‘A real return to form’, many said when it came out at the cinema. That Woody Allen had re-found that comical style which captures the absurdity and heartbreak of love that we saw in his golden age of the late 70s  and early 80s. Of course, in those days, the films written and directed by him also starred him. We had his lost, slightly charmless intellectual side strangely winning over women way above him on the physical attraction ladder. And that was usually fun to watch. But now at 84, or however old he is, I suppose he can’t play the romantic character he invented so regularly any more. Personally, I was hoping his return to form was in doing more of the ‘orgasmotron’ scenario from Sleeper. Unfortunately not.

This film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is a Mills & Boon affair with a delicate sprinkle of wit added from time to time. It’s the tale of two friends going to Barcelona for a couple of months. Obviously, they are Vicky and Cristina. Two American ladies who made friends at university and decided to have a last hurrah before Vicky gets married. They arrive and are quickly invited on a weekend away to Oviedo by the celebrated artist Juan Antonio. He’s played by the ever charming Javier Bardem. I’ve only seen him in a few films, but I generally like what I see. Quite an unorthodox face that’s oddly catching nonetheless. He gets a straight yes from Cristina who is clearly smitten. But Vicky turns down the offer down, thinking of her fiancé.

Of course, both women do fly off with Juan Antonio and romance ensues. Juan Antonio, with his shirt always somewhat open, charms each of them enough to create a love triangle. But, in comes Penelope Cruz as Juan Antonio’s ex-wife and artist Maria Elena. So it’s a love quadrangle now. Who will capture Juan Antonio’s heart for good? Will it be Vicky who for the first time has fallen for the wrong man and is eaten by the guilt of it? Might it be Cristina, whose mind changes regularly and could settle down at last? Or will it be Maria Elena with her fiery Latino temperament and tortured artistic soul finding that calm with her one true love? Frankly, who very much cares. All I do know is that Juan Antonio seems to be living many men’s dream existence. Three beautiful women all yearning to stroke his ego. Perfect.

In olden times, Allen would put together a situation that might have been a little real. You could imagine this speccy little man with uncombed hair in circumstances and with women he didn’t know how to handle. But this was not that. Vicky, played by Rebecca Hall, was supposed to be him. She is wrestling with the love she feels for Juan Antonio and the loyalty she wants to feel for her drab, finance oriented fiancé. She’s high-minded and more normal than the wilder and sexualized Cristina, played by Scarlett Johansson. Lots of people might find me crazy to say it, but I do find Johansson quite boring. And her acting is generally quite characterless too. I didn’t have much time for any of them really.

There are two main points of annoyance in it all though. The first one I might have been a little to blame for. I put the DVD in, but before pressing play decided to do a crossword. Yes, yes, yes I am a bit boring myself, but I like crosswords. Anyway, the crossword was about 12 minutes long, and all the while I had the arty plucking of guitars with a slightly fake Spanish accent crooning over it. By the time I finished and started the film, I was sick of it. Then it kept appearing in the film too. Most annoying.

The other thing was how the story of the film was a voiceover explaining developments as time passed. I never like this in films as it usually makes out we don’t understand what is happening, or can’t make our minds ourselves. I could make my mind up, and found the whole thing a bit uninteresting and not really a return to form. It’s quite a nice travel guide for Barcelona though, so tourists rejoice.

Whenever you see a hero’s life on screen that goes against how warmly you thought of them, that can really roughly shake your memories. Maybe it’s best just to stay away. I made the mistake of sitting through that Bruce Lee biopic a few years ago, and while not terrible, I found him to be just more fragile and normal than I choose to remember. Maybe the reality of people you admire will never inspire you as much as the stories made around them did. For this reason, if I ever see an advert for a film being made about the life and times of Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell, the drunken garage-owner from Eastenders) I’d just have to avoid it at all costs. I say all this because I watched the DVD about the Notorious BIG last night. Luckily, he was no hero of mine and didn’t become one by the end of the film.

