Judy and Punch

#StokerScore 8/10

Close your eyes and imagine a sea whose gently rolling waves are reaching the golden sand of a horseshoe-shaped beach. On a hill to the left, overlooking the beach, is a ruined castle while to the right, looking down on the scene, are caravans with light glinting from their bright white paneling. The sun is shining in a celestial blue sky that is sparsely populated with white clouds too high to even hint at rain and crying seagulls hang on the breeze, ever vigilant for morsels of food. 

The beach itself is filled with a variety of noisy life and different activities. There are families gathered behind striped windbreakers that have been pushed into the sand to form barriers against the occasional gusts that whip up the sand. Mums and Dads are laying out picnics or occupying their small charges by making sandcastles with plastic buckets and spades that have been bought from sellers scattered along a promenade that separates the beach from road. Amid the neon-glow and scattered sounds of popular music are the facades of amusement arcades and ice-cream parlours, fish and chip shops, and thrift bazaars which sell cheap souvenirs like snow globes (I understand the irony of this), key-rings and colourful, hand-held windmills that draw in the children but don't put too much of a dent into a parent's pocket. 

Elsewhere along the beach, children in swim suits and adults wearing more are playing cricket or hunting for shells or being led along the beach on a line of donkeys whose saddles are adorned with coloured ribbons. In the sea, old and young alike are caught in the dilemma of whether to just dip in the toes and paddle or to brace oneself  and actually swim in the less than hospitable waters of the Yorkshire coastline. 

This might give you an idea of a typical day out to the seaside, a pastime more popular in the pre-economy airline days that saw families spend a whole week or more enjoying the beach on the days that it didn't actually rain.

The activity that is missing from my list is the Punch and Judy Show. This puppet extravaganza, housed in a tall, gaudily-striped box-like structure, had an open window that occupied the top twenty-five percent of the fascia that allowed the puppeteers to stand inside, unseen by their young audience and move and voice their characters as the story necessitated. As with the likes of old Tex Avery and Hanna Barbera cartoons, these shows were violent to a fault but where Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote were anthropomorphic characters who ensured that being hit by a train or being blown to smithereens by a bomb remained funny rather than Grand Guignol gory, Punch and Judy presented a husband and wife dynamic in which the wife was continually beaten by her husband with his cudgel to anarchic cries of "That's the way to do it!".

Other characters would appear at random including a dog who stole Mr. Punch's sausages, an ineffective police constable and, for reasons that still escape me, a crocodile. I remember being enthralled and gladly joined in with the puppeteers as they cajoled us into repeating their phrases or speculating on what might  happen next. I don't clearly remember what happened at the end of these stories. Whether Mr. Punch received his comeuppance, whether the dog became fat and lazy, or whether Judy ever received medical attention for multiple concussions.

This movie, then, whose inverted title immediately informs the direction it will take, is an absolute pleasure. It contains all of the characters that I previously mentioned, setting the action in a wonderfully made up and over the top medieval town aptly called Seaside. I won’t spoil the story but will say that Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska and Damon Herriman (who viewers of the Virginia-set TV show Justified will recognise as the doomed-to-failure Dewey Crowe) did an excellent job of visualising the lead characters. There are bits where the story seems to wash over important information, such as the fate of key figures. Then, there are other characters who could do with more fleshing out so as better to understand their motivations. But, these are small potatoes in the greater scheme of a wonderful meal and if you like fairy tales with an edge (think original Grimm stories) then I think you're in for a treat.

Das Finistere Tal (The Dark Valley)

#StokerScore 8/10

Westerns, as I have said before on here, are one of my favourite genres of movie, mainly due to my Dad's influence as we bonded over my love of films. He would play cricket and talk sport with my brother but with me, it was movies and in particular, westerns. 

Whether it is a classic from the Silver or Golden age of Hollywood starring Alan Ladd, or John Wayne, or maybe even Doris Day. perhaps, a Spaghetti Western with lots of dubbing, an outrageous comedy like Blazing Saddles, or even horror and sci-fi westerns such as Near Dark or Star Wars, I will always give these movies the time of day.

