Movie-Con III: Day 3

The final day of Movie-Con had a more relaxed pace than Saturday, which was a relief because I was starting to live life like it was a trailer, getting annoyed with all the gaps in conversations and music failing to drop out every time I made a crap joke.

A long scene from Tron: Legacy showing Garrett Hedlund being transported through the bowels of an Xbox raised my interest in the film by 1%, which means I might watch it on the telly. The 3D was good though, which is something I'll never admit actually thinking or writing if pressed.

I'm similarly disinterested in Machete, although the scene in which the titular Mexican mentalist abseils from a window with the aid of someone's large intestine certainly caught my attention.

Battle: Los Angeles looks like a less slick Independence Day with equally little irony; a fight scene from The Green Hornet was better than the trailers we've seen so far, and Ironclad is a gory medieval sword-orgy directed by a man called Jonathan English. Johnny, as he didn't call himself, introduced a clip with all the enthusiasm of a teenager reading an essay on Flemish porridge farming, then pulled a face when, during his panel, people asked his cast about their other projects. Quite right too. Why would the Empire Movie-Con audience want to quiz Jason Flemyng about Kick-Ass 2 rather than a film set in Rochester Castle starring Paul Giamatti as King of England?

Future best mates of The Incredible Suit Simon Pegg and Nick Frost turned up to introduce a long trailer for Paul, which was very pleasing. I'm slightly worried it might end up like one of Pegg's "other" comedies (you know what I mean), but to see the eponymous alien extending a middle finger and proclaiming "It's probing time" was good enough for now.

Undisputed nadir of the weekend came in the form of a diabolical gobbet of guff about Resident Evil: Afterlife, in which director and unbearable imbecile Paul WS Anderson repeatedly and ill-advisedly compared his film to Avatar before stating, with a completely straight face, that "You make a better product when you make it in 3D". Words fail me, although two very obvious ones spring to mind immediately.



Later on I failed to win the Bastard Hard Movie Quiz, and failed to get excited about the impending "re-version" (dear God) of Brighton Rock, although director Rowan Joffe offered a robust defence of his film and explained some of his artistic decisions clearly and interestingly. I liked him enormously but I doubt I'll go and see his film.

Then I saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World. More on that another day.

So that was Movie-Con III. In short, there was too much footage we'd all seen on the internet already but the exclusive stuff, the guests and other assorted fun made the weekend a big hairy bag of geeky funballs, and I congratulate Empire and the BFI for organising it just for me.

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Movie-Con III: Day 2

Yesterday left me feeling like I'd spent seven hours being run over by a 3D CGI steamroller driven by Trailer Voiceover Man. As much as I love trailers, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. It's also possible to have too much of an average thing, a category into which much of yesterday's footage neatly falls.

Before I get my grump on though, I should mention the goodie bags. There they were, waiting for us like packed stockings on Christmas morning, and - like packed stockings on Christmas morning - there were only really two great presents:

Not that I was ungrateful for the A-Team box set, the New Moon DVD, all the t-shirts or any of the other stuff. It'll all make great actual Christmas presents (except maybe the London Film Museum lanyard). But you can't beat Jelly Belly, and Bitch Slap, well, I'll enjoy finding out if you can beat that.

Anyway I saw so much footage and saw so many panels that I should only really tell you about the awful stuff and the great stuff. So:

The Awful Stuff

The teaser for Captain America is predictably abominable and abominably predictable. Stock WWII footage, some fancy graphics and a shot of Chris Evans in an embarrassingly bad costume that looks like he sewed it himself while drunk does not an appetite whet.

There was other awful stuff but I'm politely glossing over it in favour of:

The Great Stuff

My Cowboys And Aliensometer has returned to the "enthusiastic" position. Daniel Craig looks ace as a cowboy with his face hewn from Monument Valley rock, and Harrison Ford being old and cantankerous is exactly what the world needs right now. On yesterday's evidence this could be Jon Favreau's redemption for Iron Man 2.

Monsters, which I had lazily dismissed as a District 9 clone, might just be better than District 9. The stuff we saw included bonkers creatures and intimate character moments, but the highlight was a Q&A with writer / director / cinematographer / production designer / God knows what else Gareth Edwards, one of the most genuine, down-to-earth people to grace the Movie-Con stage. He was immediately likeable and I hope to Christ his film is good because he deserves to go far.



And I've already banged on about Buried, but watching the first eight minutes of the movie and then listening to its excitable, hilarious, self-deprecating director Rodrigo Cortés giggle with glee at how much shit he put Ryan Rodney Reynolds through to make this film just made me want to see it more.

Apart from all that, Chloe Moretz is a 30-year-old in a 13-year-old's body, Cary Elwes is a rogueish raconteur and Daniel Radcliffe is tiny and needs a haircut.

Then some guy proposed to his girlfriend on stage, everyone stood up to applaud, and in doing so I lost my pen and therefore failed to write anything else down, which I imagine comes as some relief.

Still more tomorrow!

