Friday January 6
MICHAEL CERA
Scott Pilgrim Vs the World [M-Net.21.30]
The Uninvited [M-Net.02.20]
Saturday January 7
KIM BASINGER-A TALENT OFTEN UNDER UTILIZED
Charlie St Cloud [M-Net.20.00]
Gulliver’s Travels [M-Net.23.40]
ONE OF THE MANY STARS IN TOO BIG TO FAIL
Too Big To Fail [M-Net.01.10]
The Truman Show [M-Net.02.55]
The Simpsons Movie [e.tv.19.30]
The Contract [e.tv.21.20]
Sunday January 8
LIAM NEESON IS THE VOICE OF ASLAN
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [M-Net.20.05]
Waiting to Exhale [M-Net.02.05]
Street Kings [e.tv.20.00]
GIVE GOD A SOLO! A YOUNG ERIC CLAPTON
Water [e.tv.22.20]
Monday January 9
Stone [M-Net.22.30]
The Switch [M-Net.01.15]
Tuesday January 10
Charlie St Cloud [M-Net.01.30]
Wednesday January 11
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [M-Net.22.30]
Scott Pilgrim Vs the World [ M-Net.01.25]
***
ENID AT HER ELITIST BEST
Let us begin the New Year with a slug of neat Fantasy. I grew up on a steady diet of the racist, sexist and politically reprehensible characters created by Enid Blyton; so when I finally caught up with C.S. Lewis and his world of Narnian Reality, I was fairly impervious to his rather paternalistic approach.
NOT QUITE TIMMY THE DOG!
I soaked up and enjoyed the adventures of The Pevensie Children and their Narnian friends without digging or analyzing emotions and events too deeply; which probably goes to show how shallow I can be!
A TREAT- RICH AND RARE
The films too, have been rather terrific. Sadly, the third adventure, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [M-Net.Sunday.20.05 and Wednesday.22.30] may well be a finale for Narnia lovers; apparently plans for a fourth trip into Lewis’ fantasy world have been put on hold.
REEPICHEEP
If Dawntreader is to be the last in the series, what a superb way to bow out. The film is beautifully mounted, with a subtle mix of animation and real life action; Georgie Heaney is once again perfectly cast as Lucy, Simon Pegg replaces Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep and direction is in the capable hands of veteran Michael Apted.
WE LIVE IN HOPE
Personally, I am keeping my fingers crossed and praying for a change of heart in high places. Here’s hoping for movie versions of both The Magician’s Nephew and The Silver Chair in the not too distant future.
HARD TO RESIST
It was inevitable that the ever popular Simpson Family would graduate to the big screen; they did so in 2007, complete with an ecological subtext. The Simpsons Movie [e.tv.Saturday.19.30] is a treat for fans, and certainly amusing enough for nonfans, too.
GULLIVER THEN
Gulliver’s Travels was published in 1726, as a pithy political satire on human folly. When he created Lemuel Gulliver and the fantasy lands of Lilliput etc., writer Jonathan Swift quite accidentally created the genre that has evolved into Fantasy.
AND NOW
Unfortunately, Gulliver hasn’t travelled well; although Billy Connolly and Jack Black do their best, the 2010 movie version [M-Net.Saturday.23.40] is one long yawn.
SCOTTISH COMEDIAN BILLY CONNOLLY
Billy Connolly is a very talented, seriously funny man; musical too. He gets his feet wet wading in Water [e.tv.Sunday.22.20], more of an interesting failure rather than an out and out flop, Michael Caine is head honcho of a fictitious Caribbean Island which has had a stroke of post colonial financial fortune; Connolly is neatly placed as Caine's minister without pants. The highlight is a speech to the UN which turns into a reggae bun fight.
IN THE BEGINNING-GEORGE BETWEEN RINGO AND PAUL
The film was financed by Handmade films, a company part owed by ex Beatle George Harrison; so there is music by George, Eric Clapton, Ringo and a whole bunch of other well oiled mates. It is great fun to see Eddie Grant and Billy Connolly passing the boys a ganja riff.
ALL THINGS MUST PASS
The movie isn’t that good, but worth watching, if only for the song ‘Freedom’. Sad to think that George has been gone for ten years now; when I close my eyes, I can still see his rather mournful face; one of four that fuelled a thousand fantasies all those years ago.
THE SEVEN DEADLY EXES
The sweetly talented Michael Cera plays another musician, one with a heavy agenda in Scott Pilgrim Vs the World [M-Net. Friday.21.30 and Wednesday.01.25] . In it, he has to rid himself of his girlfriend’s seven deadly ex suitors; the story, based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’ Malley is wall to wall thump and wallop, directed by Edgar Wright, a talented Englishman who made Shaun of the Dead and was one of the writing team on Tintin.
