One for the Money is based on the popular series of mystery novels written by Janet Evanovich, the real mystery however is how such a maliciously awful film was ever wrought into existence.

One for the Money
Director: Julie Anne Robinson
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara and Daniel Sunjata
Running time: 91 minutes
Age restriction: 13 LV
Genre: action, comedy

One for the Money is offensive in its mediocrity, from the grating soundtrack to the senseless humour, the whole film is misguided and underwhelming – I can discern no positives from this film and with a story that gets constantly side-tracked, it’s no wonder that the pacing drags what little dignity it has through the dirt. It SHOULDN’T be that complicated – Plum takes on the role of a “recovery agent” at her cousins bail bonds business after discovering that the guy who ran away with her cherry, Joe Morelli, has a price on his head for a crime he claims to be innocent of. She hasn’t a clue what to do and finds herself constantly outmatched by Morelli but gets help from Ranger – a hunky yet thoughtful professional bounty hunter.

Money has the uncanny ability to replicate the sensation of time-travel – bad news is that the destination is set to the late 90’s. One thing I remember clearly about the 90’s was the abundance of cheap, made for TV films that we got from America, most of which were crime-investigation action/comedies. One for the Money, the tale of a down her luck lingerie sales assistant turned bounty hunter, is a carbon copy of one of those low budget dregs with exception of the sleazy sex scene (unless you count the scene where Stephanie is handcuffed to a shower curtain rail by her former squeeze). What this means is that everything from the actors to the locations are noticeably cheap and disposable but less so than dedicated B-grade efforts…which makes it almost criminal.

While the acting scrapes the bottom of the barrel, one must give credit where it is due – Katherin Heigl couldn’t have been better picked as a brainless bimbo for the film who lets her cleavage and butt do the talking when all that comes out of her mouth is horse shit and rusty nails, all spoken in an accent ripped out of an episode of The Sopranos. Her assets fit in so well with all star talents like Jason O’Mara’s raspberry, and John Leguizamo’s wooden facial expressions.

It’s really hard to imagine how Robinson, as a woman, would have allowed such a blatant stereotype to be made of this character – it’s not like I can call out the sexist card either – but the facts are there, Stephanie Plum is a helpless social degenerate who has no choice but to constantly rely on the superior wit and skills of her male counterparts until she finally finds her mind at the end. She is weak and at times can be mistaken for a borderline retarded goat.

The Target

One for the Money isn’t quite a chick flick, it tries to please everyone’s taste but it carries as much universal appeal as soft-core child pornography. Avoid it at all costs, even if there isn’t anything better to watch.

The Bottom Line

Just like Plum’s gunplay, One for the Money never hits its mark. It tries to be funny and fails horridly, it tries to deliver a compelling mystery but the plot is contrived and underwhelming in its scope, the characters try to be interesting but they are lifeless and abrasive in conception and execution. This movie is a failure for film and takes a royal turd on the source material that it is based on, managing to violate any reason to exist. We can be thankful for one thing, out of the 18 books in the Stephanie Plum series, at least they won’t get further than just one – and even that is just one too many.

Yet another film gets added to the ever growing list of adaptations of the famed novel by Emily Bronte – does this latest take add to the heap or is it the best yet? Sadly, it’s success is in the eye of the beholder…although those eyes probably fell asleep half-way through the movie.

Wuthering Heights
Director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: James Howson, Solomon Glave and Paul Hilton
Running time: 126 minutes
Age restriction: 16 LV
Genre: action, comedy

Wuthering Heights follows its main protagonist Heathcliff – a young orphaned negro boy – as he is adopted into a white family and the owners of a farm in the moorlands of England. Heathcliff grows into a successful man but during his childhood he develops a chaotic, juvenile infatuation with Catherine, the daughter of the man who brought him in.

On the one hand, one has to admire the emotional investment that Andrea Arnold placed in her production, visually the film is striking and the concept is adventurous. While it gets an A for effort, the film suffers on many levels that make it a strain to watch. Wuthering Heights (the film) is almost an antithesis of the novel, dialogue is sparse and by my count comes in at several paragraphs at most, by this reasoning, the lack of dialogue should have been made up for in visual vocabulary but is not. The direct plot doesn’t even come to an hour yet the film goes on and on for more than two fold that running time and it just seems to last an eternity.

