I Am Number 4

Life is all about choices and sometimes the hardest choices you have to make are those involving things you don’t care about. This weekend I was faced with such a choice - Drive Angry 3D or I Am Number 4. Luckily I was saved my a member of The Nerdy Trio who had half a notion for Number 4 so it transpires that the hardest decisions can be avoided by passing the buck.

PLOT: John (Alex Pettyfer) is a reasonably attractive alien sent to earth to protect his own species by erm disappearing and leaving them to die. Henri (Timothy Olyphant) is John’s Guardian whose task it is to look after John and ensure that he is safe in order to protect the species who have been destroyed trying to keep him safe. Or something. John is Number 4 of 9 aliens who are living on earth and must be killed in a preordained yet unexplained numerical order. John meets Sarah (Diana Agron) and falls in love. John meets Sam (insert actor destined to play nerdy sidekick) and saves him from the bully Mark (Jake Abel). John defeats the Mogadorian’s. The movie ends on the usual desperate cry of “if we make enough money there will be a sequel”. END PLOT

I Am Number 4 is based on a book and it will come as no surprise to you to learn that I have not read said book and have partaken in no research whatsoever to determine whether or not I Am Number 4 is a loyal adaptation.

The plot is fine - I got on board with it quite easily. The problem is that at least 7/9 of the movie is devoted solely to teen drama - we have love triangles, high school bullying, mildly aggressive step-fathers and mildly rebellious teens (who must to go school no matter the cost). The first ninety minutes is essentially a feature length episode of One Tree Hill (spit spit cross myself spit spit) and is so boring I was beginning to crave Nic Cage and his 3D wig.

Once the action comes it is very good and the final (only) battle between John and the Mogadorian’s does suck you in.

The Mogadorian’s look like something Joss Whedon rejected circa early Buffy - they were staked, dusted and looked cheap and nineties.

The movie on the whole looked okay but was nothing special however the musical cues were awful as was the soundtrack. There was something very amateurish about the entire production.

The cast was headed by Alex Pettyfer an actor who is devoid of charisma and charm. Pettyfer even manages to out sulk Luke Skywalker by being more of a whiny little bitch and thereafter getting his mentor killed.

Diana Argron is one of the few cast members from Glee who will have a career when the show ends - you just know that the fast majority of that cast are destined for the convention circuit. Agron was fine in a role that required her to do very little.

Jake Abel gets a little shout out as he was in three episodes of Supernatural two of which were very good. We mustn't mention the season 5 finale (spit spit cross myself spit spit)

Timothy Olyphant was grossly underused but managed to be the best thing in the entire movie. It dawned on me about seventy minutes in that nothing was going to happen whilst Henri was still alive. This put me in a bit of a pickle as I was wishing ill on the only interesting character in order to quell my arse-numbing boredom. Olyphant is becoming a firm favourite of The Nerdy Trios.

I Am Number 4 sets itself up nicely for a sequel which I would welcome as the last fifteen minutes saved the film from being a complete disaster. There is a decent movie in there - this is one occasion where the attempt at setting up character relationships and back-story failed. I think sometimes you have to accept that you are making an average aliens on earth movie and just run with it.

I Am Number 4 gets a 6/10 (the last 15mins gets an 8/10). There was potential but it was completely wasted which is a shame as with all the drama out of the way it set itself up quite nicely for a sequel.

I am now in full Olyphant appreciation mode which is helped by the fact that he man is totally ageing into his looks. Olyphant is loved but I am not sure why as it transpired on searching the dvd collection for an Olyphant movie that I own absolutely zero and I Am Number 4 wont be getting him on the score sheet.

Preview

If he keeps on growing his hair I may be forced to buy No4 in a 3 for 2

DISCLAIMER - Whilst I acknowledge the fact that Diana Agron will have a career after Glee meets its welcome demise I will in no way, shape or form be supportive of it.

Paul

I have been a huge Pegg/Frost fan since the days of Spaced but the fact that they were off to America worried me somewhat. This worry was upgraded to absolute terror when it was announced that my 4th least favourite American Seth Rogen would be joining them. There was genuine fear for Pegg/Frost’s comedy legacy and it was with an over abundance of nervous trepidation that The Nerdy Trio went to see Paul.

