SCENE IT: There's No Crying In Baseball!

Hard to imagine today, but in the late-80s Tom Hanks was a joke, an almost was/premature has-been who today would be compared to Chris Klein or David Spade. He started out well in TV, scored couple of hits at the movies -Splash and Big- but otherwise swam in a puddle of forgettable to horrible films with various degrees of in-success.

Who would've thought that Gary Marshall of all people would be the one to truly understand his impeccable comedic timing and sheer talent, and put right back on track for what would soon become an astounding career revival.

So here's my favorite scene from his "comeback" movie, also my favorite Tom Hanks scene which in under a minute summarize everything I love about the guy.

MARQUEE SHOWDOWN #3: Breakfast vs Pie

WHY?

Because I keep hearing Generation Yers saying that the latter is an update of the former, which as both a movie nut AND a Gen-Xer couldn't offend me more. Maybe I'm overreacting, but let's take a look at the comparative breakdown.


THE PLAYERS:

• Breakfast Club - Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald. These guys had such a deep impact on their target audience, they were rewarded with their own brand name: The Brat Pack. They were the hottest thing in town, popped up everywhere, and all of them had the whole wide world at their feet. The proverbial candle, it turns out, burned in the wind. Nelson proved to be as un-sociable as Bender, Estevez tried directing and still tries to this day, Hall spiralled down in the "lifestyle" for a long time before re-merging as a respected TV actor, and the two girls outgrew their demo and were forgotten like so many other young women in H'wood. Still, their names represent 80s youth like few other things can.
• American Pie - Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Sean William Scott, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Mena Suvari, Allison Hannigan, Tara Reid, Eddie Hay Thomas. Like the Packers, these young people were the talk of the town, and all had script offers up the wazoo, especially Klein who was considered the next Golden Boy. Hannigan turned to TV and still thrives thanks to Barney Stinson's bunch, Scott's wild energy keeps him going like a pink bunny with a drum, and Biggs still pops up here and there. The rest either became tabloid fodder or industry clichés. If it wasn't for the sequels, they'd probably have become a crew of bitter barristas, a cautionary tale of meteoric rise over true talent development.
• ADVANTAGE Breakfast Club (because Anthony Michael Hall scored a part in The Dark Knight!)

BOX-OFFICE: 

• Breakfast Club  - Unknown production budget (or undisclosed...). Domestic theatrical take of $45M  (Domestic Total Adj. Gross: $102,605,300)  with an addition $5M world wide. It could've -and was supposed to- generate at least 2 sequels with 5-year gaps each time involving a reunion of the group, but director John Hughes and star Judd Nelson apparently disliked each other from the start, and it only got worse...
• American Pie  - $11M budget. Domestic take of $102.5M (Domestic Total Adj. Gross:$160,302,000) , with an additional $132M world wide. In other words, VERY lucrative movie. Hence the 3 sequels and shitty direct-to-video offsprings. Not like the cast has anything better to do...
• ADVANTAGE:  American Pie

RATINGS:

• Breakfast Club -  MetaCritic=62%, IMDb= 7.9, Rotten Tomatoes= 91%, Rogert Ebert= 3/5
• American Pie - MetaCritic=58%, IMDb= 6.9, Rotten Tomatoes= 60%, Roger Ebert= 3/5
• ADVANTAGE:  Breakfast Club

ANALYSIS:

• The Breakfast Club gave rise to a genre largely absent from the multiplex until then: films purely for adolescents. It gave a lost generation with no goal and no purpose a calling card and a chance to feel normal since everyone could identify with at least one of the characters.It was a comedy but never went for the cheap laughs, focusing instead on de-constructing the characters that composed not only the film but our every day lives. Almost 30 years later it is still regarded as a turning point for 80s youth, and a classic that none shall ever even dare remake. Legend has it John Hughes initially cut a 160-minutes version, which only he ever had a copy of. Meaning MAYBE in another 25 years someone will "find" it and have it released.
• Late-90s teenagers got exactly what they wanted with Pie: crude humour, alternative music soundtrack, (some) hot chicks and (some) cute guys. It wasn't trying to be anything philosophical or secretly much deeper than the sum of its d*ck & fart jokes, but was comfortable catering to the crowd. And let's face it, most people were simply curious about the trailer's implied scene of Jason Biggs violating Betty Crocker's labour of love. And to hopefully see Shannon Elizabeth's fun bags. Of course I'm old, but to me it doesn't age very well.