It turns out that the Notorious BIG AKA Christopher Wallace AKA Biggie Smalls, was originally a bespectacled Brooklyn lad. He’d sit on the stairs of his average home, watching hustlers make their living. A voice over tells us he was thinking of wanting to make the sort of money they did. So he takes off his glasses and becomes a crack-dealer. Nice. I pretty much disliked him from this second on. But he doesn’t get any better when turning away from selling dope to addicts and starting to make some hip-hop. Some of the decent, heavier tunes he had written got watered down under the influence of crazy-armed Puff Daddy. They made soulful rap songs to make easy-listening for a mainstream audience. And they had some hits and made big money from it.

Another aspect of his general nastiness and immaturity was in his treatment of women. Some say that old adage: treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. I don’t. But it seemed to work for Wallace. He had some completely over-attractive females throwing themselves at him, desperate for his approval. I got a bit Ricki-Lake-ish whilst watching it, wanting them to leave him be and find someone just a bit thoughtful and less brutish instead. They didn’t listen though, as I moaned on at the screen.

You can pretty much guess the ending of the film. He gets shot. We knew that. Who shot him we still don’t know, but we know ordinary bits and pieces of his life up until then. Most biopics polish the works and characteristics of the person in question to make them seem like saints. And this is no different really. A shame the makers couldn’t pick out more subtle parts of his life that really showed us why he loved the music. And what made so many people love him.

I didn’t enjoy it much, but the performances of Angela Bassett as his mum and Jamal Woolard as Notorious himself are worth noting. Bassett is never a disappointment. And Derek Luke catches the ridiculousness of Puff Daddy quite well, waving his arms about like an embarrassing uncle at a party.

In West Philadelphia, born and raised. On the playground is where I spent most of my days. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool. And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school… I sometimes feel I should apologize to Will Smith, as every film I see him in has me at least whistling the theme tune to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in my head. If I’m watching it at home as I was yesterday then I stand up and give out a full version with some classic rap gestures. It was Seven Pounds I was watching, and such messing around in the lounge with my cap on sideways was completely against the heavy seriousness of the film.

The opening scene is with Will Smith phoning for an ambulance to report a suicide attempt. “The victim’s name?” they say, and he replies “It’s me”. We travel then into the past to see how he got into this situation and course of action. It’s utterly grim from the start, and I can see some people hearing his opening remarks and just turning it off. I made it all the way through though, and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Smith himself has those moments of charm. He’s a very charming guy. Even if he’s trying to kill himself.

He seems to have a terrible past that he’s trying to make up for. Gradually we find out that he’s transplanted various organs to people in need, people who need them to survive. So he’s a heroic angel in a way, but with a disgraceful history that it takes an age to find out about. You just know he’s incredibly unhappy, and his acts of kindness are wrapped in guilt. He sort of becomes more humanized when he slowly falls in love with someone he looks to help. It’s only in this bit that a smile emerges from Smith, and I was very ready for it by then. I wasn’t close to tears, but I was on the verge of something. The woman he falls for was played by Rosario Dawson. She’s quite good. Very pretty and you can see why Smith falls for her.

The whole thing is a bit heavy-handed. The music to tear sympathy and emotion from you is permanent and sort of wears the sympathy away after a while. I could have done with something more subtle. Woody Harrelson, famous for his rubber-handed role in Kingpin, plays a blind pianist and is not best suited for this part. And that’s the only time it really gets amusing at all. I’m sure I wasn’t supossed to laugh though. Smith himself has something to him, and that’s generally good to see. It’s good that he’s broadening his range and looking to do more than sci-fi action comedy stuff, like I Am Legend or Wild, Wild West. The more I see him do stuff like this will probably cancel my theme tune rapping.

So, Ron Howard, famous for directing Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon, and Tom Hanks, who everybody knows, have teamed up again for The Da Vinci Code sequel/prequel, Angels & Demons. This time is the Vatican that’s under threat from terrorists and biblical tricksters that only one man can prevent. Hanks makes a stonking return as Robert Langdon, the mystery-solving symbologist, but now without that middle-age, shoulder-length mane that some found amusing in 2006. That could be down to the fact that the new storyline is one of Langdon’s past adventures.