ZAC EFRON USING ONE OF HIS TWO EXPRESSIONS
The Tom Cruise of the noughties, Zac Efron stars in Charlie St Cloud [M-Net.Saturday.20.00], a survivor guilt kit for the under 20s; with Kim Basinger, completely wasted, half way down the cast list. This rather turgid saga, adapted from a novel by Ben Sherwood, is very much in the vain of that man of many hankies, Nicholas Sparks.
THERE'S THAT GUN AGAIN
Street Kings [e.tv.Sunday.20.00] is not a bad little movie, Keanu Reeves glowers and grinds his way as a cop who bends rather than breaks the rules.
WHITAKER WAS WELL CAST AS CHARLIE PARKER
Costar Forest Whitaker is one of those Oscar winners who, like F. Murray Abraham, remains all dressed up, with no particular place to go. In the days before The Last King of Scotland nailed him to the wall, Whitaker was excellent as Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s Bird.
THE NOVEL CAME FROM THE PEN OF TERRY MCMILLAN
Forest Whitaker is also a fair to middling director; he made Waiting to Exhale [M-Net.Sunday.02.05] in 1996, at a time when Witney Huston almost became a movie star. It is a helping of soft serve with songs so laidback that they almost horizontal, but sung brilliantly by the likes of The Whispers and Aretha Franklin, with silky arrangements by Kevin Babyface Edmonds.
CUSACK UP A GUMTREE
Staying with ‘old’ Oscar winners, Contract [e.tv.Saturday.21.20] never even made it to the big screen, but John Cusack and Oscar man Morgan Freeman acquit themselves well in a story that is both crafty and visually absorbing. Cusack is cast as an unlikely hero, forced to play a difficult hand with the deck stacked against him.
NASTY IS AS NASTY DOES
In Stone [M-Net.Monday.22.30], double Oscar winner Robert De Niro plays a disturbed good guy who is outwitted by a really nasty bad guy, Edward Norton, who uses his equally nasty wife, Milla Jovovich, as tasty sexual bait. It is difficult to drum up empathy for any of them; the movie makes for very heavy weather and the ending doesn’t come a moment to soon.
EDWARD NORTON-ACTING WITH HIS TAT AND LOCKS
De Niro has really made some awful movies of late; he seems to be treading the same tired old tread mill. His last good ones, Marvin’s Room and Wag the Dog seem light years away. Edward Norton is a dab hand at playing borderline psychopaths; he certainly has a charismatic charm, reminiscent of a diabolical snake charmer.
A CARTOON THAT SAYS IT ALL
Too Big To Fail [M-Net.Saturday.01.10] is a made for TV epic with a cast as big as its budget …and storyline. Just how closely Big Business and Government wash each others grubby hands is fascinatingly frightening; real life dama at its best. Watch Topher Grace, Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup and Oscar winner William Hurt as they wheel, deal, wangle and double cross.
JENNIFER ANISTON- WHEN DOES SHE SLEEP?
And now for a quick ring around the roses, starting with rom com, The Switch [M-Net. Monday.01.15] which, just for a change, sees Jennifer Aniston playing pass the sperm sample with Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
The script is based on a short story by Jeffrey Eugenides called Baster, which is how it should have stayed, short and on paper. Before this year is out, I’m sure we’ll see Aniston in drag or having a stab at Performance Capture; hell, she’s tried everything else.
HITCHCOCK AS A YOUNG DIRECTOR
True Horror, that really works is not a hovering dismembered hand, rather it a story told through the eyes of a protagonist; whose vision is later seen to be skewed. The Sixth Sense is probably the finest recent example; the great Alfred Hitchcock was, of course, the master at this kind of distorted reality.
THE UNINVITED COULD HAVE WORKED
The Uninvited [M-Net.Friday.02.20] directed by British brothers, Charles and Thomas Guard, uses a similar plot structure but loses a potentially fine ending in a free- for- all flurry of gore.
A BRILLIANT STILL FROM THE TRUMAN SHOW
The Truman Show [M-Net.Saturday.02.55] takes Reality TV to its logical or should that read illogical extreme. The movie has Jim Carrey in one of his most fitting roles, as the man whose whole life is one long Reality Show. Sometimes, I feel my life is made from the same mould. Seriously, the movie is excellent and even scarier than it was on first release in 1998.
VISUAL DELIGHTS GALORE
My pick is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [M-Net.Sunday.20.05 and Wednesday.22.30].