PLOT: Clive and Graeme, two Brits on a road trip fresh from Comic Con run into an alien named Paul who has escaped from the Government. They must help him get to a destination which is never fully explained in order that he can be picked up by his ship. They are chased by Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman my 5th favourite American) and his two trainees through the dusty back roads of America. Clive and Graeme kidnap Ruth played by Kristen Wiig (another Saturday Night Live cast off that I neither care for nor care to see more of). Graeme and Ruth fall in love. Paul swears a lot. Sigourney Weaver shows up and I get a little over excited at the use of one of the best lines in Aliens. Paul gets beamed up. END PLOT

Paul opens up at Comic Con and I watch two nerds live out my dream. We are then transported to a hotel with Pegg and Frost gushing to the tune of “We are in America!” “I cant believe we made it to America”. This was too self congratulatory for my liking and at the moment in time I hated them and quite frankly forty eight hours later I am still hurting from this.

The movie starts off quite slowly and picks up speed when they crash into Paul (voiced by the bile inducing Seth Rogen). I enjoyed the Pineapple Express - it was funny but there is something about Seth Rogen that I now cannot stand. I think it is the fact that he is in every single comedy known to man without one humorous bone in his body (the funny bone not withstanding). I hate him - he is the male equivalent of Jennifer Aniston (My 1st least favourite American).

Someone should tell Seth Rogen (and Jennifer Aniston for that matter) that being a workaholic doesn't necessarily mean he (or she) is any good at his (or her) job.

The success of the movie Paul is heavily dependent upon the success character Paul. Paul’s main contribution to the laughs is that he swears, drinks, smokes a lot and is fowl mouthed. He is funny but it just seemed like a desperate and cheap attempt to get laughs. There was nothing particularly clever about Paul.

Pegg and Frost were are good as ever but the big laughs came from Bateman and his two trainee agents.

There were some clever little moments - the Hillbilly Cantina bar music and some brilliant throwaway lines - Deliverance, Aliens and a brilliant Battlestar Galactica line that you will either think is hilarious or you just wont get at all.

Paul does deliver laughs and it is clever but if you watched it back to back with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz it is noticeably the weakest of the three - saying that Paul is a lot funnier than most comedies that you will see this year.

Paul gets an 8/10.
Paul cements the fact that Pegg/Frost are two of the best comedy double teams out there (although come back home boys, come back home)
Paul cements the fact that I am now in love with Jason Bateman (and his amazing head of thick, gelled hair)
Paul cements the fact that I do despise Seth Rogen (If a Pegg/Frost movie cannot thaw that fiery hatred then nothing ever will)

Never Let Me Go

There are some movies that we, and by we I mean the other two thirds of The Nerdy Trio and not I, get really excited about yet the whole world doesn’t seem to care. After a persuasive trailer, two out of three members of said Trio having read the book and a group appreciation of Andrew Garfield off we set to the VIP lounge to watch Never Let Me Go.

PLOT: Set in the futuristic past where three friends Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightly) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) grow up in Hailsham a very British boarding school for genetically engineered students. This is unfortunately not as cool as Xavier’s School For Gifted Children as the only gifts the students of Hailsham have to offer is their organs. These children have been created to become living organ donors. There is a love triangle. There are organ donations. There is heartbreak. END PLOT

The plot of Never Let Me Go is quite clever in a repressed British sort of way. The science behind the living organ donors is never explained and the story focuses solely on our cast of three and this makes it all the more scary.

The cast do well with the standard love triangle fare and it is watchable but I loved the idea of them being living donors more.

The fact Kathy, Tommy and Ruth knew of and fully accepted that they would have to slowly and periodically donate their vital organs until they reach “completion” and yet never question this is an unsettling thought.

Never Let Me Go does not turn into The Island - there are no attempts to escape or to avoid their fate. Kathy and Tommy do apply to defer their donations for a few years as they are in love but there is never any suggestion that they want to grow old together and appear fully prepared to donate after their deferral period ends.

There are subtle hints throughout the movie that the students of Hailsham are the last of their kind with future donors being created and kept in a more factory/conveyor belt setting with none of the educational/triangle trimmings that our fictional Trio have enjoyed. The sinister undertones were rife throughout the film, especially during the "do the donors actually have souls" scene and it was these that I engaged with although I probably should have been more emotionally invested in the characters and their forbidden love.