I can't quite remember where the recommendation for this movie came from as I follow a number of vloggers on YouTube so I apologise for forgetting exactly whose site this appeared on. What I do know is that the premise appealed immediately. It's giving nothing away to say that it falls into the sub-genre of revenge western in the same vein as Tarantino's Django Unchained or Kevin Costner's Open Range plus it also has the 'mysterious stranger' trope used by Clint Eastwood in Hang Em High and Pale Rider. The difference is that this time it is set in Germany and uses the German language with English subtitles.

The main character, played by Sam Riley, has grown up in the USA before travelling to the Alps to right some wrongs. This probably accounts for why a non-German was cast in the role and why, then, his character speaks fluent if not exactly a lot of German rather than being dubbed. The movie has a fairly sombre tone with plenty of foreshadowing and brief flashbacks and when set against the dramatic, snowy backdrop of the mountains offers a realistic insight into the difficult conditions in which these people have chosen to live. As a community cut off from the outside world and who are wary of strangers, the score is perfectly balanced with a continuous plodding sound that goes along with the stranger's metronome. Clara Luzia's cover of Nina Simone's Sinnerman that accompanies the opening credits is really rather good, too.

The action, which is sporadic, is matched with the character development meaning that the film, for me, finds a balance and explains the motivations of the individual characters, all except for the bad guys who are fairly two-dimensional. There is a narration running through the film, too, which I felt was a bit unnecessary as the actors and the plot explained everything well enough. Saying that, the final monologue was a  perfectly acceptable way to end the film.

Overall, I think The Dark Valley is a solid addition to the pantheon of westerns and with its German language and setting allows it to stand out from its peers. It's definitely a movie I will revisit from time to time. I hope you enjoy it and if you're new to westerns check out the others I've mentioned in this post or drop me a comment and I'll suggest a few others.

The Shape of Water

#StokerScore 10/10

This movie, from start to finish, was so obviously a labour of love. Sometimes, the director of a labour of love forgets that an audience is watching the finished product and the movie is consigned to the bin marked Vanity Project. This is definitely not one of them. 

The colours stand out vividly, green being the most important and the director uses it as background to other motifs. The actors are perfectly cast and insist that you soak yourself in their characters and not the person playing them. Doug Jones brings the creature to life, I don't want to say monster as there are plenty of other monsters on display here, since Del Toro has written an adult fairy tale and imbued it with ethereal beauty alongside day-to-day mundanity, juxtaposing the two to the point where you happily accept that they co-exist. 

It is the habits, routines and earnestness of all of the people who dwell in this movie that allows you to suspend belief and hope for the best. Yet, there is a constant sense of unease, that things are about to go wrong that kept me gripped until the end of the movie. When that end did come, I was satisfied that it was the best outcome for all.

This is not a movie for the kids to watch as it contains nudity and sexual content, but these things are entirely acceptable in the context of the overall film. So, if you love textured film making from a director who loves what he does and can approach with an open mind, you will find yourself as thrilled as I was.

Jumanji (2017)

#StokerScore 5/10

I was in my late twenties when the original Jumanji was released in 1995. It certainly wasn't the kind of movie I'd have gone to see at the cinema as I was much more interested in Seven, Goldeneye and, of course, Batman Forever. Robin Williams was certainly a hero of mine from his days on Mork and Mindy and his mindblowingly layered turn as Adrien Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam. But Jumanji seemed to be just more of the man-child kind of role so it skipped me until I was bored enough to check it out of the local Blockbuster Video store. I remember it being exactly what I expected but with a shade, just enough of a shadow of darkness running through it to make you think that an eternity in the game was a distinct possibility for the new players of the board game. That came as a nice surprise.

I also admire Dwayne Johnson. He's hard to ignore and speaks passionately when it comes to being a role model for self confidence and dignity. But he's not Robin Williams funny so in this sequel/reboot they drafted in two other man-child comedians in the form of Kevin Hart and Jack Black. The movie moves at a reasonable pace, I liked the upgrade from board game to computer game and how it was done, but that was it. 