Ron Howard has said in recent interviews that he wanted to concentrate mostly on action, and he gets that just right. There are twists and turns in any mystery movie, but this has the explosive element to it that really keeps you in tenterhooks. You get to see Ewan Mcgregor wandering around in cassocks too, which is bound to be an added thrill for most.

I remember that the Da Vinci Code was largely slated by many critics on release, but the stellar box-office takings seemed to demand another Langdon tale to be made. And here it is now with bells on. It could also be one of Ron Howard’s most exciting works for years, so fans should be grateful he returned and decided to keep it action-packed.

If you want to get a brief taste of the quality of the film, you can catch the trailer for Angels & Demons right here on blinkbox. So click away and watch Angels & Demons and see if that leaves you hungry for more. I get the feeling we have something tasty on our hands. If you ask for seconds, then leave us a comment and let us know what you thought.

It was bedlam in there. Women and children ran for cover and men’s fists were flying. Tears were spilt by some and others cowered in the shadows muttering “I just want my mobile back, that’s all I want”. It was at the end of X Men Origins: Wolverine, the first big-action blockbuster of the summer.

At a press view in Leicester Square, anyone who entered the cinema was scanned for recording devices and had to hand their mobiles into security. There seemed to be about 300 people there. But at the end with everyone wanting their phones back with all their contacts, texts and hilarious ringtones there looked to be about a thousand. All of them in a queue hating frenzy. I was one of them but stayed cool and emerged without injury.

You may remember there was the big furore the other week with Hugh Jackman, star and co-producer, incensed over how copies of the film had already found their way onto the internet. I think he’d been most angry because people were watching incomplete work and making a judgement on it. You can understand some of the ire he must have felt. Last night it should have been impossible to record it and transfer it online before the official big opening this week. So Jackman shouldn’t be kicking off again for now.

The film itself was ok. There was a lot of hectic action and the introduction of a few characters familiar to old comic book fans. Sabretooth, Wolverine’s older brother, turns up at the start. Liev Schreiber plays him. I think Jackman said the two actors had gone head-to-head during filming just like their characters do. I wouldn’t like to have been in the middle of that. If it’s anything like how Wolverine and Sabretooth rampage toward each other it would all end in a bloody mess.

Other new characters are Wade, a swordsman played by Ryan Reynolds, Bolt, who can light light bulbs, Agent Zero, who fires a gun at any target without missing, and The Blob, who is, well, a blob. None of them get much time to be more than introduced. But you get the feeling that none of them will last long anyway. The only one who stands out is Gambit. He’s a favourite with X-Men fans, and might get his own spin-off from this one. All the way through, though, you know the film is about Wolverine. Hence the title I suppose.

I kept getting reminded of other comic book films as I was watching it. A few times it felt like one of the other X-Men films which I haven’t yet forgotten. And some of the emotional tragedy bits felt like the Spider-man trilogy, about heroes and their responsibilities. I’m not sure when a comic book film will come out that looks original and isn’t part of a franchise. I’ll celebrate the day when it comes. For now, this was a fast moving adventure with some memorable action scenes. Good fun at times, if little else.

If I were an alien with the powers to pretend to be anyone, I wouldn’t turn up on Earth impersonating Keanu Reeves. Yes, he is a bit non-human and seemingly of another world. But I wouldn’t want to talk with the surf-dude tone that Keanu always speaks in. I wouldn’t be taken seriously. So I would have to morph into a celebrity who is generally trusted by the public, someone like Sir Richard Attenborough.

Anyway, Keanu turns up as an alien in the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, directed by Scott Derrickson. Keanu plays Klaatu, the alien who has arrived on Earth to warn us of our terrible ways. He says the habits of humankind are leading to the destruction of the planet and they have to be stopped. Unsurprisingly, the government don’t take too kindly to this judgment and start firing at him and his giant robot friend.