Arnold’s adaptation is mostly made up of wafflings, rather than providing a solid compelling tale, we receive endless clips of English moors soaked with rain, mud, and bathed in sunset – these scenes are often conveyed from a point of view and become irritating due to the camera’s erratic depth of field which creates frequent blurry instances that inspire feelings of nausea. Also extending the experience is the disjointed pacing which never quite gets the film moving with many scenes appearing identical in formula. There are also instances of poorly conceived non-linear elements which neither give impact or intrigue to the tale – good use of this technique really could have given a new depth to the film but its use was too shortsighted.

“What were they thinking!?”

What is disappointing is that if the pretense was removed and some thoughtful editing applied, Wuthering Heights truly could have been a great film. The story really picks up when Heathcliff returns to the farm in his adult years as the character himself is more developed and is genuinely interesting. Unfortunately the earlier years are given much more screen time than they deserve, depriving the tale of some truly compelling drama that could have been.

The Target

Fans of the book may find themselves disappointed in the film, it leaves a lot of the story out and doesn’t have much character depth. In terms of look, it definitely is authentic and convincing. If you happened to like Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life then this might also hold a certain appeal due to its fragmented, yet disjointed pacing.

The Bottom Line

Andrea Arnold has taken a gutsy approach to Wuthering Heights, keeping the tale minimal in every sense of the word. Plot is shrugged off, performance is downplayed, pacing and progression is stretched and dragged. The film is an art house release, and can be appreciated for its artistic approach, but art or not, it’s a tedious mess, devoid of genuine progression and emotion which ends up as a waste of potential.

Clearly Disney’s investment in Marvel has paid off, not only has the film taken a third straight week at number one but it has broken even more records in the domestic box office, one of which is the highest second week takings of all time. The Avengers has also tied with Avatar and Deathly Hallows Part 2 for the fastest film to $1 billion (but to be honest The Avengers should be the sole holder of that right given that the film opened at least a week earlier in foreign territories – had it received a worldwide release it would certainly have taken that award hands down).

Dark Shadows, Tim Burton’s latest colaboration with Johnny Depp received less than stellar results, making it only to 5th place, with The Vow taking a second place. Could these figures be a violent wake up call for Johnny Burton? Perhaps it is finally time for them to get their ducks in a row and mix up their formula because clearly South Africans aren’t interested in watching a remake of Burton’s last ten films. Dark Shadows also didn’t find much ground in the US where it only took second place with an estimated $28.8 million – a giant step away from The Avengers  $103 million. Sadly the local release, Otelo Burning, didn’t make any ground whatsover.

Tell me Plum, you think this gun is good for hunting superheroes?

This week saw more than its fair share of shuffling with top 10 regular American Pie: Reunion plummeting to to last position along with a downward trend with many of the other titles. Leaving after just one week is The Raven, the rather dreadful Poe dramatisation in addition to the delightful Salmon Fishing in the Yemen which had the misfortune of opening along with The Avengers.

Avengers may take its fourth week as well given the paltry big screen offerings, namely One for the Money – a cheesy action comedy staring Katherine Heigl, and Wuthering Heights – yet another adaptation of the well known Bronte novel, the latter being an art house release. Bet you can’t wait for those reviews right?

It’s not often that we see a film like Hoodwinked Too! reach the silver screen, in fact its sort of hard to imagine that the first movie made it there. What makes Hoodwinked Too! exceptional is that it looks exactly like the original, which for its time was already outdated (both in visuals and storytelling). Unfortunately, the sequel is just as lackluster as the original, perhaps even more so.

Hoodwinked Too! Blu-ray review
Director: Mike Disa
Cast: Hayden Panettiere, Glenn Close and Patrick Warburton
Running time: 83 minutes
Age restriction: PG
Genre: animation

Film Review

Red Riding Hood must out her agent training on hold when she is sent on a mission to rescue her grandmother who has been abducted by a witch. Helping Red out is the wolf and Twitchy the Squirrel.

There’s all sorts of problems with this sequel (one of which is the use of “Too” instead of “2″). The original wasn’t any good to begin with, coming across as a cheap knockoff of the Shrek franchise. It actually imitates it in many ways, especially the humour that director Mike Disa attempts to emulate and fails miserably, feebly employing irony and fourth wall breaking. Adding to the list of garbage is how the characters are frustratingly annoying, the voices are hopelessly miscast and the pacing is excrutiatingly painful.