The movie is just a generic action blockbuster with some angles on male/female roles and the need for everyone to take each other on what lies beneath the superficiality of skin, gender and clique. I didn't dislike it, I just wasn't ever really engaged enough to care about the characters, especially after the computer game longevity angle was revealed. 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

#StokerScore: 9/10

I really like Frances McDormand. She has been in so many great movies and they were made greater in part because of her acting ability. I remember her mainly for Fargo, an example of one of many roles she's played in Coen Brothers movies, but also for the deputy's put-upon wife in Mississippi Burning who shows us Gene Hackman's softer side. In this film from the writer and director of In Bruges, she's a divorced mother of two who's teenage daughter was raped and murdered a year before the events of the movie. She lives with her son, works in a local gift shop, and has a blunt, familiar relationship with the towns inhabitants that suggest she was born in Ebbing and has never left.

The three billboards of the title are used by Mildred to try to shame the town's police chief into solving the death of her daughter and, as things get more heated and assumptions are made, the town and its inhabitants are faced with their own personal reasons for how they view the impact of the billboards.

The supporting cast is excellent with Woody Harrelson as the police chief and Sam Rockwell standing out as a bigoted deputy. The only character who I felt was miscast was Caleb Landry Jones' town estate agent, who just seemed too young and immature for the job he was doing.

Suffice to say that this, like In Briuges, is a comedy with dramatic overtones to the point that you will be laughing at some of the actions only to then be shocked at the brutality of responses. 

Easily one of my favourite films of the year.

#StokerScore: Death Note

#StokerScore 2/10

My knowledge of Anime is limited at best. I am very fond of the Vampire Hunter D animation and I'm aware of other titles but it's just not something I spend a great deal of time on. So I came to Netflix's latest movie, Death Note, knowing zilch about the subject matter but loving the visuals of the Demon/Death God voiced by Willem Dafoe.

The story is pretty simple once you get past the convenience of how the imaginatively named Light Turner gets the Death Note book (I know how that sounds) in the first place. But this is complicated by, at times, incoherent speaking by Light and his girlfriend Mia. Fortunately the diction of Lakeith Steinfield's character, who is known by the singular initial L, and Dafoe's Ryuk help to navigate some more of the plot.

Even with these two performances and the able support of Shea Whigham, it's badly explained to the point that even now I couldn't truly explain it without repeat viewings and a search of the source material.

What I did feel while viewing is imagine if you could hear fate talking about the gruesome deaths in the Final Destination movies and you get an idea of what's taking place....but without knowing the motivations for any character.

Could have been really good, such a shame.

#Stokerscore: 47 Metres Down

#StokerScore: 2/10

This is going to be a very short review. 

You have a 1 in 63 chance of dying of the flu and a 1 on 218 chance of dying from a fall. You have a 1 in 3,700,000 chance of being bitten by a shark. Obviously these odds are influenced the more you put yourself in harms way, and these sisters go out of their way to find harm...even when harm appears to be trying to get away from them.

The 2 points I have given this boring movie are brought about from my irrational fear of Great White sharks thanks to Steven Spielberg. I have scuba dived with reef sharks but Great Whites are a differtent bag altogether.

This movie could have been a 15 minute segment of an anthology movie but it has been unnecessarily dragged out to 89 minutes where the characters and their actions, motivations and dialogue are z-grade to the point I would rather see a Sharknado movie. 

I get the whole "what-would-you-do-if" thing but this is so silly it hurts. Oh, and the ending is just unfair. The director should have had the balls to make this a Brothers Grimm-style cautionary tale.

The Mummy (2017)

#StokerScore 7/10

Let me start by saying that I have a problem with the concept of PG-13 horror movies. I think it is a contradiction in terms because how can an adult audience be horrified by something that struggles to scare a thirteen year old? And there it is, the core issue with these movies. But not for the reason you may think.

Just stop for a minute and consider what horrifies you....I guess we all have our own ideas but in cinematic terms it's the scares, the jumps, the feeling of impending doom, the make-up, the characters behaving against expectations, not knowing what's coming next, and yet it's possible to find those in PG-13 movies.

The fact is that Universal are not using the term 'horror', instead it is a Dark Universe and this allows them to approach their characters with the hope of appealing to a wider audience and therefore potentially more money taken. This is why Warner Bros. are looking at the supernatural side of comics with Justice League Dark, although it doesn't get much darker than Batman vs Superman. Still, recent discoveries that audiences do like to watch R-rated films have been discarded in favour of selling zombie mummy and God of Death plushies. Seemingly, where the monster movies of the thirties and forties, or the Hammer revivals in the sixties and seventies aimed to scare their adult audiences, Universal is now happy to try to scare/wow everyone.