In the original, the robot was called Gort and it was in the good old days of flying saucers. This time the two of them travel in a giant glowing ball and Gort is all CGI. But in this remake “Gort” has no name and obviously hasn’t got a 7ft man clucking him about the set. A shame that as he was quite funny.

Jennifer Connelly was good and Kathy Bates is always fun to watch. The Day The Earth Stood Still is a sci-fi film with not a great deal of action in it. It could have done with a few explosions and a lizard-headed alien or two. That would have made it more cheery and fun to watch.

So, Transporter 3 is out this week. I’m sure I’ve seen at least one of the previous Transporters. I know I saw the first one, where we’re introduced to Jason Statham playing Frank Martin. But there’s the possibility that I saw the follow up to that one too. Or it was a dream I had one night about a muscly kung-fu expert chopping some European villains in the throat until they snarled at him no more. I think it was probably that I saw some of the Transporter 2 the other night and then maybe had that dream. Shudder.

Anyway, in Transporter 3 Frank gets into some bother again and looks to vroom his way out of it. The Europeans are Ukrainians. Or at least some of them are. The one that we know is, is this redhead he finds in the backseat of a car. Her name is Valentina, and she’s the daughter of an Ukrainian minister. And of course, is quite pretty.

An evil organisation wants Frank to drive her around as his captive until the father and minister signs a deal. The deal is a despicable one that involves a bubbling green goo being spat in the ocean. It obviously has to be stopped and we know Frank will somehow be involved. And that he’ll get the girl.

Valentina falls in love with Frank when he starts violently defending himself. I don’t think I’ll follow that routine to catch a nice young lady’s attention. But he’s very good at throwing people around, Jason Statham. The camera spins around him constantly. Just as whoever he’s got by the collar or leg does. The action is fast and the Euro-disco music pumps out most of the time with high energy.

Transporter 3 is one of those films that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Luc Besson is the co-writer, and you can sometimes hear his input, which is a bit out of place. But mostly it’s a straight action film with Statham throwing punches and driving his car like a madman. By the end, I didn’t think there’d be a part 4 in the chain really. But I thought the same thing after watching Police Academy 3, so I might well be wrong again.

It was another screening this week - the Swedish horror vampire film Let The Right One In.

We had a screen-talk with the director, Tomas Alfredson. I’d been quite nervous of this screen-talk all day long. I worried someone might walk along the front row with an enormous microphone and wonder what I had to ask. I’d spent lunchtime thinking over what I might ask. I thought of the bland “What first made you a director?”. But then went on thinking I could cheekily tell him how to have made the film better, be ejected from the cinema and go home with a ruined reputation.

What I found interesting about Alfredson’s answers was about his handling of the kids in the film. He said he didn’t allow them to see a script at all. They were told what to say and they repeated it. That could be one of the reasons that Kare Hedebrant as Oskar and Lina Leandersson as Eli give such realistic and moving performances.

Something else I took away from his chat was his claim that all Swedish people find poodles funny. There is a moment at the start of the film with a poodle in it that kind of made me laugh. Blood is dripping from a murdered young man into an empty plastic bottle and up runs a poodle. It goes face first into the pool of blood much to the annoyance of the murderer who tries to shoo it away. It’s a black comedy moment that only had some of the audience laugh out loud.

The bottle itself is meant to be filled to feed Eli, a vampire. She is 12 years old. Oskar is 12 too and is badly bullied at school. They’re lonely creatures and all the way through seem right for each other. Their difficulties seem similar. Oskar is limited by the boys at school tormenting him. And I suppose Eli is limited by not being able to go out in the sunshine and always looking at people’s necks she might want to bite.

I honestly wanted their relationship to work. Probably due to a slightly corny feeling inside that love will always win eventually.

I might go and see this one again in the next few weeks. I’d like to see it on my own. The scary bits would be even scarier and an added bonus would be that I wouldn’t have to ask questions when the lights came on.