Never Let Me Go is a very good film based on a book which I am positive is so much better. I cannot fault the performances of Mulligan, Knightly and Garfield all of whom show that the future of British cinema has nothing to fear however the idea and plot of Never Let Me Go outshone everything. It lingered long after the love triangle has expired.

Never Let Me Go gets 8/10 and I will now blow the dust of the novel I have purchased and not yet read.

Would you survie the Zombie Apocalypse?

There are movies out there, all of which set in different countries, locations, time periods but they all have one important message - Zombies Kill. Zombies are created by chance - an experiment gone wrong, nuclear warfare, dodgy medication or quite simply that last living zombie you thought you had killed just before the happy-ever-after montage started wasn’t completely “Dead” and started the whole pandemic up again…..So if you haven’t got the basics covered then quite frankly you only have yourself to blame.

Learn from the movies people, even by watching Shaun of the Dead you can learn how to survive. If you wont watch it for entertainment then watch it to live you owe yourself that much.

There are five short and easy steps that should be adhered to in order to increase the likelihood of surviving the inconvenience of a Zombie Apocalypse.

Step 1: Chose you rallies
Every living person needs a group of friends to ride out the Zombie Apocalypse with. If you are a Loner then give up now as let’s face it if you do survive who are you going to celebrate with? If you have over 10,000 twitter followers or a phone full of contact numbers of people you went to high school with 10 frickin’ years ago then it means that you are simply desperate to be popular and have some low-self esteem issues. In the real world, you know the one with the Zombie Apocalypse, it means jack-shit.

You need a group of about six people and as Cliché Dictates/God Commands it.

They should be roughly the following:

The Guy:
Average age 20-30 with looks ranging from “reasonably attractive” to “oh shit I’ve just lost a chuck of my calf muscle as I was staring at the incredibly hot man and I am 100% heterosexual…honestly”. The Guy is usually in the form of a clean cut rich white boy with perfect teeth. He will be wearing a sweater that subtly hints at some serious muscle underneath.

The Guy’s Gorgeous Girl:
The Guy of the group must have a Gorgeous Girl as he needs to save someone in a heroic manly fashion and lets face it with that body and those teeth he isn’t going to rescue an Ugly Betty.

The Ugly Betty:
The Gorgeous Girls best friend. The Sarah Jessica Parker to the Sarah Michelle Gellar. In real life 97% of woman will fulfil this role.

Chances of survival are quite high until you are trapped with the Gorgeous Girl and you both need to be saved. The Ugly Betty will be used as bait so that The Guy can get the Gorgeous Girl to safety. They will watch Betty's painful death from a safe spot located nearby but quite frankly if The Ugly Betty couldn’t see the safe spot for herself then she deserves all she gets.

Please note you can substitute the Ugly Betty with Lesbian as the outcome will be the same.

The Guys Best Fuckin Friend Forever:
The Guys one true love who is destined to die. The Guy will cry thereby increasing his level of prettiness and his chances of survival.

The Nerd:
Every group needs a nerd. That one token brain box whose sole purpose for existing is to make the rest of the gang look super cool.

Loners mentioned above please take heart from this as you can become a valuable asset to another group. The Loner will die of course and but let‘s face it - it‘s better to die a bit player in someone else’s story than being the star player in your own - let’s try and keep this thing realistic.

Adopt a Nerd and save a life - your own

The Comedian:
The Comedian will undoubtedly get the wittiest one liners in his bid to survive the Zombie Apocalypse and people will be quoting him like they quote the latest shitty Seth Rogen Comedy but he will die and in an ironic twist of fate he will just have to live with that.

Try to avoid having Seth Rogen in your group as he will become The Best Fuckin' Friend Forever, The Fat Person and The Comedian thereby reducing your numbers and increasing your chances of a stressful and graphic death.

Fuckin' Seth Rogen.

The Backup Group
The aforementioned six is a typical group that will organically form to ride out the zombie pandemic but if you cannot form this type of group, for example, neither my three chosen Apocalypse Pals nor myself fall into any of the criteria above but there are steps you can take to beef up you group i.e. recruit extras to your squad solely for the purpose of letting them be killed off. It’s dirty but fuck it. There are no rules in war.

