Stuck On You (2003)

The Farrelly brothers had a reputation that they had to uphold at the turn of the 21st century. After scoring big with Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary (and Kingpin should have been just as huge, but I don't recall it making much of an impact until discovered by fans in the comfort of their own homes), they were the ruling kings of bad taste comedy. If a set-piece could be planned around some body functions, they could make it the best possible. In fact, they seemed to falter when seeming to try being a bit gentler in their approach (as happened with  Shallow Hal). Which explains why they gave audiences Me, Myself & Irene (a film with a lead character who has a severe dissociative identity disorder) and this, a comedy that focuses on a set of conjoined twins.

Matt Damon is Bob Tenor, and Greg Kinnear is Walt Tenor. The twins are fairly beloved in their local community, and they can also make the burgers in their dining establishment so quickly that anyone challenging the timer to get a freebie is usually left most disappointed. Walt wants to be an actor though, while Bob is a bit more shy. Anyway, they end up heading to Hollywood, for Walt to take his chance, and that leads to Walt eventually landing a part in a TV drama opposite Cher (played by . . . Cher, of course). This leads to another conversation about the twins perhaps taking a chance on the operation that could separate them, but can they work as well apart as they do together?

There's enough here to keep comedy fans entertained, and the central premise (as is often the case with the Farrelly brothers, deceptive little rascals that they are) allows us to view the main characters as others around them do, good-hearted individuals who happen to be different from many others, but a lot of the fun this time around comes from the casting. The runtime is just under two hours, yet it just about manages not to overstay its welcome, thanks to the final scenes featuring some wonderful pay-offs.

Damon and Kinnear work really well together, chatting to one another like two best friends who just happen to be a lot physically closer than most, which is pretty much what they are. Cher is a lot of fun, initially viewing Walt/Bob as a way to ruin a TV show that she is contractually obliged to, and shows herself willing to play up various perceptions of her image (from man-eater to diva, from wanting to be taken seriously as an actress to wanting to be left alone by people). Eva Mendes is also wonderful here, giving the kind of comedic turn that makes you wish she did it more, and there are great supporting turns from Seymour Cassel, Griffin Dunne (playing Griffin Dunne), and even Meryl Streep, as well as numerous celebrity cameos, both credited and uncredited.

It may lack the big set-pieces that there more successful movies contain, which may partially explain why this seems to stay so overlooked, but Stuck On You keeps the chuckles coming fairly consistently from start to finish, with a large proportion of the jokes avoiding the pitfall of laughing AT the lead characters.

I am sure I will stay in the minority for being a fan of this one, but that won't stop me from trying to get others to give it their time. It's not an all-time great, and not even one of the top three from the Farrelly brothers, but it deserves to have a few more fans.

7/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

April Fools: Rushmore (1998)

Directed by Wes Anderson, who also co-wrote the script with Owen Wilson, Rushmore is a film perfectly poised as something that fans of the director will love, while also being one of his more accessible works for those unused to his preferred aesthetics.

Jason Schwartzman plays Max Fischer, a confident teenager who thinks that he's an excellent student at school, despite the fact that he's failing in a number of subjects. He is, however, involved in numerous extra-curricular activities. If there's a club for it then he'll often be a member. In fact, he'll often be the one who started up the club in the first place. But drama is his main love, as shown by the plays that he likes to put on for the school. Well, drama is his main love until he sees Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). Then she becomes his main love. Unfortunately, she is a teacher and he is just a fifteen-year-old boy, despite his attempts to show himself in a more mature light. Herman Blume (Bill Murray) likes Max, and the two become friends. Herman wishes that his own children were more like this determined, sensible young man. But that changes when he also meets Rosemary.

Rushmore is a hard film to write about, in some ways, because it's quite simply a near-perfect script that's being delivered by actors all perfect in their roles, and directed perfectly by Anderson. Job done. But it's in all the details that the movie excels, be it the nuance of a performance or the many pieces of set decoration showing the fastidious nature of Max when he puts his mind to something. The soundtrack is also, yep, almost perfect, with a finale that blends the onscreen visuals with some particularly good audio choices to make for a quietly effective, and surprisingly powerful, curtain call.

It's hard to believe that this was the first onscreen acting role for Schwartzman, so good is he in the role of Max. He's arrogant, sweet, annoying, precocious, pitiable, enviable, and stubborn, but he's also just young, and the movie allows viewers to see him grow, even if it's only by a small degree. Williams is wonderful as Rosemary, because she's easy to fall in love with. And then there's good ol' Bill Murray, putting in the kind of performance that would have stolen every scene he was in, had he not been in such an altogether strong film. Smaller roles for Brian Cox, Seymour Cassel and Luke Wilson all prove rewarding in their own way, and Sara Tanaka and Mason Gamble both make a great impression as youngsters beguiled by Max in slightly different ways.

Fans of Wes Anderson should love this, but this is also a film that can be enjoyed by those who don't think that they like the man's style. His stamp remains on almost every scene, but this is a slightly more subdued affair compared to the films that he would go on to give audiences over the next two decades.

Love or hate Anderson, I encourage you to check out Rushmore. It remains a high point in the filmographies of everyone involved.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Rushmore-Criterion-Collection-Jason-Schwartzman/dp/B00003Q42P/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1396677855&sr=1-4&keywords=rushmore

Eye Of The Tiger (1986)

Gary Busey plays Buck Matthews, a man so tough that his entire character is defined by those two things. Okay, he's also just out of prison (where he didn't deserve to be, goddammit) and he was quite the champ in his years of military service. When he returns home, he finds a town that is being terrorised by a bunch of violent bikers. The local law enforcement don't seem to be doing much about it, so it's up to Buck to teach them a lesson that they won't forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, the bikers take their opportunity to exact some revenge and before you can say "did they name this movie JUST to use that Survivor song?" it's time for a bit of a one-man war.