WINNER: Breakfast Club    By way of quality and truly passing the test of time. And because Anthony Michael Hall scored a part in The Dark friggin Knight.

Carnahan wants to remake Death Wish

If it wasn't for the 4 unnecessary sequels, there's a good chance that the Charles Bronson "classic" Death Wish would've gotten the remake treatment long ago. The thing is though A) it did twice in the same year, and B) is it still relevant in any way? Come what may, the ball is rolling: MGM and Paramount have tapped director Joe Carnahan to re-adapt the Brian Garfield novel/remake the Bronson film.

First off, regarding Joe Carnahan, he's of those guys who should've been barred from any film budgeted above $1M, simply because that's where he did his best work. Case in point: Kevin Smith - the closest he came to as passionate and fresh a vision as Clerks and Chasing Amy was last year's shoestringed Red State, otherwise he just sold out and cashed in. Carnahan's no-budget debut Narc was a gritty uncompromising kick in the guts, which is exactly the kind of treatment Death Wish needs to work, instead of giving it to a thumbsucking new director with Nic Cage in the lead (*shivers*). I haven't seen The Grey yet, so maybe Joe course-corrected himself, but for now I'll say YES to his nomination IF the budget is locked to a modest indie-like level.

Hello. My name is Inigo Mon-friggin-Toya...

BUT, back to point A, Jodie Foster's 2007 politely reviewed The Brave One is not only a remake but also an update of the story. Like Death Wish it centres on a passionate Liberal whose life is shattered when petty criminals kill her loved one, which pushes her to take the "Republican" stand of embracing the 2nd amendment, arms herself and becomes a fearsome vigilante. except this time the vigilante was a woman, to reflect the much more politically-correct times we live in as opposed to the chauvinistic mid-70s. The same year of our Lord 2007, another of Death Wish author Brian Garfield's novels was adapted as the Kevin Bacon thriller Death Sentence where a mild mannered white collar embarks on a violence escalation with the street gang that murdered his son. Sounds familiar? If those two aren't remakes in anything but name, than somebody please give Brett Ratner $200M for a Go-Bots movie!

Now THERE's a perfect Nic Cage vehicle!

As for the relevance, I know gun control is still a very touchy topic in the US and the yanks are increasingly happy about their right to bear arms, but here in Canada somebody carrying a gun that doesn't come with a badge and 18-months worth og government forms to fill is an oddity akin to quasi science-fiction. But more to the point, hasn't the vigilante/revenge flick been deconstructed -homourously or not- every possible way these past 5 years? Dave Lesewski would disagree, but then again he went and got himself into a body cast, didn't he? And speaking of which, there's the emulation factor to consider; do we really need a wave of night crawlers thinking it's ok to clean up the street by themselves with a Magnum .44 because that guy in that pretty realistic movie did it? And no, I'm not exaggerating, I was there when brainless idiots decided to Fast & Furious my formerly quiet little neighbourhood....

Thoughts?

8 Classic Album Covers Re-Imagined With 'Harry Potter' Characters

Considering that the insane popularity of the Harry Potter films turned its players into quasi-rock stars, the good folks at Next Movie took it upon themselves to re-imagine8 of the greatest rock albums' covers with the Potter Characters replacing the original artists. My favorite if The Joshua Tree - took me by completely off guard...

GEEK ALERT: possible HUGE cameo for The Avengers

***POSSIBLE HUGE SPOILERS***

Read on at your own risk

Still here?

This has to be taken with the Sifto-est grain of salt, but it does come from TotalFilm which are usually quite credible. The site is reporting from British actress Jenny Agutter (mostly known to fanboys as "the chick" from Logan's Run) that another Marvel superhero, one nobody could've expected, will be swinging by for a quick pop-up in the Joss Whedom geekgasm of a film. 

Says the lady, 

"I’m sworn to secrecy. I wasn’t allowed a script until I got there, and when I did I felt like a complete child being on big sets and a huge parking lot full of Winnebagos," adding that one of those winnebagos, right besides Iron Man's, was reserved to said cameo and sported the associated colors. 

Such a prospect had never even occurred to fanboys all around since another -greedy- studio owns the rights to that character; heck, Warner wouldn't even allow Bruce Wayne to be hinted at in Smallville, even though they own both! BUT this is a Joss Whedon film, grand master of the Order of the Geek, and beside that superhero has his own film opening a bit after Avengers so why not just use the free publicity? The studio needs him to be a big hit, after all. 