The Obnoxious Guy:
Let’s face it everyone knows an Obnoxious Bastard, you know the kind, always leaving the toilet seat up, laughs at Jack Black Jokes, honks his horn in traffic (he will usually be driving a phallic shaped car) and such like. No one who laughs at Jack Black Jokes can survive and join the New World Order so he has to go. It should be pointed out that Jack Black will not survive either….There may be a Zombie Apocalypse but every cloud has a silver lining.

The “Let’s Be Friends Hippy”:
This is some flower power 60’s reject who is all about love and peace. The Hippy will be dispensed of as he will no doubt try to communicate with the zombie in order to make friends. This act of LSD induced stupidity will occur when you are trapped giving you and your friends aka the Main Group a chance to get the fuck outa dodge.

No caption could ever make this picture any more awesome

The Slut:
The Slut is a bit player in any story, hogging all the sex scenes for herself and wearing ridiculous shoes. The Slut will no doubt be named after something French. The one fact that never gets any less enjoyable is that no matter who The Slut is - the more graphic the sex scene = the more graphic the death scene.

Beware of - The Reformed Slut.
They are dangerous as every once in a while a Lindsay Lohan will repent the error of her ways and will rise from the ashes like the god damn Phoenix. As inspirationally tear jerking this occurrence is, don't let this happen in your Zombie Apocalypse story. The more good deeds the Reformed Slut carriers out the longer she lives thereby decreasing your own life expectancy.

If you have smokes, whiskey or 8gms of crack - share them with The Reformed Slut. Share them quickly.

The Fat Person:
Arguably this could merge the Ugly Betty or Ugly Bertie but it never hurts to have a Fat Person with you. He will take up most of the back seat in the mini van you have stolen, he will eat into the already depleting food supply and will have the added inconvenience of being ugly but the Fat Person will die thereby causing you to live.

It’s the Zombie Apocalypse and sacrifices have to be made.

Also, depending on how long said Zombie Apocalypse lasts you might need food for the winter. As the inconsiderate fat fuck has eaten all the cans of beans and peas (which were the only cans in your house) you can extract your revenge by eating the Fat Person thereby completing the Circle of Life that Elton John bleats on and on about.

Please note that the XXXL tee-shirt can provide shelter and various garments for those who have survived him, namely you and the Main Group.

Let’s be honest with a Fat Person on your team you will never need to out run a horde of massing zombies - as long as you can out waddle the fat fuck all will be fine and dandy.

Fat People/Fat Zombies it matters not - all vegetables will be safe

The Old Person:
Old People make for a handy decoy/sacrifice. As most relatives don’t bother visiting an Old Person in the retirement home when all is well with the world chances of them mounting a daring rescue of an Old Person are slim. You can rest assured that there will be plenty of expendable Old Person’s floating around. They die quickly but they are large in number and can therefore be easily replenished.

If your group is not particularly ethnically diverse, for example, you don’t have a foreign exchange student, a child or a member of the physically impaired community don’t feel bad. The world is coming to an end, the shit has hit the fan, chaos is killing dinosaurs darling, no one is thinking of the children any more - you just don’t have time to be politically correct.

Your group is now formed.

Step 2: Chose your soundtrack.
Every event in your life must be accompanied by a sound track and the Zombie Apocalypse is no exception. You don’t want a Canadian Ballad creeping in when you are doing something particularly bad-ass thus destroying your mojo so please people prepare your soundtrack.

Rock songs with heavy guitars should be used when being particularly bad-ass, and don’t forget something soothing for when the Guys Best Fuckin’ Friend Forever dies as there will be plenty of tears.

Go wild with your soundtrack. Anything Non-Canadian-Ballad goes…….BEWARE Canadian Ballard’s can creep into death scenes, sad montages, uplifting montages and they can even trick you by forming the main theme of you’re Zombie Apocalypse Orchestral Score and this is more terrifying that the Zombie Apocalypse itself.

It is also important to record your soundtrack on various formats. The Zombie Apocalypse will last longer that a standard I-Pod battery. If the battery dies before you do then you will have steered your little rowing boat up shit creak and the Fat Person will have eaten your oars, more bluntly put - you are screwed. You must outlive your soundtrack.

Add the soundtrack to your I-Pod yes, but also take a few minutes and record it to C.D, if you find an old cassette tape then record it on there too as the big American Muscle Car that you are going to steal towards the end of the Zombie Apocalypse wont have a C.D player.