It's fair to say, then, that I approached this movie with low expectations for horror and high expectations for a Tom Cruise movie whose recent choices have seen some excellent results; The Jack Reacher films, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow and the last two Mission Impossibles have been good movies and so it was that in these respects I was respectively surprised and contented. 

There are more horror elements than I expected, inspired in no small way by American Werewolf in

London and for those of you who know the John Landis classic you'll spot them immediately. Sofia Boutella is very good as Princess Ahmanet, convincingly devious, and Cruise is in Edge of Tomorrow mode with his level of disbelief at what is going on around him as he slowly figures out what is patently obvious to the audience, even without the signposting from the trailer. Then again, better to enjoy the theme park ride and not wonder how it works.

The failures in the movie are in the character of Dr Henry Jekyll and Prodigium, the organisation for which he works? It's not explained anywhere near clearly enough what role the organisation plays, why it exists or why, given the levels of tech they seemingly have available to them, that Jekyll can't more effectively control his change into Edward Hyde who, by the way, may have arrived via dialect coaching from some of the 1930's Universal horror movie support cast. The only thing missing was a deep, East End fog that could have been referred to in his cock-er-ney accent as a "cor blimey, right old pea-souper and no mistake".

Visually the movie owes debts to Jeepers Creepers, Alien: Resurrection, Lifeforce, Brendan Fraser's Mummy, and the aforementioned American Werewolf in London, among others. The dialogue is decidedly dodgy at times, too and I couldn't help but grimace at Annabelle Wallace's shouting of "Get her, Nick!" which she immediately repeated.

Overall I enjoyed it. I didn't mind the references to future movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon's hand and vampire skull were two that I noticed, I liked skipping between Egypt, Iraq and London, but the key difference between these and the thirties movies were that they took themselves and their source material more seriously, it wasn't until the advent of Abbott and Costello that barrels could be heard being scraped. I'd prefer them to dial back the comedy and focus more on filling the audience with more unease but looking at some of the future movies lined up, which I hope they get the chance to make, I'm not convinced that will happen.

PS In case you're wondering, yes, Tom does a lot of running too.

Wonder Woman

#StokerScore: 9/10

Rivalries. Competition. Winners. Losers. For as long as man has existed, these things have been around. Over the millennia, mankind has found opportunity to cultivate the necessary skills to be able to be a part of the game. Naivete encourages us to believe that win/win situations are the best. Where everyone involved walks away with something. Why is this naive? Well, how often do we see win/win scenarios?

Take commerce and business. Coca Cola do not want to see Pepsi have a significant market share, I prefer to believe that they want to destroy their competition wherever possible and therefore provide more dividends to share holders. The same could be said of Apple and Samsung, Ford and General Motors, heck we could even try Nikolai Tesla's rivalry with Thomas Edison.

In sport, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier, Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, the world loves to see these rivalries played out.

There is a darker side to rivalry too. Criminals evading capture, con artists and their 'marks', our conditioning in morals and ethics encourages us to decide which is right and which is wrong. Or maybe we follow the likes of philosopher Walter Benjamin who stated that "History is written by the victors" because Ad Victorem Spolias (To the victor, the spoils)

Wonder Woman has rivalry at its core; the continuing struggle of women to rightfully take their place alongside men, without fear from either gender; the arrogant paranoia displayed by certain Greek Gods; the need for one or two generals to win World War One by any means necessary. This is a superhero movie that needs to follow its roots and dispaly the classic rivalry between Good and Evil and, for the first time since the creation of the DC Extended Universe, Warner Brothers/DC have shown that they might be able to compete with Marvel.

Gal Gadot is about as perfect a casting choice as there is ever likely to be. Throwing off a brief cameo in Batman vs Superman, here she shows exactly what she can do and you can't help but feel what her Amazonian Princess is feeling as she confronts a world that shatters her naivete at every opportunity. She is that good.

In support, we have fine performances from Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Lucy Davis and Elena Anaya (who I haven't seen since Van Helsing). But my favourites were Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright, as Diana's Mother and Aunt respectively, for the growing-up/training montages.