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Movie-Con III: Day 1

My new regular Saturday feature has already been shunted out of the way because this weekend I'm spending unhealthy amounts of time surrounded by like-minded geeks in obscure movie-referencing t-shirts at London's BFI, wherein Empire magazine's third annual Movie-Con is being held. If you're unaware of the intricacies of the event, imagine 500 nerds in a room watching random bits of footage of unfinished films. Sounds tremendous doesn't it?

Oh and the Con in Movie-Con is short for "confiscated", as in "your phone will be, to prevent you from posting wobbly footage of trailers that are already online or will be in a matter of days".

Day 1 started yesterday evening with Empire's Chris Hewitt carpet bombing us with excruciating jokes until we couldn't take any more and the first bit of footage was shown: an exclusive trailer for Danny Boyle's new movie and this year's London Film Festival closer, 127 Hours, starring James Franco.

127 Hours is a true story about a man who literally gets stuck between a rock and a hard place (for about 127 hours, I'm guessing) and has to resort to desperate measures to extricate himself. The trailer doesn't tell you much more than that and I'm not about to start describing trailers because that's been proven to be the least exciting thing anyone can do on the internet.

Danny Boyle turned up for a quick Q&A, was very funny, relaxed and charming, spoiled the end of his film and expressed a desire to do a musical or animated film next. SCOOP.

Following that the rather excellent director-producer team of Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith showed up to promote a film they had nothing to do with, utterly mentile Belgian animation A Town Called Panic. They showed some clips and a trailer that have already been on YouTube for months, and which were projected at the wrong aspect ratio so we couldn't read the subtitles. Fortunately they won us over with a clip of Adam Buxton pretending to be a belligerent Belgian animator, so we forgave them.



Next was the LFF's opening film Never Let Me Go's trailer, which everyone has also seen already. There was another quick Q&A with two of its producers, Andrew Macdonald and some other bloke, which was a bit dull until Macdonald started talking about his next project, Judge Dredd, at which point the audience woke up and got excited when he announced that it would be (surprise) a gritty, R-rated version of the comic, and that Dredd - played by Karl Urban - would keep his helmet on this time. Everyone was very happy about that, except Karl Urban presumably.



The main event was a screening of The Expendables, during which everybody clapped and cheered whenever anyone got shot (which was quite frequently), and then there was a party but by that time I was on a tube home surrounded by Australians in togas.

More tomorrow!

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The Incredible Suit's Largely Unpopular But Firmly Held Opinions

Recently, Twitter folk indulged in a spot of self-flagellation by fessing up to their most embarrassing thoughts about the world of movies. Annoyingly, this came as I was about to launch a new feature cumbersomely entitled "The Incredible Suit's Largely Unpopular But Firmly Held Opinions", in which I would drive readers away in their trillions by sharing some thoughts that only a select few other misunderstood geniuses might share.

Undeterred by the understandable misapprehension that I get all my ideas from Twitter, I've decided to blunder ahead anyway with what could conceivably get me the most hate mail so far. Alternatively, it might convince other minority groups to come out of the closet of shame and shelter under The Incredible Suit's umbrella of tolerance from the rain of derision and the howling wind of ridicule. It's not a very big umbrella though so some of you might get wet.

The Incredible Suit's Largely Unpopular

But Firmly Held Opinion #1.1:

It's fair to say that as a singer, Bruce Willis makes a good bartender, and his writing skillz are limited - of the ten tracks on The Return Of Bruno, nine are covers, and the chorus of the one he co-wrote goes "Why not / I'm hot / Jackpot / Tonight". Still, it's the aural equivalent of Willis' late-'80s smug, fun-loving, smirking persona, and if I wasn't watching Moonlighting when I was thirteen I was probably listening to a bit of Bruce.

The Return Of Bruno was, improbably, a concept album with an accompanying mockumentary about the rise and fall of Bruno Radolini (Willis), a Gumpesque figure present at the centre of almost every musical movement since the '60s. Willis even managed to drag the likes of Michael J Fox, Elton John and Ringo Starr along to be in the film (Starr: "If it hadn't been for Bruno there would have been no Beatles"). The whole package was shambolically awful but disarmingly charming, and it largely appealed to me because Willis subtitled the track Secret Agent Man with (James Bond Is Back), possibly in a vain (in many ways) attempt to get it onto the titles of the imminent Bond film The Living Daylights.

The Incredible Suit's Largely Unpopular

But Firmly Held Opinion #1.2:

The appallingly-titled If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger loses some of the self-knowing charm of Bruno but still rocked out with its cock out on parent-torturing noisegasms like Turn It Up (A Little Louder) and the bluesy swagger of Here Comes Trouble Again. It's difficult to know what to make of the album's cover, though: has Willis just smugly slaughtered a bus full of schoolchildren and is now smirkingly lugging their dismembered bodies home in a huge suitcase? Possibly.

To back up my case, here's the great man duetting with one of The Pointer Sisters on a cover of Respect Yourself. It's musical Marmite, but anyone who's ever attempted the crap pool-table-straddling move at 1:18 will know exactly where I'm coming from.