Some people may want to put their soundtrack onto a record. How this can be done I do not know but if you find yourself holed up in a basement of someone’s father there is bound to be an old dusty record player lying around in there somewhere and you may need to play your “trapped in a basement song”….............Luck favours the musically prepared.

Shoot to kill. Don't let it see your fear.

Step 3: Transport.
Let’s face it, if you do not have a Guy or an Obnoxious Guy in your group you are going to be driving a run -of- the-mill-every-man-car which is something you should only feel reasonably embarrassed about. You are not Will Smith, you will not have a Ford G.T to scoot around New York in, embrace that fact and content yourself with the knowledge that you will be able to play Grand Theft Auto whilst the fuzz are busy trying to keep hysterical women calm.

If you are the driver of your group your survival is almost guaranteed but only if you can hot-wire a car. You need not know how to fill it with petrol, change a tyre or possess basic maintenance and repair skills as you are going to Grand Theft Auto your way to safety.

Please note that you will have to Grand Theft Auto some real shit-heaps before you can get your Eleanor. Patience is a virtue and your reward - the car of your dreams. This point is pretty much null and void if you are a member of The Guys group. The Guy will already own and be driving the car of his dreams and as you are in his story you will always be a passenger.

It is vital that your soundtrack contains enough car jacking songs, driving songs and that one song you can cry to when you crash your Eleanor into the side of the kerb and it bursts into spontaneous flames just as you reach a distance safe enough to avoid death by fireball. This song needs to be more emotional than the song played at the death of The Guys Best Fuckin’ Friend Forever.

There is a clear cut correlation between awesome soundtrack and awesome car.

Step 4: Food
If you have a Fat Person in your group supplies will constantly be running low until he is violently maimed by Zombies. The fuzz are still busy with the hysterical women so its ram-raiding season. Please note that the best cars for ram-raiding are the shit-heaps.

Feel free to park in any handicapped space you want or drive straight through the automated doors and take all the canned food that you can carry/your Fat Person can scoff.

The Fat Person will traditionally stay away from low fat products so grab some Nutri-Grain Bars for the Main Group and let Piggy feast on Doritos and Frosted cereals.

The Fat Person will avoid perishables such as fruit and veg (they have been known to eat potatoes but only if they are deep fried!) but the down side is these will perish quickly. The upside is you get to go ram-raiding again so everyone’s a winner babe.

Until you make it to the new formed Utopia you will have to scavenge for food. This is usually an exciting experience as Zombies tend to hang out in shopping malls.

Step 5: Destination
Even if you are not American the Zombie Apocalypse will take place in America as it is the only place on earth. You will turn into an American and there you will try to out live the end of the world.

There is only one destination. Boston.

No one ever comes from Boston but this is the location were everyone goes when something is going down in the USA.

You will not need a road map/sat-nav or celestial navigational skills as all humans are genetically programmed to know when/how/why to head to Boston.

Boston -disaster free since Jack Nicholson's god awful performance in The Departed

There are no excuses people, if you have read this you have the survival knowledge. Now all you need is a plan, weapon of choice and a wicked name for your group but if the 5 Steps are in place the hard work is done…obviously.

Once you get to Boston all will be well for a period of time ranging between 28 weeks to six months. Proceedings will thereafter start to get tricky. It’s sequel time and that’s a brand new set of rules……………

The Fighter

The Fighter could have been about the most boring topic in the world but with the double team of Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale I was always going to be excited about it.

PLOT: Micky Ward is an up and coming boxer based in Hicksville USA and is unfortunately saddled with his older brother Dicky, a drug addict and former boxer as his coach. Micky finds himself torn between his family and his girl as he desperately tries to keep his boxing career on track. Dicky is struggling with his habit whilst making a documentary about addiction.
Micky gets his ass kicked, Micky gets an opportunity, Micky disowns Dicky, Micky gets help from Dicky, a training montages sneaks in under the radar, Micky goes to London and is crowned the Champion and I have just spoiled the ending of the movie. END PLOT

The other two thirds of my Trio had asked what happened to my blog for The Fighter and I responded that I didn’t particularly want to write it as I didn’t know what to say about Christian Bale’s performance. They called me out on it straight away, accusing me of not liking Christian Bale because he got nominated over Mark Wahlberg.

The annoying thing about being part of a Trio who is always right is the fact that the Trio is always right.

