Read the full story article over at Sabotage Times.

But then I found out that Aaron Sorkin had written the script, and that David Fincher had directed it. The West Wing was one of my favourite TV shows, and Fight Club one of my favourite movies. So, it transpired, I had to make a date to see The Social Network. I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

The opening exchange, where soon-to-be Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is dumped by his girlfriend, is unmistakably Sorkin, with quick-smart dialogue fired back and forth at an almost bewildering rate.

It takes a few minutes to adjust to the frenetic pace of the movie – surprising really, as much of the ‘action’ involves sitting in front of a computer monitor typing in code. But the script and direction keep the movie rattling along, and fears over the potentially dry subject matter are soon dismissed.

My real problem was with the characters. Eisenberg does a great job of making Zuckerberg seem thoroughly unlikeable, and few of the other characters, with the possible exception of Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder screwed over by Zuckerberg when Facebook takes off, are able to command any sympathy.

The most interesting character is probably Napster founder Sean Parker, ably played by Justin Timberlake. His throwaway comments about destroying the music industry made me wonder whether a Napster movie might have been a more entertaining watch.

You have to admire The Social Network. It’s brilliantly written, and well-directed and acted. But, like Facebook itself, I found it difficult to care about.

Di Caprio’s character, Cobb, assembles a team of experts and sets about the labyrinthine process of infiltrating a dream within a dream inside the mind of the mark, played by Cillian Murphy. The stakes are high. If Cobb succeeds he will be reunited with his family. If he fails, he and his team face being trapped in some perpetual dreamlike state from which they won’t be able to wake.

What follows is a complex and confusing journey into the puzzle that is the human mind, with Cobb and his team switching back and forward between reality and multiple layers of dreams, allowing director Christopher Nolan to deliver a brainbusting series of plot twists and big ticket visuals.

One of Cobb’s recruits is an architect, played by Ellen Page. She’s charged with designing the dream world in which the inception will take place, and the sequence in which Cobb introduces her to the possibilities of dreams is spectacular, with city streets and architecture bending and morphing around them on an epic scale. Later scenes in which a team member played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt tries to jolt his colleagues awake without the assistance of gravity are also amazing to watch.

I’m a big fan of Nolan, loved Memento, really enjoyed Insomnia, The Prestige and Batman Begins. I really liked The Dark Knight, too, although I thought it was a little bloated. Now, having made a billion dollars from that enterprise, he’s been given free reign to make a blockbuster apparently free from the usual studio constraints. What a rarity.

It’s incredibly refreshing to see a blockbuster that isn’t a sequel, or based on a comic book, or a theme park ride, or a toy range. It’s an original idea (extracted) from the mind of its creator, which in an ideal world would be the case for all movies, but it isn’t, so for this we should be grateful. It’s original and ambitious, and as adeptly executed as you’d expect from Nolan.

And, crucially, it makes you think. Granted, not all cinemagoers want to engage their brain when sat in front of the big screen, but this cinemagoer definitely does. Surely all movies should at least demand that the audience pays attention? Inception certainly does that, and remains in the thoughts long after the credits have rolled.

I do have a few quibbles, however. Although the dream worlds were purposely designed to facilitate the inception, they weren’t as strange as I’d have liked them to be. In dreams, people and places are never quite as you remember them. They’re odd, sometimes literally nightmarish, and I’d have liked to have seen that explored a little more. Certainly, the snow-bound world in which the climatic shoot-out takes place seemed very dull when compared to the possibilities suggested by the movie’s initial ventures into dreams. As for the shoot-outs, well it’s disappointing that a movie that promises so much ends with a fairly typical noisy blockbuster bullet fest.

So I’m not sure Inception is quite as good as some critics are claiming. Only repeat viewings will reveal whether it matches Memento. (And, for the record, I don’t think Inception is as satisfying a moviegoing experience as Toy Story 3, also out this week.) But it’s an exciting, thought-provoking, worthwhile picture that goes a long way to renewing your faith in the summer blockbuster. More films like this, please.

Toy Story 3 review: Has Pixar cracked the 3D conundrum?
Pretty Bird DVD review: Pretty Bad

I should emphasise from the start that I had no involvement or contact with anyone involved in the production of Pretty Bird, so I when I say it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen I’m doing so from a (thankfully) detached position.

Pretty Bird is pretty bad. Perhaps not M Night Shyamalan bad, but still pretty woeful. But my overriding feeling after watching it was one of bafflement. Pretty Bird is just so odd, so half-hearted, so dull that it’s hard to figure out what exactly it’s trying to achieve.

The meandering first hour sees quirky entrepreneur Curt (Billy Crudup) recruit rocket propulsion expert and super-grouch Rick (Paul Giamatti and moustache) and chequebook-happy bed salesman Kenny (David Hornsby) for an unspecified scheme that is eventually revealed to involve building a rocketbelt.