Yet the time on Themiscyra, before Diana's journey to battle Ares, is also where the movie lets itself down. It's not the acting, no it's the writing that suggests that a voyage of self-discovery is a much better idea than being told a few facts of life. Facts that could determine her very own life or death and subsequently that of the entire human race. Superman's family were not so much dead as erased so he had to rely on holographic images and a huge library to find out what he was capable of, Batman's dead parents were no help either but he did have the trusty Alfred to help explain. Diana on the other hand could be given every opportunity to prepare but is seemingly, deliberately, not told the truth to protect her from the impending destiny that she tells her mother she is going to face anyway.

Apart from this relatively small gripe I enjoyed the movie. I liked the touches of comedy, the costumes, the fish-out-of-water, and Chris Pines opposite of whatever a damsel in distress is....and yet he wasn't. At no point did this movie make out that men were inferior. You could argue that next to a woman made of clay and imbued with life by Zeus that most people would appear tame by comparison but instead Pine is a constant reminder of teamwork between the sexes.

It is still a dark movie so is in keeping with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman, but it appears to be a huge improvement on those two movies and provides hope that the Justice League, Aquaman and Flash movies have potential to impress rather than shake your head while looking forward to the next Marvel movie. And with that we must now wait to see who is the supreme heroine when Brie Larson's Captain Marvel reaches the screens in 2019...could it be win/win for Marvel and DC?

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

#StokerScore 10/10

I hope that you'll humour me and not think I've gone completely barking mad if I start this review with a recipe for vanilla ice cream?

First, stir sugar, cream, and milk into a saucepan over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Heat just until mix is hot and a small ring of foam appears around the edge. Next, transfer cream mixture to a pourable container such as a large measuring cup. Stir in vanilla extract and chill mix thoroughly, at least 2 hours. (Overnight is best.) Then, pour cold ice cream mix into an ice cream maker, turn on the machine, and churn according to manufacturer's directions, 20 to 25 minutes. Finally, when ice cream is softly frozen, serve immediately or place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the ice cream and place in freezer to ripen, 2 to 3 hours.

Thank you to Chef John at Food Wishes for the really great recipe....which might not be everyone's idea of how to make vanilla ice cream...or the exact ingredients either.

The second problem is that not everyone likes vanilla ice cream, as unlikely as that may sound to some of us. Some people even actually hate it on a personal level that, assuming they are not allergic, seems unfair to the point that if they would only just try it, they might like it. But no, stubbornness ensures this doesn't happen.

Going further, even those that like vanilla ice cream have specific favourites, be that the brand, the flavour, or even how it's served. 

For the rest of us, we're usually pretty happy to go with the flow and see which vanilla ice cream turns up after we've ordered it and make our decisions afterwards.

This extremely heavy-handed analogy is my way of explaining my reaction to GotG2 and my disbelief at some other reviews I've read.

Is GotG2 better than the first? In my opinion this isn't a fair question. Much better would be to ask if it's an enjoyable movie in its own right. This is because the difference in tone of the movie, the fact that the characters are no longer new to us, that the threat is more immediately galactic than the one posed by Ronan the Accuser, make the movie neither better or worse, just different. It's just the flavour the director chose to make this time.

I loved the first movie, I love this one equally. I found myself laughing more, I found myself considering some of the movie's themes more too. I think that where Groot and Rocket stole the first, no matter how arguably cute Baby Groot is, the star of this show is Drax and Dave Bautista was just born to play this part.

The movie has all of the Marvel points we've come to expect with the exception of any obvious tie-in to how they're going to meet up with the Avengers for Infinity War. We still have Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther's movie to come, but I just thought there may have been a nod to something. I need to watch it again to see if I missed it, hell, I want to see it again!

 I loved meeting new characters, I loved the music, I loved the whole damn thing from start to finish and I think most people who are able to put their expectations aside and just revel in revisiting these characters will do too. 

So remember, there are different flavours of ice cream. Enjoy them for their differences, try not to complain about why they're not exactly the same as the last one you ate.

#StokerScore Rewound: The Sword and The Sorcerer (1982)

#StokerScore 7.5/10

Two films came out in 1982. Obviously that's not true, there were many, many more than two, so let me try to be clearer. There were two significant sword and sandal movies released in 1982. The one that most people would have been aware of, even if they didn't like the genre, was Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sandahl Bergman making the Robert E. Howard 

characters come to life in a fun and thrilling movie. Conan is a huge favourite of mine and I still wish they would make a King Conan movie at some point, even the sequel that we did get wasn't that bad it just wasn't as good as the original..