So, I went along to a Fast & Furious screening this week. One of the best things about some screenings is the freebies you get. You’re not planning to go along and get things to take home and have your opinion influenced, but to walk in and be given some pizza…that’s just unfair.

The film I then saw is a follow-up to The Fast & The Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and The Fast and The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. I wondered where the “The”s have gone from this title, and why this fourth instalment has no number to it. Maybe it’s just that people don’t really want to spend too long at the box-office reading out the name of a film they might be a little embarrassed of seeing. I’m expecting any future episode’s name to be edited down to F&F. Followed by F6. Then just F. I’m not sure it can go any smaller than that really.

Anyway, Vin Diesel comes back in this version as the musclebound Dominic. Michelle Rodriguez as Letty is back from the first one too. Paul Walker with his twinkly grey eyes turns up as well. He’s still an FBI agent, but hasn’t lost his raging hunger for cars and driving them dangerously. This makes him join forces with Dominic to carry out a vengeful act or two at the highest speed. Their main enemy, apart from each other, is Braga. He’s a millionaire drug-dealer who gets his heroin driven over the Mexican-US border through some mountain tunnels 6 inches wider than your average sportscar. And he has to be stopped.

It’s wrong to look for much depth in the story though. It’s all about the action, with motors groaning, cars zipping about, and stuntmen flying all over the screen. The cameraman seemed to be shaking all way through with excitement too. The only time he really stopped wobbling was to concentrate on Vin Diesel thinking something. He has his name down as executive producer, Diesel, and I have my suspicions that he wanted a bit more to do than show off his biceps. Sadly, his “acting” is done with the stoniest of faces and I had no idea what he was thinking. Or feeling. His look of sadness and that of pondering whether he might have left the gas on look pretty much the same, I reckon.

I have to admit that I haven’t seen the first three films. That may have made me generally dislike it more than the pizza made me appreciate it. A shame that, as the pizza was delicious. If you’re not a pizza-loving man in his thirties without a driving licence, then you may get more from it than I did. It’s fast-moving and action-packed. At the end of the screening, some young men walked down the stairs with me and they’d loved it. I obviously don’t have the same tastes as everyone then.

As you many have noticed, we’ve recently added a bunch of catch up/day after UK broadcast TV to the site, one of my favourites being season 4 of WB’s supernatural hit, Supernatural.
There are many reasons to watch this show, it’s HUGE in America but really lost out here due to season one being shown on ITV3 in the Friday night death slot. Also back in season one, it was pretty much a straight teen/twenty something  X-Files rip off with monsters & demons as the central theme instead of aliens. The show, however, has come a loooooong way since then. Not only have the swoon-worthy Winchester Bros grown up, but so has the show in almost every which way. Four years on the story is more complex and the characterisation richer, this season especially about the dynamic between the two brothers and the secrecy between them -as much as it is about the assortment of good guys/bad guys and good guys gone bad.
Those of you who are avid fans of the series will remember that Season 3 ended with Dean being sent to Hell by Lilith - because of the “deal” he made for Sam’s life.
Season 4 kicks off with Dean being ripped out of hell by some unseen force to participate in what turns out to be the ultimate end times battle between good and evil. Sam has been working his (part-demon) mojo with the help of Ruby in Dean’s absence, and this in itself is to become one of the greatest sources of friction between the two.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the first 4 episodes are up on blinkbox already, you should check them out for yourself. Mitch Pileggi (Skinner outta the X-Files) puts in an amazing performance as the boys Grandfather in a time travellin’ episode and we learn some interesting stuff about the origins of the Y.E.D.
And hell, even if you don’t like monsters (weirdo) between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, there’s bound to be something to pique your interest…

Kim Manners, who often directed episodes of Supernatural (and the XFiles, Millennium, Disturbing Behaviour etc..) passed away earlier this week. Wanted to pay some respect to one of the best genre TV directors of the last 20 years.