What’s so special about this rocketbelt, the device around which the whole movie and any conflict within it hinges? Why are these guys so driven to build it, to fly it, to fight over it? We never find out. They build the thing without much effort, Curt and Rick fall out over nothing much, Kenny’s money runs out, and the rocketbelt disappears. And that’s pretty much it. It’s all deeply unsatisfying.

Although the leads do perfectly fine jobs, they’ve got very little to work with. The script is bland, the characters are underdeveloped, and the little conflict that exists is introduced too late. It’s pitched as a comedy, but there’s nothing remotely funny in it. It’s a really difficult movie to care about.

I was left wondering whether production problems played any part in Pretty Bird’s downfall. The best scene, Curt’s (very short) meeting with a potential investor played by Garret Dillahunt, almost seems like it’s been cut and pasted from another movie. And Curt’s romantic fling with one of Kenny’s employees, played by Kristen Wiig, shapes up interestingly, only for both the subplot and Wiig to be immediately forgotten about.

The movie labels itself as a work of fiction inspired by real events, and certainly the characters of Curt, Rick and Kenny are based on the real-life Brad, Larry and Joe. And there’s a rocketbelt in it. But comparisons with the true story pretty much end there.

I’ve no problem with the film makers playing loose with the facts. The real rocketbelt caper story is too complicated, too sprawling, maybe even too far-fetched, to be transferred to the screen without a thorough condensation of characters and events. But if you’re going to leave things out, you don’t leave out the most interesting bits, surely?

Pretty Bird makes dull work of unique and fascinating true story. It feels like a huge opportunity missed, and that’s a shame. I’m certain there’s a still great rocketbelt caper movie out there. It’s just that no one has made it yet.

Read more about The Rocketbelt Caper.

Having (sensibly) waited ten years to follow-up Toy Story 2, the creators now have a neat premise – Andy is 17 and off to college, and the toys, unplayed with for years, are bagged up for the attic. Unhappy with this prospect, they instead conspire to be donated to a kiddies’ daycare centre, which they imagine to be an idyll of happy, playful children. In fact, the daycare centre turns out to be something of a nightmare, and the toys plan an escape to return to their owner.

All of the key characters return, and there are also plenty of new ones, including Lotso the less-than-cuddly bear (Ned Beatty), Curb’s Jeff Garlin as Buttercup the Unicorn, and a hilarious turn from Michael Keaton as a camp-as-Christmas Ken doll.

The end titles (worth staying for) credit around 20 people with the story, and the collaborative process seems to have paid off. It’s sharp, lean and funny, even to a cynical bugger like me.

At 103 minutes, Toy Story 3 flies by and – in a rare occurrence for for a summer blockbuster – actually leaves the audience wanting more. If it’s not quite as good as 1 or 2, that’s only because the first two movies were so fantastic. Chapter 3 is preceded by a typically great Pixar short – Night & Day – so make sure you’re in your seat early.

I’ve previously blogged that 3D is an unwelcome distraction, but in Toy Story 3 that never becomes the case. It’s used subtly and effectively – there is no pointing and poking at the screen, no throwing things at the audience. Instead it’s a subtle effect that simply adds a little depth to the image.

Unlike in screenings of Avatar, not once did I notice anyone removing their 3D glasses in order to assess the 3D effect. The movie is never less than immersive, and I, for one, forgot I was wearing the glasses. (Also, the glasses serve as a useful disguise if you happen to get something in your eye during the moving finale…)

Mark Kermode has videoblogged on the subject, wondering whether watching Toy Story 3 would be every bit as involving in 2D. My opinion is that it would still be a fantastic and immersive movie, but I have to admit that in this case the 3D does seem to add something.

Of course, this is animation, and totally different from live action movies. I still cringe at the thought of 3D becoming the standard for every major film release. But, in the case of Toy Story 3, Pixar has proved that, used cleverly and in the context of a great film, 3D can actually be a positive thing in movies. I, for one, never expected that.

I saw the Avatar: An IMAX 3D Experience presentation at the brand new Odeon Metrocentre cinema in Gateshead, the only digital IMAX theatre outside of London, and opened in the week of the movie’s release. Screenings were fully-booked days in advance, and we struggled to get tickets for a couple of weeks.

When we did eventually get to see it, we were sat at the front right corner – not great seats for the £12.50 ticket price. The screening was preceded by a brief introduction from a man in a suit who reminded us to return our hefty 3D specs for sterilisation after the movie, and warned us that the immersive nature of the experience might cause illness. But there was no warning of physical injury. Looking up and left at the huge screen for 162 minutes required a painful twisting of the neck and back that left me in pain for a few days afterwards. Injured by a 3D movie! Pah!