If you haven't guessed already and still wanna know, the character in question is This Guy.

Thoughts?

Transformer in 1-D!!!

Now THAT is a version I could've watched 3-hours worth of....

See more at CollegeHumor

What I wanna see in ...FEBRUARY

With the cinematic wasteland of January all but behind us (studios like to dump their "mistakes" during that month since no one goes to the movies anyway, so they won't waste their potential cash cows there), February rolls along with barely more quality stuff except maybe for a few lesser-budget offerings that may still prove to be worth the trip to the multiplex. Not that I'll be making it, but still, those down here are the only few I'd do it for. 

Feb.3rd

Dan Radcliffe, AKA Harry Hairy Potter, could've gone the superstar way after his 8-movie blockbuster stint as the boy who lived, but he punctuated the above-mentioned with a gutsy and acclaimed turn on stage, and decided to come back to the screen in a period creeper that reminds not just a little gothic stories that made Mary Shelley and Robert Louis Stevenson into iconic names. Plus the trailer looks deliciously moody and scary, and God knows audiences are tired of the torture-porn/found footage genres that for the last 15 years composed the horror movie landscape. This Woman in Black spearheads a return to atmosphere horror, and gladly it does. 

Here's a great example of how the "found-footage" can let go of horror movies and instead provide a very cool and fresh deconstruction of other genres (which also became a subgenre in itself last decade). Michael B. Jordan is one of those cool fresh faces that's been popping up a lot in TV shows recently, and seeing him finally make the leap in a movie starring role is quite a thrill. And I'll admit it, the trailer made me geek out all sorts of ways. 

Feb.10th

Denzel has become little more than a cliche of himself role after role these last 15 years, after such an amazing string of knock-out performances from the late 80s to the late 90s. The only times he's shown a hint of it since is when playing an evil friggin bastard (as the Academy recognized with the otherwise forgettable Training Day). Ryan Reynolds' shtick has run its course a while back, but maybe going toe-to-toe with badass Denzel will stirr the pot and inspire something fresh from him. But the real kicker is seeing if director Daniel Espinosa is as cool as his 2010 debut Snabba Cash led us to believe. Or if he'll just turn out another sell-out one-trick pony.

Feb.17th

Oh, get off my back! So I'm the biggest Nic Cage basher in town and I never went softly on the abomination of a property rape that was the first Ghost Rider. But that one was directed by washed-out hack Mark Steven Johnson, and this one by the insane guys behind those ludicrous Crank films; if you're gonna make a film just for the money, go out all and make it batsh*t insane, and also bring back Cage just to drive the cheese factor up to 11. And Ciaran Hinds as the Devil, you say? Where's my ticket!

Reese Whiterspoon has milked the rom-com field so badly it now comes out powdered, so she'll soon try to re-invent herself with an Iraq War drama, then get a boob job and facelift and try to go back to her roots. Not that I'm comparing her to Meg Ryan's former career... And yes, the still pathetically self-named McG never got any love from me. BUT the idea of Tom Hardy squaring off with Captain Kirk in an action comedy compensates quite beautifully. 

I've never really bore any interest for The Borrowers, but seeing how completely out of the box Miyasaki went for The Little Mermaid (that's what Ponyo was about, for those who didn't know...) and considering the onslaught of masterpieces rolled out of his Studio Ghibli in the past 25 years, this one is a no brainer!

R.I.P. Ian Abercrombie

Many remember him only for his 7-episode appearance on Seinfeld, playing Ellen's injustifiably demanding boss Mr. Pitt. Yet Ian Abercombie's career was and up to this point still was far more busy and relevant than some of the aforementioned show's regulars.

For me, he'll always be the wizard-wiseman-whatever who sends Bruce Campbell on a quest in Sam Raimi's cult classic Army of Darkness, but most of us, at any age from any generation, have seen him regularly appearing on TV in whatever popular show dominated the ratings - from the original Galactica to Seinfeld to Desperate Housewives, you name them, they got him on for at least one quick pop-up (he even was in of the Star Trek shows if memory serves). Yet the demand for his work outclassed the media and remained strong until his death this weekend at 77 years old. His most recent work - aside from voice over in comercials and a wide variety of video games, had him give life to Star Wars: The Clone Wars' chancelor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious) while also playing the Disney Channel equivalent of Professor Dumbledoor on Wizards of Waverly Place.