Worst of all, its just plain old uninspired – from the CG animation to the story, it becomes ever more apparent that the team was trying to capitilise on the success of the original which said all it had to say. The filmmakers have simply taken the old, poorly designed characters and tacked on a lackluster plot that is pure agony to sit through and odly has a sleep inducing effect thanks to the horrendous pacing. It’s everything a sequel isn’t supposed to be, or rather a movie.

When the first Hoodwinked released, the animation world was constantly trying to outdo each other in terms of visuals so when this production first came out, it was surprising to see a smaller effort scale back on quality, rather building some easy to make characters and environments and let the writing do the rest. Too! reuses those same models from all those years ago and yet again doesn’t impress however this time the basic visuals don’t give it a freebie and aren’t as timeless as the Disa may have thought – Toy Story 3 looks stunning yet the visuals remain the true to the original with marginal upgrades and little details to keep up with our modern expectations. Hoodwinked Too’s visuals are so unremarkable that modern video games easily surpass them with larger budget titles sporting impressive textures and cinematics and independent offerings showcasing stylish yet timeless presentations.

Now, I could hark on about the story, pacing, acting, and characterisation being of the lowest order but truthfully the visuals speak volumes more for those aspects than I could, it’s a testament to how laziness and greed will never overcome dedication and love – a sentiment that echoes throughout the film.

Audio/video quality

The video quality isn’t anything special, then again it isn’t bad either. In the end though, it doesn’t meet the standards that we’ve come to expect from the Blu-ray format. The colours are accurate but they lack vibrancy and crispness accompanied by some rather irritating colour banding. In short, its sort of lifeless and the fact that the animation is sub-standard doesn’t help either.

The soundtrack by far is the worst aspect of the technical package with a dull, tepid surround sound offering. Directional sound is hardly used and bass even less. As a consolation, at least the voice track and music provides a full use of the frontal speakers but don’t expect to hear much out of the rear ones.

Bonus Features

This is the definition of bare-bones extra content. The selection is as uninspired as the movie itself with its only redeemble features being the two storyboard shorts which don’t even offer side-by-side comparisons. The lack of material may come at the expense of cramming both 2D and 3D versions onto a single disc but I doubt it, there isn’t anything useful here and is an insult to the the potential that is provided by Blu-ray.

Full list of special features:

Music videos – Hayden Panettiere and Ceej’ perform two particular terrible numbers

Voice cast featurettes – short inserts following the recording sessions of a few key cast members

Storyboard sequences – two extrememly brief animatics

The Bottom Line

As you’ve no doubt caught on, most of my descriptive words for this film have been lifeless, dull, unremarkable, tame, and lackluster. These words are the subliminal message printed all over the Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs EVIL. It’s so poorly done that they tacked on a tag line that doesn’t even make sense due to how obvious it is. From the static menu, it’s clear that there was little-to-no inspiration behind this sequel and The Weinstein Company, known for their quality films shouldn’t have allowed this shameless cash-in to see the light of day.

Overall Score (Not an Average)

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Rebeca Hall Lands the Female lead in Iron Man 3

Just two days ago Jessica Chastain announced her dropping out of the running for the sexy scientist role in third Iron Man film. It didn’t take Marvel much time to find her replacement – Variety reports that Rebecca Hall (The Prestige) is in talks for the position alongside Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sir Ben Kingsley.

Kurt Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen bow Out of Django Unchained

With Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained scheduled for a December release, it can’t afford to lose any man power. Both Kurt Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen have  dropped out of the production with the latter claimed scheduling conflicts preventing his cameo performance. Personally I can’t imagine why either of them would pass up the chance to be in a Tarantino film – everything he touches turns to cult classic gold. As it stands though, Django isn’t short of talent with Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and many others attached.

Kick Ass 2 is in the Works

Mathew Vaughn, director of the first Kick Ass film is said to be chatting with Universal regarding a sequel to the comic book adaptation. Vaughn won’t be directing but has shortlisted Jeff Wadlow as a suitable replacement with Vaughn taking on the role of producer. I suppose its safe to say that remaining cast should be returning. Kick Ass is a graphic novel written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by John Romita Jr.

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Official plot synopsis:

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and—if he has his way—every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop…except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.

Gangster Squad is directed by Ruben Fleischer, and stars Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, and Emma Stone. It’s due for local release on 2 November.

Tim Burton has become a cliche of himself, seldom departing from his macabre style of film making or his regular stars. Dark Shadows remains in his all too familiar genre but is less grim than the typical fair that he is known for and much funnier.