The 3D effect certainly works, although the final image appears to be made up of several flat layers, almost like a paper diorama, and so is not particularly realistic. The end result is a little like leafing through a child’s pop-up book. Amusing, and worth a look, but hardly the holy grail of cinema. It seems to me a technology that will be better suited to video games rather than movies. And the sum effect of Avatar is a bit like watching someone play a video game for the best part of three hours.

The movie itself – well, it’s Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure on a bigger budget, isn’t it? To be fair to Cameron, he has obviously tried hard to ensure that the 3D doesn’t get in the way of the story. For example, there are noticeably few arrows and pointy sticks flying out of the screen. But the overall experience still detracts from the movie’s content. Moviegoers around me were constantly removing their glasses to see how the effect worked, and looking around the cinema to see how it was affecting others. Hardly the immersive experience Cameron was trying to create.

And that’s the problem with 3D. Unlike sound and colour, 3D doesn’t represent an advancement in cinema technology. In many ways it’s a backward step. Rather than immerse the cinemagoer in the movie, 3D is an unwelcome distraction. Using 3D for the odd novelty slasher movie is fine, but surely no one want to see it become the standard for every blockbuster movie?

Unfortunately, the amount of money invested in 3D suggests that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it. Better get used to those specs.

So far Voddler has attracted at least £10 million of investment, and has signed deals with Disney and Paramount. It’s been labelled as a Spotify for movies, but can it live up to the hype?

Voddler beta is currently only (officially) available by invitation in Sweden, but I’ve had the opportunity to try it here in the UK. (It’s possible to register for an invitation at www.voddler.com, and on receipt sign up using a Swedish zip code – thanks Andy.)

The initial impressions of the Voddler client are poor. Navigation is via the keyboard arrow keys, with no mouse or QWERTY use, and username and password entry is incredibly laborious. Setting up the screen resolution size is a similarly annoying process. It seems to have been optimised for wide screens – great for TVs, but not so good when viewing on most computer monitors.

Once logged in, you’re presented with a very underwhelming menu screen – essentially a load of movie poster thumbnails that can be sorted into recommended, free, premium and genre categories. Highlighting a thumbnail brings up (very) brief details, such as director, runtime, and year of release. Again, navigation is annoyingly slow. But what’s available?

The free-to-view movies include the likes of Chinatown, Crash, Chopper, Bridge To Terabithia, The Italian Job, Lucky Number Slevin, and Saws I-IV. So there’s plenty to keep you occupied, although perhaps nothing to really excite.

Premium movies, costing around 24 to 37 Swedish Krona (£2 to £3.25) each, include titles such as Angels and Demons, The Proposal, The Wrestler, Watchmen, Hanna Montana, and Saw V.

The TV show category is home to a forgettable selection of cheap documentaries of the type that play on unwatched Sky channels.

The actual viewing experience is more impressive. After a brief period of buffering, your chosen movie is preceded by a couple of (Swedish) ads, and a trailer. Movie playback is very good, certainly comparable with the BBC iPlayer, although again the clunky controls let Voddler down.

Overall, Voddler seems to have the under-the-hood technology in place, but needs to work on its user interface. One of the real joys of Spotify was how instantly and easily it worked. Voddler, in contrast, is slow and difficult to use. The movie selection isn’t great, but this will no doubt expand as it moves out of beta and into other territories.

For the time being there is enough here to make it worth installing on your laptop for long train journeys, but, unlike Spotify, Voddler is far from essential.

Liam Neeson is a former Government “preventer”, which basically means he can do karate and shoot some guns. But he has given that up to be closer to his estranged daughter, who is meant to be 17 but inexplicably acts like she’s 12, skipping around in pigtails, yelling “Daddy!” and cuddling ponies. Then she does what all 17-year-old girls dream of – she heads off with an equally gormless friend to Europe to follow hip young rock cobblers U2 on tour.

Unluckily, within minutes of arriving in an apparently lawless backwater known as Paris, France, the two girls are kidnapped by a people trafficking gang, chained to a mucky bed and shot full of heroin. Luckily, Liam knows a man who can work computers, and soon he has the name of the gang boss, and a private flight to Paris.

There he crashes cars, blows up buildings, shoots a policeman’s innocent wife, and murders 40 or 50 henchmen. He rescues another kidnapped girl, leaves her in a grubby hotel connected to a drip and conveniently forgets about her. His daughter’s thick mate suffers a worse fate – Liam finds her dead in a pile of sick. Cue 15 seconds of sad eyes, then back to the action.

Eventually, he tracks down his daughter, in chains and a bikini, up to the eyeballs in ‘skag’, and sold to a big fat sheik. Liam shoots more henchman, then shoots the sheik, and whisks his daughter back home.

Thankfully, despite being brutally kidnapped, hooked on heroin, presumably repeatedly raped, and experiencing the horrible death of her best friend, she appears to have made a complete recovery in time for an airport reunion with her mother (“Mommy!”) and loaded stepfather. Everyone is happy. (Except, presumably, for the dead mate’s parents.)

