The Great Gatsby v The Other Man

Last Wednesday I took my a couple of friends to see The Great Gatsby at the local picturehouse.

Plot Summary

A playboy party animal called Gatsby tries to seduce a chick called Daisy and befriends her cousin Spiderman as a way in. Sneaky, I like it. 

It has been a crazy week. Firstly it's not been a fantastic month for films for me. I would have much rather have seen Mud with Matthew McConaghey who I would watch in anything right now as he has such a rich vain of form with films like Killer Joe and Magic Mike.
The Fast and Furious films are wildly over-rated and I have never been a fan of Star Trek. Though I did put a wonderfully witty tweet up about trying to get my similarly follically challenged brother to go see Into Darkness with me #twobaldlygo.
Fuck you all that's hilarious.

But Mud called pulled, Fast and Furious 6 no thank you and my brother would rather watch everything on knock off DVD rather than accompany me free to the cinema where he wouldn't have to pay a penny.

So my mate Paul and I sat down and trawled through The Great Gatsby. He got bored pretty quick and started to talk to himself through the movie. Only his voice is the bellowing intrusive kind.

So when Carey Mulligan and Di Caprio run off to the forest and share an intimate embrace, Mulligan poignantly remarks on the passage of time the two have lost together and says passionately'

"I wish I did everything with you Gatsby."

To which my friend Paul says without missing a beat.

"Even anal?"

I liked this movie, to be honest tales of heartbreak and unrequited/lost love often sails right up my dirt-track so to see this kind of narrative played out with the verve and gusto that Lurman brings was captivating. That said there are dips in both action and dialogue, the style and vision can't quite carry the slow deliberate pace this movie offers and I would be lying if I didn't say I was a bit bored in places. But my friends witty commentary kept me going throughout and I'd recommend you all bring one to help do the same.

Also when Gatsby gets introduced and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue spills over the raised champagne flutes and fireworks, that for me, as wonderfully cheesy as it was, was worth the admission price alone.

Tomato Meter - 50% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 84% (audience)
Peter Meter - 75%

So last night I ate alone, and watched The Dark Knight Rises. But I also chanced The Other Man on the iPlayer.

Plot Summary

Liam Neeson discovers his dead wife was banging Antonio Banderas and decides to plot his murder. I won't tell you if he does or not but before he does or doesn't, they play an awful amount of chess together.

I was actually nursing a pretty rare red wine hangover in the process of watching this film. I was attempting to cure the headache with white wine. A lovely bottle of Hardys Gewurtztraminer I found in my local offy. Drinking white wine has the same cleansing ability on a red wine hangover as it does a red wine stain on the carpet. Unfortunately I mixed that with a Naga Curry, a hit of baileys and a pint of Banghala. So I dozed off. But as I have said many times, the sign of a good film is one that I am willing to revisit in the place where I left it.

The film did not however repay my faith in its promising premise. And all the while I was thinking, Why isn't Richard Gere in this movie? Isn't this the exact same plot as that Clooney film The Descendants? When will Neeson stop dying his hair? He is over 60 years old. Surely when he did The Grey that would have been the perfect time to come out the just for mens closet.

A lot of the scenes go nowhere. The film is crisp, and cleanly shot, but there is little to no jeopardy.
Oh and it's terribly written.

Tomato Meter - 15% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 21% (audience)
Peter meter - 20%

Verdict

I kept thinking back to the last time I saw Carey Mulligan and that must have been in Shame. Shame is about as perfect a film as you can see, genuine tension, graphic, and the music is incredibly emotive. Never more so then when Mulligan sings New York New York in a restaurant. Almost derails the film. But then Fassbender goes and puts his face between some girls ass cheeks and that derails the film instead.

So WATCH Carey Mulligan sing New York New York and NOT The Great Gatsby OR The Other Man.

@thepeterbrooker

Iron Man 3 (with spoilers) v Mississippi Burning

Last weekend I found myself talking to a girl on a well known website.
I will refer to this girl as DUNNO because I never asked her name and that's the name I have saved her under on my phone.
As the conversation developed it turned out we were both interested in the same things so I got up the guts and asked her out for a steak dinner.
She declined and I took that as just another kind rejection in a long history of kind rejections.

So 3 days passed and I invited my friend Rachel to go see Iron Man 3.

Plot Summary

Robert Downey Jr takes on Mike from Neighbours in a bid for Gwyneth Paltrow's affections. (That's not strictly the plot I know but to be honest who gives a sh*t).  