Dark Shadow
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Eva Green
Running time: 113 minutes
Age restriction: 13 SV
Genre: comedy

Barnabas Collins was the heir to the Collins fishing empire but a curse from a witch leaves him as a vampire. Unable to gain his love, the witch gathers a mob and buries the Vampire alive. 200 years later and Barnabas is inadvertantly rescued from his grave only to find that the world of 1972 is a very different place. He locates his descendants in his families once great mansion, on the brink of bankruptcy. Masquerading as their distant relative from Britain, he vows to return their name to greatness but finds that the which who cursed his family is still alive and has built a rival fishing empire to further sully his name.

Dark Shadows is based on the TV series of the same title, I haven’t had much experience but from what I’ve seen, Burton stays relatively faithful to the source. What sells the film in my opinion is how it doesn’t take itself too seriously – something that seems to be key in Burton’s usual formula, perhaps the setting of the 70′s has a way of grooving things up. It still has Burton’s typical approach, the visual design is haunting, the supporting characters are indifferent and never seem overly emotional, straight forward narrative with little to no surprises – in other words it’s the typical Alice in wonderland backbone of all his films so don’t expect anything revolutionary.

Where the film prevails is in the genius dialogue which is a healthy blend of tongue-in-cheek and deadpan wit, it comes together nicely and has a magnetic quality for a film that is otherwise quite lifeless. In fact, this is the one difference that makes the film magical – whereas most of Burton’s extensive portfolio is based on actions rather than words, Dark Shadows takes a step back into his early offerings which had more subtlety than they have had recently.

As you can tell, Tim Burton stalwarts Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are once again present, I can imagine suitable replacements but for all intents and purposes they get the job done. Depp however manages to put his experience with Burton to good use, providing a great platform for the quirky dialogue that consistently manages to extract laughs throughout the film. The supporting cast thankfully brings a bit of colour to the film with Chloe Moretz, Michelle Pfeiffer and Eva Green all giving varied and engaging performances.

The Target

Tim Burton fans are assured of a worthwhile experience as the die-hards are usually unwavering in their support. Overall, it’s a light hearted yet satisfying dark comedy that has a large appeal. The vampire aspect is also handled pretty well, it has a good balance of camp to support the comedy but still treats it with respect as opposed to parody.

The Bottom Line

Dark Shadows isn’t without its problems, it suffers from some unbalanced pacing and the ending is somewhat dissapointing, particularly in how rushed the conclusion is – it just doesn’t feel entirely rewarding. However, the film as a whole is largely enjoyable, it follows Tim Burton’s signature offbeat humour and Johnny Depp comes through again and delivers the clever dialogue with skills that have been honed from years at Burton’s side. The most unfortunate aspect, as with most of Burton’s recent efforts is that he sticks with his stable cast and genre, seeing a little variation would have been a revitalising decision but if Burton doesn’t change now, well I doubt he’ll ever change – it’s his golden ticket so to speak.

As most of you know by now, Adam Yauch, founding member of The Beastie Boys passed away recently. It’s a blow to the music industry as he formed a band that changed that influenced the hip hop scene to a huge degree.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a fan or one of those people who start listening to a bands music after a tragic loss – The Beastie Boys were part of my childhood (or at least I knew of them), although my role models were more of teenage mutant ninja variety, my cousin had a tape of Fight For Your Right and that was really my main exposure to it. However, I love their music videos, particularly those directed by Spike Jonze. Jonze has this interesting way of turning music videos into short films and most of them are brilliant, his most recent offering was for the Beast Boys 2011 single Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win but he has been working with the band for many years, creating videos for them as early as 1993.

The music video (although it really should be categorised as a short film) is a prime example of the quirkiness of Jonze’s juvenile sensibilities, taking action figures and moving them in live action as opposed to stop motion, never covering the illusion of the production with cables and hands clearly visible. It reminds me of my childhood and I believe that this was the objective that they were looking for – nostalgia of the 80′s.

I was really introduced to The Beastie Boys music videos and Spike Jonze as a music video director by one of my university lecturers several years ago – he played a DVD of the best of Spike Jonze and out of the Beastie Boy vids that I saw, this next one was the one that stuck with me.

A common theme of The Beastie Boys has always been Reckless, angsty, youth and while Sabotage certainly shares that commonality, the music video is something of a parody for cop action/drama TV shows of the 70s/80s – we’re talking classics like Starsky and Hutch, Hawaii five-o, and many others. It’s an eclectic video with a basic story but it’s more an intro sequence – my favourite part is when a dummy is thrown from a bridge, it’s supposed to look low-budget and they get that accross in spades but the cheapness doesn’t bleed into the awesome retro styling and editing.

