes him.

There are plenty of reasons why I love this film and it is definitely one of my favourites of all time. Firstly, the basic premise of the film is great. It takes the usual rom-com formula of boy meets girl, girl falls in love, boy doesn’t want her and then the girl wins the boy over and flips it completely on its head: boy meets girl, boy falls in love, and girl breaks his heart. It’s not a happy story for the majority but it works.

The artistic direction of the film is second to none and credit has to go to Marc Webb for that.. Watching (500) Days of Summer, the colour of blue comes through a lot and this is done in order to make Zooey Deschanel’s eyes stand out which they do and make her come across as even more beautiful than she is, which is important for the story. The film, visually is very pleasing and easy on the eyes.

The soundtrack for (500) Days of Summer is undeniably great. It features songs from classic English band The Smiths, established rock band Black Lips, Regina Spektor and relatively new indie bands Mumm-Ra and Temper Trap.  It’s a soundtrack that combines a lot of genres of music and they really help to tell the story.

(500) Days of Summer is a piece of incredible writing. It follows a non-linear structure and this adds to the humour as well as the story. The dialogue is real and the comedy is really well written, with physical and verbal comedy being used and the non-linear story structure sometimes makes things seem funnier than they would otherwise.

The cast and characters. These two factors come as one because with a different cast the real character of Tom and Summer may not have come through as well as it does here. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of my favourite actors and everything he does is gold in my eyes. Here though, he puts in a top notch performance and breathes life into Tom Hansen. I’m not sure whether this is a compliment to him or not but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is someone you can buy as falling in love easily and having his heart broken (although this might come from first seeing him in 10 Things I Hate About You). Tom is incredibly well written and I think that a lot of people can empathise with his position; you fall in love with someone, think everything is going well and then have your heart broken by that person who you would have given everything for. I think this again comes from the writing as Scott Neustadter, co-writer of the film, based the story on one of his own love experiences.

Summer, I guess, is the villain of the piece. She is this fun loving girl who our hero, Tom, falls in love with and then stamps on his heart. She makes me angry all the time and I hate her more and more with each watch. Zooey Deschanel brings a certain innocence to the role and plays her superbly in a way that almost make her motives and feelings seem true. I guess, if you try really hard (which I don’t want to do) you can see Summer’s side of the story; she told Tom up front she didn’t want to get serious and he agreed with that, technically she did nothing wrong. But I still hate her.

The ending. Both characters have a happy ending, just not together, which is really nice. The film obviously places bigger importance on Tom’s happy ending but it is good to see that Summer was happy too. Maybe later on she got divorced and realised she never should have dumped Tom but who knows. Luckily, Tom meets another woman and we can assume that he makes it work with her. I know the ending splits a lot of people but I thought that naming the new girl Autumn was a stroke of genius.

(500) Days of Summer is one of my favourite films of all time. It tells a real story of love, that nothing ever runs smoothly and that just because you lose one person that you loved you can still find happiness. I can watch it over and over again and not get bored. I recommend it as highly as recommendations can get. Seriously, watch it! And if you have already seen it, re-watch it!

Chris Evans – Action Man

Chris Evans is probably one of my favourite actors at the minute, not necessarily because he is a brilliant actor because he is far from the best, but he brings with him to every role a huge amount of enthusiasm and fun which helps the audience no end. I have never seen him put in a bad performance in a film and he is fast becoming one of the go to guys for an action film in Hollywood.

Evans made his action debut in 2000 and has since gone on to appear in over twenty films to date. After making his film debut in The Newcomers, Chris Evans was given a starring role on television series Opposite Sex, alongside Milo Ventimiglia. The show ran for just one series.

After the series ended Evans appeared in comedy Not Another Teen Movie. Once he was finished filming that he began to work on a couple more films: The Perfect Score and Cellular, both of which were released in 2004. Cellular, in my opinion, was a great action film, it was fast paced, it had a great cast pitching Chris Evans against action heavyweight Jason Statham. This is one of my favourite performances from Evans as he manages to combine humour and action greatly!

Evans 'flames on' for Fantastic Four.