The 80's was a good decade for fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons was always popular, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson began to release the Fighting Fantasy novels, and Conan wasn't the only (anti?)hero to be found in the

cinema. I say cinema but the 80's was also the decade of videotape which meant that even if the movie didn't get a cinematic release you could always find it on Betamax, VHS or even Phillips V2000 system. Most corner shops had small video libraries where you could peruse the gaudy, enticing cassette box covers, rent a movie overnight and watch it as often as you wished in the time you had it for. As a kid who used to scan the pre-satellite multi channels tv listings hoping for a decent movie to be on at an equally decent time, this made things much easier.

The choice of rent-able movies wasn't endless, instead it was limited to recent movie releases that were given the conversion treatment and B movies through to Z movies where the producers were just looking to turn a quick buck with low budget, low quality fayre. This certainly encouraged the further growth of cult movies in niche genres because some weren't necessarily that bad and perhaps some ideas thrown out by the major studios were made on shoestring budgets meaning the story at least saw the light of day.

Because of this system the world was treated to a movie, that in my humble opinion, matches Conan for fun and action and actually surpasses in terms of dialogue. The Sword and The Sorcerer had a similar Conan-type hero, sinister bad guy, beautiful damsel and the kind of corny lines that at the time sounded great to a fifteen year old. The difference was in budget and where Conan had one in the region of 20 million dollars The Sword and The Sorcerer (TSATS) was closer to $4 million. This was fairly obvious in terms of the special effects but then again Conan had rubber snakes. What made TSATS great was that it was just a bit darker, a bit more irreverent. Plus the hero, Prince Talon, had a special three-bladed sword that could fire the blades as projectiles.

There are so many similarities between Conan and TSATS that one gets the feeling that if they'd got Arnold to play Prince Talon and change his name to Conan it could have been another story from Conan's catalogue. But does it hold up to viewing thirty five years later? Well, story-wise yes. I'd forgotten some of what happened so that came as a surprise. The effects and the picture quality aren't great, sure, but apart from that it was a real treat to watch again and i'll certainly re-watch it again in the not-too-distant future. If you liked the original Conan and think the 2011 remake was poor, try to find this one (it's available on youtube if you can't find a dvd copy)and give it a go...

#StokerScore Rewound: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

#StokerScore 9/10

I have loved watching movies for as long as I can remember. I think the first movie I was ever taken to see at the cinema was Disney's Snow White (which probably answers many more questions that friends have about me) and I should point out that I'm 49 years old as I write this. 

which one's Marlon Brando?

I was a kid who was inspired as much by the movie posters and trailers for the films that I saw in the auditorius, so much so that on a trip to see The Spy Who Loved me at the Darlington ABC cinema, I begged and pleaded to see the 1977 version of The Island of Dr Moreau, even though it was an AA certificate and I would never have been allowed in. Ten years later and just out of my teens I remember watching this John Hughes-produced movie and loving the hell out of it. So based on that and the delay in other cool movies arriving at the cineplex I thought I'd do a few retro reviews to see how the movies I used to watch stack up after a few years and try to avoid my rose-coloured spectacles potential for disappointment.

In the case of Some Kind of Wonderful the story really workssurprisingly well. I'm sure I can hear you asking how I know that when as a self-confessed lover of the movie I surely can't be impartial and I agree with you to the point that I decided to ask some of my High School Seniors to review it for me and give me their thoughts. Generally the results came back quite favourable considering it's a romantic teen melodrama. Having had my own thoughts put to rest I feel I can explain why the movie still works for me too, even in these more technologically enlightened times.

It's the classic story of poor boy loves girl, girl is in a relationship with another rich boy, girl finds current rich boyfriend is cheating on her, girl agrees to a date with poor boy who's in love with her to spite rich boyfriend, poor boy has confrontation with rich ex-boyfriend, poor boy ends up with drummer/tomboy best friend instead of girl he was originally in love with (It was the 80's, what can I say?)