Just yesterday the writer/illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, died at age 83, so Spike Jonze is something of a convenient link between the two deceased (given that he directed the big screen adaptation of the famous kids book. Here’s the trailer for the film:

I quite enjoyed the film, visually it was remarkable and it showcased Jonze’s offbeat style of directing that he has become so well known for. Many didn’t like it though, claiming its themes were too dark and emotionally complex for children – I think it’s worth noting that while this book is for children, most of the children that originally read the book have grown into adults so this film really isn’t aimed at youngsters (although it wouldn’t have hurt sales to bring it down a notch). Commercially it flopped though but it shall remain a unique, unappreciated classic.

The Beastie Boys (from left): Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz), MCA (Adam Yauch), and Mike D (Michael Diamond)

Adam Yauch will be missed, his contributions can’t be measured and his departure was far too soon, our condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans who have certainly been affected by this loss.

The only major release of last week was Battleship which managed to nab the 2nd place on the charts thanks to a modest advertising campaign but honestly it didn’t stand a chace and the gamble didn’t pay off the way it planned. Also of interest is that The Avengers has become this years highest grossing film on the local box office just two weeks into its theatrical run, easily overtaking all competitors with a to date R21 507 403 taking, it may even set a permanent record on the all time chart if it continues with this phenomenal pacing. The other offerings of the week also included The Raven and Think Like a Man which managed to chart, knocking out Journey 2, a stubborn title that has stuck around for weeks, The Grey, and The Lorax.

Will The Avengers bury another victim?

Once again, this week doesn’t have any real powerful releases aside from Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows adaptation. Also hitting screens is Shame – a psychological film about a sex addicted Michael Fassbender, The Vow – another paint-by-numbers romance, and Otelo Burning – a local drama. There’s a lot of variety for all this weekend and I’m eager to see if any single film can dethrone The Avengers.

James Cameron is in the Avatar Business

James Cameron, a man who needs no introduction (Terminator, Titanic, and Avatar) has recently announced that he will no longer be directing or producing any films other than those in the Avatar series – the controversial fimmaker spoke with the New York Times saying ”Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4″

He continued saying “I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts.” So hold onto your scripts folks because Mr. Cameron won’t have any of it.

Chastain Passes on Iron Man 3

Not so long ago it was announced that Jessica Chastain would be considering the role of a female scientist (most likely Maya Hansen) in Iron Man 3…looks like that ship set sail. Chastain posted on her facebook page the following message:

“Sorry to say that Iron Man 3 isn’t going to work out. My schedule is jammed packed and I can’t fit anything else in. The press announced my possible attachment far too soon. I know many of you wanted me to be involved, and I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully there’ll be another Marvel film in my future. Shane Black and everyone on the IM3 team are really wonderful. I’m very excited to see the film when it comes out.” 

There are sure to be many contenders out there looking for some of that sweet Marvel action so don’t be surprised if more candidates crawl out from the woodwork over the next few weeks.

Prometheus rated R

It was never clear what age restriction Prometheus would be assigned, many assumed it would be either 10 or 13 to take in the mass market numbers. 20th Century Fox has officially announced that the much anticipated sci-fi by famed director Ridley Scott will carry an R rating (locally it will probably receive a 16 designation which is roughly on par with The States) for “sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language.” – this may be bad news for sales but good news in terms of content as Scott’s vision should be preserved to full extent (which means no directors cut DVD’s to waste your money on)

Sofia Vergara joins Machete Kills

Variety reports that Robert Rodriguez’s sequel to his grindhouse gore-fest Machete is about to get a dose of Modern Family. Sophia Vergara is said to be doning the role of “the leather-clad Madame Desdemona, whose Mexican harlots have information Machete needs.” Vergara has a squeaky clean image so I’m interested in why she has decided to make a daring move like this, is Modern Family in jeopardy? Most likely not but her participation should prove interesting.

The Avengers exceeds estimates

We reported yesterday that The Avengers took in an estimated 200.3 million bones, however, Disney has announced that their superhero event amassed a whopping $207.4 million in actual sales – almost 40 million more than the previous record holder, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

And that’s the pick of the litter for now, join us on Facebook to get the news as it breaks!