A great talent populated the arts at large that no one truly seemed to notice, he will nevertheless sadly be missed.

How Return Of The Jedi Should Have Ended

MARQUEE SHOWDOWN #2: 48 Hours vs Lethal Weapon

STARS & SUPPORT:

• 48 Hours - Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Annette O'Toole, James Remar, Brion James. Nolte made a specialty of bombing his own career but as a gruff detective who screwed up his life eight ways 'till yesterday, he was right at home. Murphy, heck, I never liked him period. Nice supporting cast, especially O'Toole who is an eternal beauty, but no real star power and no memorable performances. 
• Lethal Weapon - Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitch Ryan, Tom Atkins. Not a lot of big names either, even years later, but Gary Busey is the closest thing to Nick Nolte's clone you'll ever find, and he's a support player here... Mitch Ryan isn't a name but he is a face, one of those "that guy" actors who always delivers. But it's the dynamic duo of Glover and Gibson whose tangible chemistry took the world by storm to make this film one of the more memorable actioner from the 80s.
• ADVANTAGE: Lethal Weapon

 BOX-OFFICE: 

• 48 Hours - Unknown production budget (or undisclosed...) with a total theatrical take of $78M. Would seem mild today, but in 1982, that was big business.
• Lethal Weapon - Unknown production budget (or undisclosed...) but the third cost $35M (7 years later) so let's make this one about $15M. Total domestic take of $120M, in 1987 money.
• ADVANTAGE: TIE

REVIEW RATINGS:

• 48 Hours-  Box-Office Mojo= B, IMDb= 6.9, Rotten Tomatoes= 94%, Rogert Ebert= 3.5/5
• Lethal Weapon- Box-Office Mojo= B, IMDb= 7.6, Rotten Tomatoes= 90%, Roger Ebert= 4/5
• ADVANTAGE: Lethal Weapon

ANALYSIS:

• I know lots of people hold a cult candle to 48 Hours, one which I could never really share; I did watch the film back in the 80s as an action-fan teen, but it never did anything for me, and much less its absolutely shitty and greedy sequel. Granted it set up Eddie Murphy for what could've been a kick-ass movie career (wow did THAT fail after a few films...) but there's no memorable quote, no stand-out performance, and no great interest to revisit. When a "blockbuster" only has one sequel and no remake on the horizon, well...'nuff said. As for director Walter Hill, the guy made one good film (The Warriors) and most of the rest is so forgettable he even had his name removed from one (Supernova).
• Lethal Weapon, on the other hand, is textbook 80s Action Fare at its best. An iconic anti-hero lead, a catchphrase already welded into pop culture history (I'm too old for this s**t), action sequences we never tire of re-wathcing and THREE sequels, not to mention Mel and Dan alwasy being asked about another one even if they're too...well you know. And the director? Richard Friggin Donner, the guy behind The Goonies, Superman, Ladyhawk, Maverick, Scrooged and much more.

WINNER: LETHAL WEAPON

R.I.P Juan Pedro Felipo De Huevos Epstein

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni21749114/

I grew up watching this show in reruns, and again late at night on CBC during my college years. Hard to believe Juan was 60 already. Makes me fell really old to see one of the sweathogs passing away. Thanks for the laughs, Chico!

REVIEW: Haywire (2012)

So I just finished watching The Boob Identity (sorry...just had to), and I have to say that is one strange beast which I honestly can't decide exactly what Soderberg was trying to do with - take a crack at deconstructing action movies or step into Tarantino's 70s-tribute arena. I did like it, but again can't really decide why.

Allow me to to break off here before going any further so I can lay down a high praise for the only piece of CG effect in the whole film: Gina Carano's ample torso. She's got a cute smile which she uses a lot since other acting skills sadly elude her, but really, who cares, those bad boys steal the whole freaking show from start to finish. I mean really, those gigantic carumbas should get arrested for violating the laws of gravity - they NEVER budge! She runs half the movie and fights every which way the rest but come what may her spectacular bronskis stay perfectly still and straight. Even more mind boggling, a scene where she takes a bad fall sees her landing flat on her back instead her nature-issued air bags... Dude, Hurley could bounce off these Tommy Knockers! USE them, smother someone, break down a door, something! Ok, I'm done, promised. So,...

Go-Go Gadget Helium Balloons!