Probably the best brainless action flick available on DVD from Asda for £3 since Crank.

3/5

Watching Anvil! The Story of Anvil, the feature documentary about a hapless Canadian heavy metal band, at the weekend I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of my all-time favourite documentaries – American Movie.

Anvil! catches up with the titular rockers some 25 years after they flirted with stardom. We see footage from 1984 of the band playing packed stadiums alongside the likes of Whitesnake and Bon Jovi. Talking heads like Lars Ulrich, Slash and Lemmy explain how influential Anvil were, and how they were expected to be huge stars. “These guys were gonna turn the music industry upside down,” says Ulrich. But that never quite happened.

Cut to the present, and frontman Steve “Lips” Kudlow”, now in his 50s, delivers school meal for a living. But by night he and best mate and drummer Robb Reiner are still rocking out as Anvil – albeit in front of modest crowds in local bars. The chance to embark on a European tour reignites their dream. Can Anvil make a comeback?

Cue scenes of the band travelling around the arse end of Europe in a Winnebago, playing in front of a handful of people in basement clubs, arguing with venues over payment, missing trains, falling out with each other, and generally having their dream thoroughly stamped on.

It’s obviously full of Spinal Tap-esque moments and lines, but it’s more than just a freak show. Both Lips and Robb are eccentric characters, but they also come across as very likeable. “I started out with Robb when we were 14 years old, and we said we’re gonna do it til we’re old men,” says Lips. “And we really meant that.”

What emerges is something of a “bromance”, to use a current Hollywood buzzword. Director Sacha Gervasi was an Anvil fan as a teenager, and here he offers an affectionate, and often very funny, account of two friends who just don’t know when to stop the rock.

Chris Smith’s American Movie, released in 1999, follows independent filmmaker Mark Borchardt as he attempt to make his great American movie Northwestern. Mark, lanky and lank-haired, lives about one step above a trailer park in a run-down part of Milwaukee, and is utterly obsessed with movies.

Before he can get started on Northwestern he needs to complete the horror movie Coven, which he insists rhymes with “woven”. Trouble is he has no money, a dysfunctional family, oddball friends, and a host of personal demons.

Marks’ best friend is Mike Schank, an affable drug casualty (he happily tells the story of a brain-damaging overdose) with a permanent grin and the loyalty of a puppy dog. “We used to do a lot of partying together, but I don’t party anymore,” explains Mike.

The friendship between Mark and Mike is central to the movie – like Anvil! it’s a “bromance”. Throw into the mix Mark’s decrepit but loveable Uncle Bill, with his bizarre improvised poems to his dead wife, and you have a trio of unforgettable characters.

American Movie is fascinating, hilarious, touching and genuinely uplifting, all soundtracked by Mike Schank’s gentle acoustic guitar rendition of Mr Bojangles. Probably as good a feature documentary as you’ll ever see.

Anvil! 9/10
American Movie 10/10

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Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a washed-up pro wrestler, popping pills and bandaging limbs in an effort to keep his broken body in the ring and pay his rent. His estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) hates him, and the only person he has any connection with is disillusioned lapdancer Cassidy (Marisa Tomei).

Rourke, with his puffy, reconstructed face and battered body, looks a bit like a plastic He-Man action figure that’s been left on top of a radiator all winter (or, alternatively, Meg Ryan on steroids). He’s essentially playing himself here, but that shouldn’t distract from what is a really gutsy and compelling performance (Jack Nicholson has played himself for 40-odd years, and won three Oscars in the process). Both Rourke and Tomei are deservedly BAFTA and Oscar nominated.

Tomei is a consistently watchable actor who previously won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar a full 16 years ago for My Cousin Vinny. She offers a brave and heartfelt turn as the lapdancer who, like The Ram, knows she is too old for her chosen career. Like Rourke, she puts everything out there on the screen. Surprising film fact: Marisa Tomei is 45 years old.

But the most interesting thing about The Wrestler is that it manages to avoid ‘doing a Rocky’. There is nothing too sentimental or overblown about it, and the ending feels pitch-perfect. It’s a great little movie, sympathetically told by screenwriter Robert D Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky, and driven by two huge performances.

8/10

The Mist: DVD Review

Despite containing only half as much moisture density as John Carpenter’s The Fog, this Frank Darabont/Stephen King affair is fun CGI-monster B-movie, with Thomas Jane leading a group of smalltown folk trapped in a supermarket by a plague of supernatural beasties. It’s pretty standard fare – until the last few minutes, because The Mist has one of the darkest and most memorable endings you’ll ever see in a mainstream Hollywood movie, changed by Darabont from King’s original novella ending, and is worth seeing for that alone.

7/10

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