In 2005, Evans starred in two independent films. The first being Fierce People and the second being London, which saw Evans reunite with Statham. It was also in 2005 when Chris Evans received mainstream attention. It could have come in a better film but anyway, Evans starred as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four film. Yes, the film was awful, yes, the characters were ruined, all except for Evans’ Johnny Storm who was the highlight of the film for fans of the comic book and the movies alike. Evans showed once again that he is charming, witty and a great pick for an action film with his performance.

The Human Torch was a role he took up again in the sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (a movie that managed to be even worse than the train wreck of the original film). 2007 was also the year that Evans made his debut in voice acting providing the voice of Casey Jones in the CGI film TMNT. The Nanny Diaries and Battle for Terra, Evans providing the voice once more in the latter, also came out this year, but it was his other film of 2007 that really caught my attention.

Evans plays level-headed engineer Mace in Sunshine.

Sunshine. Danny Boyle’s sci-fi film about a group of astronauts sent to re-ignite the dying sun taking place fifty years in the future. Chris Evans starred alongside Danny Boyle favourite Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne and Mark Strong. Sunshine was not a commercial success but it was critically and rightly so; this is one of the best sci-fi films I have probably ever seen, I really enjoyed it and Chris Evans’ character, Mace, was in fact really good.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond followed before Evans returned to the action genre once more for Street Kings; a film that had a lot of noteworthy names in its cast (Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie for example) but really failed to deliver on all fronts. Then Evans went on to Push, another sci-fi/action film where he had superpowers.

Chris Evans took up comic book movie roles twice more when he appeared in The Losers and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. With the latter, despite only having a small part Evans put in a humorous performance and served the film well. Recently he starred in rom-com What’s Your Number? alongside Anna Faris before taking on his biggest project to date.

Chris Evans as the iconic hero Captain America.

Chris Evans became Captain America for Marvel’s The First Avenger. He played the part of Steve Rogers and at first people had their doubts because he had been in a Marvel film before or he wasn’t big enough to play the super soldier. But Evans soon put those doubts to rest as he showed off his new bulked up figure in the war/superhero film and proved to be a success.

The role of Captain America is one that Evans will of course be reprising in this summer’s sure fire hit, The Avengers and the release date for Captain America 2 has been confirmed. Evans really became Steve Rogers, he played the character superbly and brought to the role the same commitment and enthusiasm that he has brought to every role in his career.

Chris Evans is a fine actor and in interviews he always comes across as the nice guy. He definitely deserves more attention in movies as he has shown his versatility, starring in action, sci-fi, dramas, comedies and rom-coms. Sure, he has some bad films in his past but there are some real gems in there too. What a guy.

‘The Five Year Engagement’ Trailer

UK Release Date: 27th April 2012.

The Five Year Engagement is Judd Apatow’s latest production. It has been co-written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller who co-wrote The Muppets, with Stoller also directing this time round.

The Five Year Engagement is a romantic comedy following Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) as their relationship becomes strained from the continued delays to their wedding once they have gotten engaged.

The trailer offers a few laughs here and there. Female audiences might find Emily Blunt’s attempts at quirky comedy to be funnier than I did but I can see that getting annoying if it continues throughout the film.

But is there really any point in going to see this film? The trailer tells you the whole story in less than three minutes. So, after this, it will be difficult for the movie to actually have any unpredictability factor about it at all.

‘This Means War’ – A Review.

***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***

Film makers have always wondered how they could get men to go and see a rom-com without being forced by their partner, the solution they came up with? Cast Bane and Captain Kirk in the leading roles. And, luckily for them and for audiences everywhere, it is a right little treat.

Directed by McG (executive producer of hit TV shows Supernatural and Chuck; director of Terminator Salvation and the Charlie’s Angels films) This Means War is a ‘brom-com’ about two of the best CIA agents who put their friendship to the test when they discover they are dating the same woman.

Reese Witherspoon is Lauren, the woman at the centre of the exploits. When her friend signs her up to a dating website Tuck (Tom Hardy) finds her and asks her out on a date, then after the date she bumps into FDR (Chris Pine) whose persistence, after a rocky start, eventually persuades her to date him too. When the agents find out they are dating the same woman they put down ground rules, soon to be broken, and begin spying on (and sabotaging) each other’s dates with Lauren. All this whilst also trying to catch Heinrich, an international criminal.

Witherspoon’s character is important to the story but, in my opinion, was not likeable as a character. At the start I just found her to be annoying and at the end I was still annoyed by her, especially when she tried to take the moral high ground over FDR and Tuck even though she had been dating the both of them behind each other’s backs.