The story is pretty much straight forward and doesn't really need to be picked off a Pulitzer winner's brain; it's an action movie about a covert spy betrayed by her own who goes on the run trying to figure out who burned her and why. Ergo every spy/action thriller for the last 25 years. But really, it's a chance for Steven Soderberg to yet again explore a movie genre unfamiliar to him, and to have MMA superstar Gina Carano mop the floor with an array of Hollywood pretty boys. and that in a nutshell is your storyline.

Tech wise, it's everything you've come to expect from The Sod, which isn't a bad thing at all. The guy is renowned to be comfortable using a steady cam by his own damn self to great effect, and makes creative use of discoloration and lighting to amphisize on the action taking place. Even his use of music, which as I said reminded me a whole lot of Quentin, is edited in a sparse manner too seldom seen in Hollywood. This isn't James Cameron trying once again to push the limits and reinvent movies, this is an acclaimed indie director using his whole bag of tricks to have himself some fun.

Where that 70's thing fails though is in casting the multiple -albeit short- male supporting roles. Carano, even during her fighting scenes (which she should excel at) looks rehearsed and guided and obviously worried she might humiliate a famous hunk by defacing him, which is exactly what low-grade actionners looked like in the 70s, so perfect match. BUT you got Ewan McGregor who couldn't turn in a lame performance even if he tried, Banderas who shines by his mere presence and by one simple stare reminds men how jealous we all are of his incredibly successful pick-up line which no chick can resist -Hi, I'm Antonio Banderas- And Michael Fassbender is Michael friggin Fassbender, the fastest rising star of this young decade. Mike Douglas phones it in but he's Mike Douglas so who cares,  while Bill Paxton never has to break a sweat to be too cool for school, even if now playing a dad to a full gorwn adult. That leaves Channing GI Joe Tatum the only one who looks as cheezy as the film seems to require, and not necessarily in a voluntary manner...

Begbie says hi, biotch!

Agreed that when you headline your film with a complete unknown to film audiences, you surround her with famous and popular faces. But in this case it just ruins the film; go indie or go Hollywood, chose one because the difference between the two is this case is canyon the size of Gina Carano's cleavage (honestly, somebody stop me!). Still though, Soderberg stays focused on making this a fun ride and avoids overdoing the rest, which is enough to overlook the principle flaw. Overall interesting and entertaining movie, but I do wish he'd gone with an entirely unknown cast. Wouldn't pay to see this in theatres, but I probably will check out the DVD release.

Final Word: 7.5/10

SCENE IT: "He went a little funny in the head..."

Having an irritating night at work, needed a spot of this here to cheer me up. 

One of the greatest comedic performances in the funniest scene from one of the greatest films of all time.

MARQUEE SHOWDOWN #1: Equilibrium vs The Matrix

STARS AND SUPPORT:

• The Matrix: Keanue Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Joey Pants, Hugo Weaving, Carrie Ann Moss. Reeves was the only "Name" in there back in '99, and as mono-faced as he can be he still was a pretty big name. Joey Pants is as solid as they come but never was nor is a box-office draw. Fishburne was a respected actor but became an actual star thanks to this film, and so did Weaving and Moss. Where the hell is she these days anyway? Today though, that would be a powerhouse cast.
• Equilibrium: Christian Bale, Angus MacFadyen, Taye Diggs, Sean Bean, Emily Watson, William Fichtner. Bale has been around and praised since childhood but only got big after American Psycho, and still wasn't as big as Reeves even if a better actor in spades he'll always be. Bean, Watson and Fichtner make no more than cameos, and Bean is the only star of the lot. As for MacFadyen and Diggs, although both of them great additions to any movie, neither ever reached stardom before or since.
• ADVANTAGE: THE MATRIX (If only for Weaving - a much more memorable villain than MacFadyen, at least in this)

BOX-OFFICE:

• The Matrix: Budgeted at $63M, made $171M domestic plus $292M international with a per theatre average of $9,7k, for a total theatrical take o f$463M or a 252% return on the initial investment. 
• Equilibrium: Budget estimated at $20M, made $1.2M domestic plus $4.1M international with a per theatre average of $1,8k. But then again, Miramax Weinstein-era distributed...
• ADVANTAGE: THE MATRIX

REVIEW RATINGS

• The Matrix: Box-Office Mojo=B+, Rotten Tomatoes=86% Fresh, IMDb=8.7, Roger Ebert=3/5
• Equilibrium: Box-Office Mojo=B, Rotten Tomatoes=36% Fresh, IMDb=7.8, Roger Ebert=3/5
• ADVANTAGE: THE MATRIX

 ANALYSIS:

• The Matrix took us all by storm and changed the landscape for action movies, not to mention the philosophical ramifications of man versus the technology he created. The two-part shitty sequel aside, it was and still is one of the best sci-fi action films ever made with a high rewatchability factor.
• Equilibrium looked and felt like an independent film, but a kick-ass one. It did however suffer froma lack of pace, and borrowed a little too much from 1984 and BRAVE NEW WORLD. The gun-kata scenes do however constitue some of the most impressive practical-effect fight scenes ever brought to the big screen.