The performances from Eric Stoltz (poor boy) and Mary Stuart Masterson (tomboy best friend), two sides of the triangle, are spot on to the point that I don't believe either of these actors has been better in anything else they've been in, and I'm a huge fan of Stoltz in The Prophecy. Lea Thompson does enough to make her character of girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks-hanging-with-the-rich-crowd and at the same time removes the stains left over from the woeful George Lucas mess of  Howard the Duck. Thompson even bagged herself a husband by way of marrying Wonderful's director, Howard Deutch.

This American movie, from the iconic and prolific John Hughes writing and producing stable, covers all of the important points of the generational era; teen angst, teen indecision, teens trying to fit in, teen relationships with family and peers, along with the hard fought but requisite happy ending. Apart from the excellently drawn characters, writing, and main actors and supporting cast, what makes the

movie stand above other movies of a similar theme for me is the music. The main characters names are all references to The Rolling Stones so we get to hear The Stones singing Miss Amanda Brown along with a cover version by The March Violets amongst some truly great tracks that make the soundtrack worth seeking out in its own right. My own personal favourite is Furniture's Brilliant Mind.

Throw in Eddie Murphy's straight-laced partner from Beverly Hills Cop as Soltz's dad and Elias Koteas's credited comic turn as 'Skinhead' (his name is actually Duncan in the movie) and you are left with a feelgood movie that people of my age will watch and no doubt reminisce to, but that current teenagers may well see as a 'holy crap, mum and dad were like THAT?' kind of moment.

In the same way that unrequited love and coming to terms with our own mortality are themes that engage teenagers, Some Kind of Wonderful leaves you with a reminder that it's worth looking at what you have, not what you think you should have.

Brimstone

#StokerScore 8/10

Strewth, Sheila....

You may not recognise the street in the picture to the right but that little piece of suburbia is prolific when it comes to producing superstars, stars of the stage and big screen and even singing legends . This, is Ramsay Street, Melbourne

Home to the Aussie tv show Neighbours, this 6 days a week soap opera gave rise to Kylie Minogue, Alan Dale and Jason Donovan to name but three. But it also produced Guy Pearce. 

"better than doing Home and Away, right?"

Out of all of the actors who got their start on Neighbours, Pearce is without doubt the most diverse when it comes to his choice of roles. He was the lead in the backward Memento, he was the cowardly-cannibal-turned-avenger in the gloriously over-the-top Ravenous, he was the heroic saver-of-daughters in the space romp Lockout too. He's so flexible an actor that he's done period (Count of Monte Cristo) he's done big budget superhero movie (Iron Man 3) he's done small indie (The Rover) and is just so damn watchable that he's been cast in military movies, kids' movies and comedies. So when I saw the chance to watch Brimstone, well colour me watching-it-now.

did I really make this twoddle?

The premise of the movie is that it is four interconnected chapters linking the central characters of Guy Pearce and Dakota Fanning with the first three chapters told in reverse order in terms of timeline.  We're introduced to a wild west that is tough on those who lived in that period. Where religion is the only salvation for hard work and poverty and where people eke out a living as best they can.

I can't really tell you too much about the characters without giving too much away, suffice to say that the movie keeps you guessing, right to the final chapter where most of your questions are answered. I say most, all that is except an incident that happens to Pearce's character in the second chapter. Maybe the director left it up to the audience to decide but there are no other explanatory events to help with other predictions and it is only this that for me spoiled a really good movie. 

"who do you prefer, Liam Cunningham or Guy Pearce?"

Supporting cast is a bit hit and miss, especially Jon Snow....er, I mean Kit Harrington who just doesn't really fit his particular character. That he happens to appear alongside GoT co-star Carice van Houten maybe has as much to do with their schedules as it does with the casting director. Either way, that's the reason for the second mark missing.

Dakota Fanning's character is believable, Pearce's, once you understand his background, is too. If you like retributive westerns I think you'll enjoy this, I certainly did.....

Logan

#StokerScore 9.5/10

I know I'll probably get some stick for deducting half a mark, but hear me out first, ok? What do these characters have in common; An Egyptian posing as a Spaniard*, A British secret agent**, an Irish policeman***, a Russian submarine commander****, and a Greek king*****? Yes, The same accent, courtesy of the one and only Sean Connery.

There comes a time in your career when just being cast is what's important, not the accent that you bring with you. Connery has long been cast for his acting and his name, not his ability to drop that shtrange accshent of his.

