Taken: DVD Review

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 heroin, 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

Film

Anvil! The Story of Anvil: DVD Review
American Movie: DVD Review

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! 7/10
American Movie 10/10

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Two interesting pieces on piracy in today’s Technology Guardian:

First up, Victor Keegan on music downloads, explaining why the music industry’s insistence that ISPs stop the flow of illegal downloads is boneheaded and unworkable.

‘The music industry simply won’t give up blaming everyone but itself for the sorry state it claims to be in,’ he writes. ‘If ISPs are responsible for pirate music flowing past them, then ditto for pornography and everything else. Great idea: I can sue my service provider whenever a virus gets onto my PC. How dare they let it through!’

Keegan points out that the companies offering solutions for the furture of music – Apple with iTunes, Nokia with Comes with Music, Spotify, Last.fm etc – are coming from outside of the music industry, which is presumably too busy getting all litigious about teenagers illegally downloading the odd track they can’t yet afford to pay for.

It’s easy to see the future of music moving away from the outdated big record companies, with artists linking up directly with the likes of iTunes and Spotify, leaving Simon Cowell and co wondering whatever happened to the 1980s.

Next, Mark Harris on movies, and the RealNetworks vs Hollywood trial. Seven movie studios are suing Real over its RealDVD software, which allows users to make digital copies of their DVDs – with copy protection left intact, and without the ability to burn extra discs.

Harris quotes Real vice-president Bill Way: ‘Here’s the interesting thing. They have not brought a copyright infringement case against us. They have not brought the classic Universal v Sony VCR case, I presume because they knew they would lose it.’ As Harris points out, Sony is now one of the studios suing Real.

Is ripping a DVD to a PC any different from ripping a CD to an iPod? If you pay £16 for a DVD or £11 for a CD you should be entitled to watch or listen to it in any way you choose. Making a copy for personal use cannot be piracy, otherwise 90 percent of the population must be criminals. How about the studios focus their efforts on developing alternative delivery methods (ad-supported streaming movies, perhaps)?

Harris says DVD sales are declining by 20 percent a year in the US. This has little to do with piracy. If Hollywood really wants to save its skin it should probably stop churning out so many crappy movies.

Film, Music, Technology Piracy, The Guardian