Tom Hardy’s performance was a calm, understated one, slightly outshone by Chris Pine, but he put in a good performance nonetheless and was believable as a character. You felt his feelings for Lauren but more importantly you felt his friendship with FDR and his love for FDR also. The friendship between the two male leads was vital for this film to work and it was believable down to every single factor.

 

Chris Pine is the real star of This Means War though. He is doing what he does best here, he plays cocky agent FDR who has a real eye for the ladies and, in his own words, is an ‘expert’ with them. Pine’s performance is also the funniest of the three and hopefully he will be in more comedy films throughout his career, if he has enough time away from captaining the USS Enterprise. FDR’s character arc is easily charted throughout the film too and he shows real growth by the end of the movie.

There are plenty of laughs and the film is thoroughly enjoyable. The character’s interactions between the two men are always pretty funny, especially the little ‘relationship-esque’ bickering and FDR constantly calling Tuck when he hasn’t heard from him for over an hour. This Means War is also clever too as one of the very first lines in the film ends up being very important as it foreshadows how they are eventually found by Heinrich.

This Means War provides a lot of enjoyment and is well worth a watch. The real love story isn’t between Lauren and the two agents, but between the two agents themselves: Tuck and FDR. Their friendship is what makes this film work and the fact that they care so much about each other allows the audience to care for them just as much. It will make you laugh a lot and give you some good fight scenes at the same time.

My Rating: 7/10.

The Devolution of Adam Sandler

Seriously Adam, what is going on?!

Adam Sandler’s career infuriates me. He made a name for himself in the world of comedy during the early 1990s thanks to his several appearances on Saturday Night Live and then made the journey to become a big movie star. During the late 90s and the early 2000s he was one of the funniest men working in film and his films were always (okay, most of the time) a treat and well worth a laugh or two. Then something happened. I don’t think anyone quite knows what happened, or even if Sandler himself knows, but his films turned terrible.

After impressing with his writing on Saturday Night Live, Adam Sandler was given the chance to perform on the show. He did so and became famous for his amusing songs that he would write, ‘The Chanukah Song’ being one of his best.

Sandler made the leap into films in the mid 90s and for the rest of the decade continues to be funny. Films such as Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy and The Waterboy made Sandler a legend among comedy fans. His films were funny, they were worth seeing and they were something that you could laugh about with your friends after watching. These ones still are.

Then the turn of the century came and Adam Sandler continued to make movies. Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Anger Management and even 50 First Dates are all good films and worth watching for a laugh. And Sandler impressed everyone in 2002 when he took the lead in romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love.

For a couple of years Adam Sandler left the mainstream comedy circuit and made sports film The Longest Yard (among his best films in my opinion, not for Sandler’s performance in particular, just as a film on the whole) and he made Click. Click was based in comedy but it was a dramatic performance from Sandler that was worth noting; it was a different performance to his other comedy films and it was very very good.

So far, so good.

Then 2007 came and something absolutely terrible hit cinemas and this is what I have pinpointed as the turning point in Adam Sandler’s career: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. It is a rubbish film. Nothing more needs saying. But then Sandler went on to do a ridiculous role in You Don’t Mess With the Zohan in which he played an Israeli counter-terrorist commando who fakes his own death to pursue his real dream of a career in hairdressing. THAT. IS. STUPID!

Sandler continued the decline with Bedtime Stories, Grown Ups and Just Go With It (not helped by the fact it features the cardboard actress that is Jennifer Aniston). None of these films have ever reached the heights of his earlier outings. And his most recent effort, Jack and Jill where he plays both of the title characters saw Sandler nominated for a series of Razzies.

Today I watched the trailer for Adam Sandler’s newest project hitting cinemas in the UK later this year: That’s My Boy. I really hoped the trailer would look good, I want nothing more than for his career to just get back on track, unfortunately though, this film will not be the rebuilding of Sandler’s comedy efforts. Guaranteed.

Adam Sandler needs to take a long hard look at his recent films and think about his career, not just for me but for himself. I can only assume he is working through some massive mid-life crisis and the sooner he gets through it the better, for everyone.

Below is the trailer for That’s My Boy being released in the UK on 7th September 2012.