BEGIN RANT: I have spend the vast majority of Mark Wahlberg’s career defending the man through thick and thin. I will agree that if you watch The Happening as a botanical thriller then he is piss poor but if you watch it as an ironic comedy Mark’s performance is transformed and elevated to the stuff of legends.

It is therefore really frickin’ annoying that the one time Mark actually pulls out an amazing performance he gets overlooked at the Oscar’s.

Mark got nominated for The Departed because he had an interesting hair cut and swore a lot but in The Fighter he is good at just acting.

Christian Bale is fine but at times he is very over the top. Dear Sweet Mark was so much better and deserved a best actor nomination. END RANT

The cast, especially Mark Wahlberg (and Bale to a lesser extent) were fantastic.

I do feel sorry for Wahlberg as he played the straight guy and has got over looked by the more showy performances which, for avoidance of doubt, I think is harsh.

Christian Bale was good, but the movie at times became the Dicky show, so it is debatable whether or not he should have been allowed to be in the supporting actor category. I will stop moaning though as I believe that if anyone other than Mark Wahlberg played Micky Ward I would be driving the Bale Bandwagon.

Amy Adams was great as Charlene and Melissa Leo as Alice Ward almost outshone everyone. They can box it out for the best supporting actress accolade but I think Melissa just about punches above Amy’s weight. Or something.

I did like the Ward family and it entertained me that the mother of Dicky and Micky procreated some of the scariest looking bunch of sisters since Cinderella although with nicknames like Pork, Tar, Red-Dog and Beaver what did you expect. The family focus was solely on the boys with the girls giving up their seats whenever they walked into a room. There were some nice touches with the family although I wouldn’t ever want to cross them.

Lock up your daughters. Literally

As I am a stickler for tradition I did not google the name Micky Ward in order to get some background information before I watched his life story. I also know nothing about boxing and would struggle to name one active boxer.

I didn’t realise how into the movie I was until quite near the end when Hilts asked me if I thought he won. I replied that I didn’t know and discovered I was quite stressed. I prayed that The Fighter wouldn’t turn into another Friday Night Lights as my poor shattered nerves couldn’t handle it. Emma-hen by this stage had begun punching the air in some sort of supporting yet uncontrollable spasm. The Nerdy Trio were stressed.

I absolutely loved everything about The Fighter and I cant fault it. It gets a 9/10 and will be a rare addition to my sports movie collection which consists of Friday Night Lights and Dodgeball.

Does The Fighter deserve Best Picture erm……. no
Does The Fighter deserve Best Direction erm……no
Does The Fighter deserve Best Screenplay erm……no
Does The Fighter deserve Best Supporting Actress …….yep
Does The Fighter deserver Best Supporting Actor erm……..yep (begrudged and I am aiming for a perfect score with this years prediction)

Does The Fighter deserve Best Actor …………….No

I am ignoring the fact that I can hear the rest of the Trio screaming “why are you crying like a jail house bitch over Mark’s lack of nomination whenever you want Colin Firth to win?” This is my blog and I can be as irrational as I see fit.

The End

True Grit

I cant pretend to know much about the western genre. I went through a Quick and the Dead phase as did most girls of my generation thanks to a young Leonardo DiCaprio. My favourite is The Good The Bad and The Weird which is a Korean remake of The Good The Bad The Ugly so technically my favourite western is an eastern. It all boils down to Oscar season + western = The Nerdy Trio went to see True Grit.

PLOT: Fourteen year old Mattie (Hailee Steinfield) hires Rooster Colburn (Jeff Bridges) to catch the man who killed her father and take him to the Judge for trial and thereafter for hanging. They meet Matt Damon’s LaBoeuf a Texan Ranger also hunting the outlaw. The trio team up, they fall out, Rooster saves LaBoeuf, Mattie predictably gets her ass kidnapped, LaBouf Saves Rooster, Mattie grows up and I grow old. END PLOT

The plot is actually not very original - tough independent girl seeks revenge in a man’s world, earns the respect of men, gets kidnapped and ultimately saved by the men folk regressing her to helpless female.

Hailee Steinfield is okay as Mattie but just okay. I liked the educated way in which her character spoke but I just couldn’t buy into her performance. There is something very stage school about her that just screams “look at me, watch me act, because I, am an actress”.