So en-route to the Multiplex, Dunno sends a text. She asks how I'm doing and I tell her I'm off for some drinks before seeing Iron Man 3 with a girl.
Below is her reply:

U going out for a romantic date with another girl ????   Wat am i supposed to say!!!!   im irrationally annoyed!!!   So if it was flip reversed ..  N u wanted to see me tonight n i told u i was seeing sum1 n going on a romantic date wud u be happy!!!  Really???  N jusss wait n hope nothing came of it...   Why tell me!!  N why u wanna see this girl... Answer is coz ur hoping itl go sumwhere...    Dont u ? Be honest x


I don't reply.
But she continues with:

Jusss dw my mates to see if im unreasonably annoyed and shudnt be.....   Overall feeling is ur behaviour is unacceptable n ud just cheat on me if we got together!!!  I know we wudda hit it off ...   I jusss wish u hadnt told me about cinema...   I cud cope just with the drink ...    Xx

I don't reply. But am now slightly amused that my social engagements are being discussed miles away by two people I have never met. I take my seat with Rachel and go to turn my phone on silent when I see another text by Dunno:

Anyway at the end ironman blows up all his suits!!!   And then no more ironman ...   So enjoy ..   


I was furious.
I think that has to be the lowest thing any woman has ever done to me and I'm including the time my mother gave away all my Transformer comics to the kid across the street.
What a c*nt.

Tomato Meter - 78% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 83% (audience)
Peter Meter - 73%

So last night I sunk a couple of ciders and watched Mississippi Burning on the iPlayer.

Plot Summary

Gene Hackman plays a maverick cop that goes up against Rowdy Burns from Days of Thunder and tries to slip the chick from Fargo one in the process. 

Gene Hackman is retired from films now and that really gets me down. There are plenty of actors that can angry act, but none do it better than Hackman. There is a wonderful chemistry between him and Defoe as they shimmy for the moral high ground on how best to tackle the racist sheriff, and his department of bigoted deputies. Their chemistry reminded me a lot of Mike from Neighbours playing the clean cut detective up against the brooding, merciless bad cop played by Russell Crowe in LA Confidential.

Good cop Bad cop is very much a cliched narrative these days, but when it works well it looks like this. And when it looks like this it's a work of art.

I wonder if there'll ever be a film where there's two good cops.
Both waiting for back up.
Not much jeopardy in that one, scrap it.

Tomato Meter - 89% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 62% (audience)
Peter Meter - 89%

Verdict

I haven't seen anything else due to a busy schedule and a lack of decent films on the iPlayer. I can only recommend that you go back and watch the entire back catalogue of Gene Hackman films because he is just a badass. So WATCH the entire back catalogue of Gene Hackman films and NOT Iron Man 3 OR Mississippi Burning. 

@thepeterbrooker

Place beyond the Pines v Felicia's Journey

Last Wednesday I popped down the local Cineworld with my buddy Rael and watched Place Beyond the Pines.

Plot Summary

Gosling runs away from the circus to rob banks and bang Eva Mendes. 

So Gosling trades in the toothpick he sucked on in Drive, for actual cigarettes. He also proves that terrible tattoo's will be forgiven if you have a washboard stomach and chiseled cheek bones. Eva Mendes tries to glam-down in her role as a mother trying to make ends meet, but she doesn't fool me. 5 minutes in she rolls up at the circus not wearing a bra and I involuntarily fist pumped the air.

It is a film with 3 acts. Act 1 is cool, engaging, slick, tense. The 2nd Act drags its feet a little, and the 3rd Act has very little edge to it. In fact, I was tuned out for the last 20 minutes, wishing the first Act had just been padded out for another half hour.

It isn't a terrible film, but the Director whom I can't be arsed to google, did Blue Valentine before this, which for me is one of the best love stories I've seen on screen since Rocky. So the bar for this film was pretty high, and it wasn't quite met.

Tomato meter - 80% critics
Tomato meter - 81% audience
Peter Meter - 76%

Terrible tattoo's still get you laid.

Last night I suffered Felicia's Journey on the iPlayer.

Plot Summary

Bob Hoskins befriends a lonely Irish girl trying to find her boyfriend who knocked her up. 

I was pretty hungover from drinking 5 pints of Henry Cider the night before. I didn't have the energy to trek down to Blockbusters and thought, well I can watch Bob Hoskins mow the lawn, how bad could this film be?

Shit.

Is the answer to that one. It reminded me of One Hour Photo with Robin Williams which wasn't that great, but a masterpiece compared to this wet fart. I paid particular attention to the music score which was all over the place. It didn't know whether to be playful, comic, or offer suspense. But then again I think the entire tone of the film was mis-placed. So I have a certain amount of sympathy with the composer. 

Bob Hoskins has retired from films now which is a shame, I only hope this wasn't his last outing. Lets not forget how good he was telling the Mafia that he'd 'shit 'em,' in The Long Good Friday. Check out that classic speech below.

Tomato Meter - 88% (critics)

Tomato Meter - 66% (audience)

Peter Meter - 51%

Verdict

I have been living off my mates couch for the last couple of days and caught bits of random tele. Jeremy Kyle ripping into the yanks on day time tele has been fun. Natural Born Killers is as bigger headache as I remember watching it all them years ago. But something that did impress me was Basic Instinct. Douglas's cocksure bravado in that film as he drinks, smokes and fucks his way through the entire film is just box office. So raw, he's like a Bull on steroids in that film. I waxed lyrical about that on twitter and lost about 20 followers, but I stand by it. So WATCH Basic Instinct and NOT The Place Beyond the Pines OR Felicia's Journey. 

@thepeterbrooker