Directed by Richard C. Sarafian, and written by Michael Thomas Montgomery, Eye Of The Tiger is a very pure film experience. It's a lean, mean tale of revenge that benefits from a great leading man (during the years when he was just the right side of sanity, apparently) and a solid supporting cast, including Yaphet Kotto in a particularly enjoyable turn, Seymour Cassel and big, bad William Smith. Denise Galik and Kimberlin Brown may have less to do, but they are actresses in a testosterone-filled '80s action flick, so whatyagonnado? Young Judith Barsi, as the daughter of our hero, doesn't have a lot to do either, but I had to mention her here after I was saddened to find out that she died (cause of death - homicide) not long after her tenth birthday, just a couple of years after this movie was released.

Busey has, quite simply, rarely been better onscreen (and let's just take a moment to remember how many great performances he's actually given, all too easy to forget as he weaves a cloak of self-parody around himself in the 21st century). He's a man who wants to stand his ground, and he's often in the right, despite what odds may be stacked against him. As things wind towards an inevitable, and satisfying, finale the whole movie delivers a well-executed dose of righteous machismo.

I'm not going to pretend that this is high art, but I will emphasise that it's all put together almost perfectly for what it aims to be. The script sketches out characters, but fleshes out enough little details to make viewers invest in every confrontation, while Sarafian's direction delivers some great moments, with the perfect pacing of the film leaving plenty of room for impressive stuntwork and set-pieces in between the more predictable beats.

And then, of course, there's THAT great song being put to good use. Enjoy.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Action-Marathon-Cyclone-Alienator-Exterminator/dp/B00AJXO5X6/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1388415609&sr=1-1&keywords=eye+of+the+tiger

Freerunner (2011)

Horrible, just horrible. Freerunner is, annoyingly, a half-decent premise surrounded by a complete turd of a movie. One or two decent stunts save it from being the worst of the worst but it's such a lazy, poorly executed film that I actually felt angry while watching it.

I don't know what's more unbelievable. The fact that I have continued to try to convince myself that one day the likes of Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan will one day appear in another decent film or the fact that it took THREE writers to cobble together this nonsense.

Mind you, while the writing is bad it's almost par for the course for this kind of film - the emphasis is, at least, on the action. I'm not letting Matthew Chadwick, Jeremy Sklar and Raimond Huber completely off the hook but most of the blame should be passed on to director Lawrence Silverstein, who took a movie all about freerunning (a smooth and entertaining pursuit) and decided to let all of the action scenes look as if they had been filmed by a pack of dogs who just happened to be in the vicinity.

Tamer Hassan plays yet another onscreen hard man, Danny Dyer is a cocky arsehole and there are a bunch of freerunners who run about the city, snatching flags while people bet on the results. Sean Faris plays Ryan, a freerunner who wants out and decides that he will get someone to bet a LOT of money on his final race, allowing him to retire a rich man. For some reason, he sees happiness in his future with his girlfriend Chelsea (played, HORRIBLY, by Rebecca De Costa - I mean, seriously, I am tempted to start a Kickstarter campaign to just pay her off so that she never acts again). Unfortunately, that all goes to pot when the runners are all gassed and wake up to find that they have exploding necklaces on and must now race for something much more important than money. That's the plot, in a nutshell.

Taking a number of elements from a number of superior movies (off the top of my head I'll namecheck Wedlock, Battle Royale, The Tournament and District 13) and then draining them of all fun before throwing them to the bottom of a barrel that is then filled to the brim with excrement, Freerunner is a waste of time and it's more frustrating because it's not a complete waste of time. The core idea is sound, it's just developed so poorly.

It doesn't help that nobody onscreen appears to have gone to any actual acting classes. Hassan is in the movie for a very short amount of time so almost escapes unscathed . . . . until we get to his awful last scene. Dyer just gets worse and worse in every movie recently and I'm starting to get embarrassed for him. No doubt he would be a geezer about it and tell me not to shed any tears while he was quids in and having a good laugh but I spent more time than most people fighting his corner (based on his fun turns in Severance, Human Traffic, The Football Factory and even Mean Machine) and this is the last straw. I'll still end up watching his movies, to review them, but I'll always brace myself for the worst rather than hope for something better. Sean Faris is pretty bland, I already mentioned that Rebecca De Costa was awful and Casey Durkin is stuck with providing all of the exposition for those who weren't able to keep up with the complex plot. Oh, she also bares her breasts for a second to keep male viewers happy - it feels very much like a halfway "restore point" compared to how tough going the movie is. Ryan Doyle is a tough, win-at-all-costs, freerunner but he's just as bland as Faris. In fact, only Joe Zamora and Tony Vo stand amongst their fellow runners and gamblers while the much older Seymour Cassel shows everyone how acting SHOULD be in his short amount of screentime.

In case I haven't made myself clear enough, Freerunner is an awful film with awful camerawork, an awful script and awful acting. Could I do something better with a group of freerunners and my own camera? Get me the freerunners and the equipment and I'll show you. Hell, if the people involved in this movie can keep getting work then I don't see why I can't break in to the industry and easily make something better than this.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freerunner-Blu-ray-Sean-Faris/dp/B007JI9B74/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351007627&sr=8-2