 WINNER: The Matrix, by way of big-budget push.

REVIEW: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

2010 Thriller, Drama, Mystery

Starring:  Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch

Written by Bridget O'Conner, Peter Straughan

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Hollywood adapting a beloved, highly acclaimed novel is like George Lucas putting out another Star Wars project: you know you're just gonna run home and burn the shit out of your Chewbacca comforter. Especially in this case since it already WAS adapted into an equally -if not even more- beloved mini-series topped by an iconic performance from sir Alec Guiness. But this is a restrained British effort from Working Title handled by the Swedish equivalent of Steven Soderbergh; definitely not in Kansas anymore.

A secret operation to uncover a mole in the highest level of British Intelligence goes horribly wrong and puts a top British spy in the hands of the enemy, so someone must swing. The head of "The Circus", a man known only as Control, and his right hand George Smiley are nonchalantly pushed out into retirement for uselessly causing an international incident. But when rogue spy Ricky Tarr reappears and appeals directly to a government official that Control was right about a mole high up in his lair, Smiley is forced back in the game to finish what his mentor started. 

Daft Punk: The Metamucil Years

A new adaptation of the story could've gone wrong so many ways had the key elements not been met with such gusto. No actual action scenes are ever shown and what little of it appears is done with astonishing realism, while the music is anything but conventional for a spy thriller, closing all of the lingering storylines with a montage under Julio Iglesias' French version of Bobby Darrin's Somewhere Beyond the Sea. Props and sets could perfectly serve as a documentary to how bleak and dirty everything was in the mid-70s, and the cherry on top is to never -ever- show even a glimpse of the evil mastermind behind everything, the Russian spymaster Karla. 

None of it matters though if George Smiley can't meet the standards set by Sir Alec.  The choice of Gary Oldman seems awkward when considering the junkie cop from "The Professionnal" or the dog-morphing wizard who escaped Azkaban. But Oldman, deservedly one of the greatest chameleons of his generations, goes as far as making us wish we'd see him done the lightsaber and advise a couple of stormtroopers to look for those droids elsewhere. He makes the character entirely his own, while never forgetting who played it before him. This IS George Smiley, but underneath the confident yet distanced old man we can glimpse under his eyes a cold calculating bastard no one would ever wish to go one on one with.

"I can't go when you're looking at me"...

And Gare-bear isn't left alone to his own device, here surrounded by an head-spinning array of very cool names and/or talents, all of them A-list leading men in their own rights, here mostly assigned to small roles that each of them make pivotal and unforgettable. Ciaran Hinds as a silent doorstop, John Hurt as a once-important man now on the fringes of senelity, Toby Jones as slef-important weasel, Tom Hardy as a blond - yes, BLOND- disgruntled spy, Benedict Cumberbatch as a white collar you wouldn't wanna mess with and newly-minted superstar Colin Firth as an unrepentant adulterer all make this small film into an incredibly huge deal. 

As for the story, of course things have to be cut or radically compressed to fit a fluvial book into a 2-hour film, yet little of it is truly missed here if only to make the plot a little more clear. Tomas Alfredson, still hot-off the press from his acclaimed offering of Let the Right One In (the original one, that is...) very wisely used the Cold War as a character and not a setting, which allows his actors to truly carry the atmosphere and use wits and verbs as lethally as Jason Bourne can use a fountain pen as a jackknife. Pyrotechnics, CGI and tween heartthrobs never appeared so useless as they do here, in a clear and definite exposé of why turds movies like Transformers or Twilight can never truly dislodge true, riveting storytelling at its best. 

Final Word: 9/10

Back in the Saddle

Back at blogging, for those who like my verbal floggings. Can't believe it's been so long since I last posted! Look for my reviews, news, and occasional recipe for hangovers in the coming days and weeks!