Prime Time: Twister (1996)

As a director, Jan de Bont started strong (with Speed). Things were looking promising. The man who had provided such impressive cinematography for the likes of Die Hard and Basic Instinct showed that he had good instincts. Speed remains the high point of his directorial gigs. Twister, the second movie that had him sitting in the big chair, is the next best one, but it is a major step down.

Helen Hunt is Dr. Jo Harding, a woman who chases tornados and hopes to find out more about them to create a better warning system. Bill Paxton is Bill Harding, her sorta-ex, who needs divorce papers signed so that he can get married to Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz). As Bill and Jo try to finalise the end of their relationship, a lot of exciting tornado action takes place. The chasers give chase, trying to stay out of danger while getting closer than most people would like to be, and also trying to stay ahead of sneaky rival, Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes).

Co-written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin, Twister is obviously a film thought up by people who figured that tornadoes were fascinating, and that they could make a thrill ride of a movie. They were half right in both instances.Making use of the latest CGI, as well as plenty of practical effects, De Bont tries to provide movie entertainment that feels designed for a gimmick-laden immersive experience. Twister is the one movie I might consider watching in one of those awful-looking 4DX cinema screens.

The cast is generally pretty good, and generally deserve better than they get from the script. Hunt and Paxton are two likeable leads, given just the one note to work with each (she NEEDS to succeed in her main quest to get a research device inside a tornado, he will help and also show that he still has feelings for her), but I can imagine better choices, and I say that with lots of love for Paxton. Their friends/colleagues include Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Sean Whalen, and a few other familiar faces. Elwes does well as the non-tornado villain of the movie, and Gertz does her best to look bemused/interested/exasperated while being the sounding board for all of the exposition audiences need about tornadoes, and the strange ways they can behave.

Although it's pretty awful as a movie, Twister holds up as a shallow blockbuster. The effects may not seem as impressive nowadays as they seemed in 1996, when it comes to the CGI (the practical work is still top notch), but it's always working on the remit of entertaining audiences with spectacle and thrills. And you'll probably smirk when you see the cow flying through the air. Personally, I will always prefer other weather-based action movies like The Day After Tomorrow and The Perfect Storm. Even The Core would be a better option. But not Geostorm though. Never Geostorm.

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Sierra Burgess Is A Loser (2018)

I wouldn't have prioritised a viewing of Sierra Burgess Is A Loser if I hadn't read yet another selection of articles written by people getting upset about content that I wasn't sure was intended to offend, in context. But we all know that anyone being offended doesn't give a damn about context. Just ask, well, anyone who has recently been offended.

As suspected, there isn't much here to cause offence, certainly when you compare it to the works that have influenced it (such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and the many John Hughes movies of the 1980s). There are mean-spirited things said about various people, but all of those insults say more about the attitudes and mindsets of the characters delivering them than they say about the makers of the movie. And the characters, including the one that viewers are supposed to root for, do some bad, deceitful, things. I refer you back to the influences just mentioned. So let's move forward with a more standard look at the film without making any attempts to defend aspects that don't need defending.

Shannon Purser plays Sierra, a high school student who doesn't fit in with the crowd of more popular girls, and therefore is labelled as a loser. When Veronica (Kristine Froseth) decides to have fun by handing out Sierra's phone number, claiming it to be her own, it's not long until romance is budding, by text, between Sierra and a young man named Jamey (Noah Centineo). To keep up the pretence, Sierra will need help from Veronica. And it turns out that the latter may need some help of her own, in the form of tutoring, so the two work together, discovering that they have more in common than either would think.

I don't know how things work for Netflix picking up, or creating, their original content but it seems to be working out well for them to often take calculated risks. Perhaps the stars, content, and viewing habits are enough for the algorithms to give them the nod to throw money at a variety of projects (and let's not forget that their data-analysing system gave us House Of Cards). This is, I assume, why we have Sierra Burgess Is A Loser as the directorial feature of Ian Samuels, after a string of shorts on his filmography, and the screenwriting debut of Lindsey Beer. Both do well enough, with Beer using the teen comedy framing to explore loyalty, friendship, peer pressure, honesty, and the benefits and downsides of connecting with others on the worldwide web. Samuels may not stamp his personality on the material, but he shows a knack for emulating the vibe of past teen movies (ones that we still view fondly, despite the many problems that come packaged with them).

Purser has been garnering quite the fanbase since her turn in Stranger Things, and she puts in another good performance here. Sierra is a good young woman, but she makes bad decisions when she starts to become more selfish, neglecting her close friend (Dan, played by R. J. Cyler) and piling one lie on top of another to keep up a dishonest relationship. Froseth is the typical high school clique queen, initially, and does well with that part. She also gets to show another side of her as she and Sierra grow closer, an aspect of the film that is necessary but feels slightly rushed. Centineo is a likable male lead, helped by the fact that his character is kind and earnest as well as the object of Sierra's affection, and Cyler is a lot of fun in his role. The other supporting players are all well and good, but it will please many veiwers to see that Alan Ruck and Lea Thompson play the parents of the main character.

What this film gets right is the general high school movie feel and the selection of standard teen problems. And the cast. What it gets wrong is the lack of believability in a lot of the character developments, which affects everything, although still doesn't do enough damage if you're happy to overlook the flaws while enjoying the predictable beats that lead up to a predictable, if undeserved, finale.

6/10

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Cheaper By The Dozen (2003)

Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt play Tom and Kate Baker, respectively. Tom and Kate are the parents of, in case you couldn't guess, twelve children. Hence the title. The movie shows the chaos of their daily lives and some particular highs and lows that the Baker family go through as they work together as a team to deal with whatever life throws at them.

Directed by Shawn Levy, this is Disney-lite fare. In other words, it's NOT a Disney film, but certainly tries to be one. The thing to remember, as hard as it can be at times, is that Disney can do this kind of thing brilliantly when it gets everything in place. It can take material like this and elevate it, turn it from something groansome into something really enjoyable. Levy doesn't manage that.

Based on a 1950 movie that was based on a biographical book by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, this is an old-fashioned and a safe family comedy. It rarely feels as if much has been updated from when the original movie was made. That's not to say that kids won't enjoy seeing the kids all play around and cause some havoc, but it doesn't make it a completely satisfying experience for all the family.

Martin and Hunt are decent enough in their roles, given most of the screentime while also playing second fiddle to all of the kids. It's a shame, but inevitable, that they aren't given better treatment. The younger kids don't fare much better, with most of them struggling to stand out from the crowd (twins Brent and Shane Kinsman are the exceptions). The older Baker children benefit from the fact that they're played by well-known actors - Tom Welling, Hilary Duff and Piper Perabo - but the most fun comes from Ashton Kutcher, playing a vain actor/model boyfriend of Perabo. Kutcher stays well within his comfort zone, but provides some great laughs as he's pestered by the Baker children, who just don't like him. Alan Ruck and Richard Jenkins also appear, both are also underused but it's good to see them.

The script by Sam Harper, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow is insubstantial, content to simply link from one set-piece to the next with neither enough good bits in between nor enough value in the main, big sequences.

It's passable enough, especially if you have kids to keep entertained on a rainy afternoon, but only just.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cheaper-By-The-Dozen-DVD/dp/B000E6UMEY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1375526309&sr=8-2&keywords=cheaper+by+the+dozen