Jeff Bridges is an actor that I know (although one member of the Trio cant tell him apart from Jeff Daniels) but have seen very few of his films. In True Grit he plays an inaudible drunk very well, although not well enough to steal the Oscar from Colin Firth.

Matt Damon is on the cusp of camp in his mustard jacket and Josh Brolin is underused as Chancey.

The score is cheap, nasty and reminded me so much of Waltzing Matilda I actually found myself trying to remember the lyrics of the song during the film.

The movie did look good though especially the few scenes when it snowed.

Favourite scenes are Mattie negotiating the sale of her ponies and the scene in the hut with Quincy if only be cause the finger chopping moment took me by surprise and who doesn’t enjoy watching a man getting shot in the head at close range?

I must confess that I have an irrational dislike of the Coen Brothers as they radiate perpetual smugness and this does not sit well with me. The only other Coen Brothers movie I have watched is No Country For Old Men (my third favourite McCarthy novel) and I felt that they messed up the Carla Jean death scene. I cant explain it but I just don’t like them.

True Grit is a good film, it truly is, but if it weren’t for it being Oscar season it would have completely passed me by. It’s Oscar and not Joel and Ethan I need to thank for my afternoon’s viewing. It gets a 7/10 although it wont ever be watched again.

If anything I can sit on awards night totally vindicated in my picks for all the best awards none of which are True Grit related.

Tangled

I am a Disney girl at heart and I am neither afraid nor ashamed to push my way to the front of the queue when a new movie comes out. It was a case of The Nerdy Trio vs. a thousand screaming kids for opening weekend of Tangled.

PLOT: Rapunzel is born after a magical flower has been used to medicate her sick mother (we are spared the traumatic and visual child birth scenes). This magical flower through complicated science has assimilated through Rapunzel causing her hair to have magical healing powers up until it is cut.
Mother Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, passes her off as her own daughter and locks her in a high tower to keep her “safe” from the men folk.
Flynn, a charming thief, climbs the tower, gets kidnapped by Rapunzel and is forced to take her to see the Festival of Lights which is held every year by her real mother and father to celebrate the anniversary of her birth/kidnapping. Mother Gothel isn’t pleased. There are at least two catchy songs, a cool horse, a love scene, a death scene, a reincarnation scene and they all live happily ever after except for Mother Gothel who is thrown head first out of her own tower. END PLOT

Everyone knows the short story of Rapunzel and kudos must go to Disney who managed to stretch it out into a 100min movie.

The characters are fun. Rapunzel is ditzy and likeable and doesn’t shame the Disney Princess family unlike that awful overacting Snow White. Mandy Moore is fine as Rapunzel but also as bland and vanilla as they come.

Flynn almost managed to knock the Beast off the ultimate Disney Prince pedestal but upon the horrifying revelation that his true name was Eugene the Beast can rest easy. Flynn is voiced by Zachary Levi a name I know through a quick trip to IMDB.

The best character Disney has produced in a long time is Mother Gothel. Gothel relies not on magic and witchcraft to get what she wants but on pure manipulation which was so affective there were a few times when I found myself thinking that she wasn’t all bad - she is definitely one of the better Disney villains.

Alan Menkin is in charge of the songs and as this is the dude behind Beauty and the Beast hopes were high. The songs and score are fine, very Disney, but are not on my I-pod and don’t come anywhere near previous offerings.

The humour is there mostly in the form of an inventive use of a frying pan and Flynn’s inability to outsmart a horse. As a reasonably functioning adult who is trapped in a losing battle with a cat I could sympathise with his plight.

There were some nice little moments the most memorable of which was the Kings single man-tear before the Festival of Lights. This was a heart felt moment and made the Royal Family seem like a pillar of good and decency but that is only until you look a little deeper into the running of their Kingdom.

Their laws are harsh and a little draconian to say the least. The penalty for theft is hanging without trial as poor Flynn almost found out. I would not be forgiving of my potential in-laws if the only reason I didn’t hang was because I had the comedic foresight to bribe a horse with some apples prior to getting my ass arrested. The King and Queen brazened this out and an awkward apology was not forthcoming.

Overall Tangled is a strong Disney movie and it gets an 8/10. I will catch it again when the kids get it on dvd.

On the Disney scale of Kidnapped Princesses Rapunzel ranks higher than Snow White (but then again so do I) and Jasmine but she isn’t anywhere near Megara or Belle.