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One Of The 15 Greatest Films Ever Made In The History Of Ever Is Being Re-Released

This is a message to all parents of children between about 8 and 17: If your kids haven't seen Back To The Future and you don't take them to see it when it's re-released in cinemas on October 1st, I will report all of your asses to social services. YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE PARENTS.

In the meantime, here's some old stuff I wrote about a perfect film with a perfect cast and a brilliant script and a flawless plot and amazing music and more charm, wit and fun than anything that's been released this year.

As the trailer clumsily points out: "It's about time... you saw... Back To The Future... Back To The Future!" A film so good they named it twice.

Unfortunately they let the work experience kid loose on the poster, and this is what he puked up in between making tea:

I can't wait to see a film about half a teenager inexplicably floating above a tiny car which is such an iconic vehicle in the history of the cinema that I'm only allowed to see the back of it.

Seriously, what's wrong with this?

NOTHING.

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Knight And Day

The ineptly designed posters, embarrassingly abysmal viral videos and turgid press interviews farted out to promote Knight And Day have long been a mystery, apparently cunningly crafted to keep as many people away as possible. However, having now seen the film, it's clear what they were up to.

What we have witnessed is a textbook exercise in expectation-lowering, to the point where the inevitably average end result is a considerable improvement on the craptaculous cascade of cabbages the world expected. It's a bit like being phoned up at work by someone telling you your entire house has been demolished by a meteor, only to rush home and feel relief that at least the shed's still standing.

Let's not fanny about: Knight And Day is not a great film. All the money has been spent on the stars, and director James Mangold spends so much time on lingering close-ups to prove that it really is Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz that you eventually start to realise how old Tom's looking, and ooh dear I hope he doesn't put his back out making Mission: Impossible 4. Meanwhile genuine talents like Peter Sarsgaard and Paul Dano are left twiddling their thumbs in case they overshadow the Tom 'n' Cam Show.

Early dubious claims that Knight And Day was some kind of Hitchcockian romp are flimsily backed up by the fact that there's a scene on a train, a chase across some European rooftops and a MacGuffin. Well, The A-Team has a tall building in it but that doesn't make it Vertigo.

In its defence, the unspectacular and unoriginal set-pieces are at least shot and edited so that it's possible to work out what's going on, which is a bonus these days, the score is jazzy and interesting for the first half before it descends into bog-standard lowest common denominator tuneage and Tom does at least look back at an explosion on one occasion, which as we all know is against all accepted action movie rules:

Knight And Day's problem is that it's just so ordinary, with nothing new to add to the genre and nothing to elevate it above any other summer movie from the last fifteen years. As for the title, it's almost completely meaningless. You may as well name a film blog The Incredible Suit and then make it neither incredible nor in any way sartorial. And that would just be stupid.

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Sunday Night's All Wright (Do You See? DO YOU SEE?!)

On Sunday I went to the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton to see a double bill of Edgar Wright's Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. It was, obviously, two slices of fried gold. On platinum toast. Having not seen either film for ages, it was a deliriously pleasurable reminder of what a talent Edgar Wright is.

The scripts are so bursting with wicked setups, payoffs and cheeky foreshadowings that repeat viewings increase their enjoyment exponentially. I never even realised the connection between the fence-jumping scenes ("What's the matter? Never taken a short cut before?") or Nick Frost's "Yeeeh bwoyee" / "Yeeeh Royee" gags until Sunday night. As much as I can't wait for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I desperately want Edgar to keep making films in the UK because it's entirely possible that he might be our greatest living director.

Anyway the night itself was a big hairy hoot, with the Ritzy's own Bruce Forsyth and friend of The Incredible Suit, Sam Clements, chairing a competition that involved six members of the audience doing their best zombie shuffle 'n' moan. Here are a couple of rubbish photos of Sam and a girl failing to win a zombie-a-like game:

I've actually managed to make Sam look more like a zombie than the girl trying to look like a zombie there. I really need a professional photographer on this blog.

Anyway a few weeks ago I stated the obvious but bizarrely not-widely-accepted fact that Hot Fuzz is a better film than Shaun Of The Dead. Now that I've had a chance to do the research and twist the facts to prove my point, here are ten inarguable reasons to back up the unquestionable truth:

1. This music

David Arnold - Theme From Hot Fuzz

2. This Raiders Of The Lost Ark villain

3. These guys

4. These character names

Cooper, Porter, Turner, Shooter, Prosser, Hatcher, Paver, Skinner, Fisher, Walker, Thatcher, Weaver, Roper, Tiller, Reaper, Messenger, Staker, Treacher, Cocker, Blower, Draper, Aaron A. Aaronson

5. These Andys in these shades in this rain

6. This legend

7. This steady but relentless increase in the

action quotient as the film progresses

8. This fight

9. This proof that wearing Aviators and

chewing toothpicks makes anyone look cool

10. This fact

Cop films are, like, well better than zombie films.

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