There are countless examples of bad accents, that I'm sure I must have mentioned on here before, but there are actors who only bring their name, not an ability for mimicry. Tom Cruise is another who springs to mind for never trying different accents (with the glorious exception of Tropic Thunder)

Logan is the movie that every Wolverine fan wanted to see. It has Jackman finally being allowed to sink his claws all the way into various body parts, all in the knowledge that this Wolverine, who should be virtually immortal if you have been following the other movies, is looking his age and isn't healing.

The sunset is beckoning and references to the deaths of colleagues and watching the final scenes of the old Alan Ladd movie Shane all seem to suggest that Hugh Jackman was being honest when he said it was time to hang up the claws after nearly 20 years. 

The movie brings on a great variety of bad guys and introduces us to the lttle-girl-lost we saw in the trailers. Patrick Stewart tries to steal every scene that he's in and almost succeeds but for Logan's presence. Everything moves along at a pace that doesn't feel rushed or leave the viewer bored. Instead, it adds to the mythos and legacy that someone else has to try to fill.

I loved this movie. Everything about it, well nearly everything. There's one character that appears in this movie who was also in X-Men Apocalypse. The problem isn't the actor he's played by in either film, it's the accent the Logan version has. It's the actor's real accent and it's a perfectly reasonable accent to have, but the continuity of having the character leaving the USA and immersing himself so deeply into the Bristol area of the UK that he now sounds like a native of that area who has then gone back to Mexico, I can only assume he had had enough of the Bristolian way of life. He's just not quite at the stage of his career where I'm prepared to forgive the part/accent combination.

It's a tiny, tiny thing but mattered enough for me to take the half point....

Split

#StokerScore 8/10

I clicked Google images to find a movie poster to go with this review, as I always do, and was slightly thrown that the first images to come up were for the Croatian town or a yoga exercise because there was a time, relatively not that long ago either, when M. Night Shyamalan's name was a guarantee of a film's potential. 

Hitchcock was notoriously difficult to spot

He was "the man who does the twist ending", who does the Hitchcock thing of appearing in his own movies, all of this following a string of films that had twists towards the end of the film and small cameos played by the director. The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, I enjoyed all of them and I really enjoyed the range of actors that he encouraged into the movies too. Joaquin Phoenix was great alongside Mel Gibson in Signs, much better than when chewing scenery for Ridley Scott in Gladiator at any rate, Bruce Willis, Samuel L., William Hurt, and he was pretty good at getting performances out of kids, too. Haley Joel Osment, Spenser Treat Clark, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, to name just some (notice I don't mention Jaden Smith here)

Shyamalan could have got a good performance out of Jake 

Then the bubble burst, or the schtick got old, or the Midas touch left him because he made a series of dreadful movies topped off by the disaster that was the abysmal, diabolical, awfulness After Earth. Bang in the middle of his bad run he happened to produce a classic little horror in Devil, so maybe he's just better when not playing with big budgets? I guess time will tell because with Split he's back to a much more dialogue-driven, small budget affair. Gone too is the twist ending, well, to a certain extent but this is a spoiler free zone so all I'll say is that if you're over 30 you might just appreciate the end of this movie.

What's good? Well, the writing is getting better again and the performances, especially from James McAvoy and his psychiatrist played by Betty Buckley and reminiscent of Jenny O'Hara in Devil,  are excellent. The smaller scale in terms of the sets encourages you to focus on the actors, and there is a pervasive sense of pessimism that I always found in his earlier films running through this one too.

I just saw the....Last Airbender

I left the cinema having thoroughly enjoyed this, I thought it was sensitive towards mental illnesses, as much as it could be, especially showing the caring side of the psychiatrist and the greater acceptance of mental disorders. All in all it was a welcome return to form and I can't wait to see what M. Night has for us next...

John Wick: Chapter Two

#StokerScore 6/10

Do you ever find yourself eating in a restaurant that you occasionally like to go to because the food is usually good and it's one of the best places to get a specific dish that you like? Not the only place that you can buy it, just a preference? Yeah, me too. That was what I was doing just before watching the highly anticipated second outing for Keanu's latest franchisee. 

It was a Thai-themed place that does pretty good Som Tam. For those of you unfamiliar with Thai food, this is a vegetarian, shredded papaya salad that is mixed with tomatoes, green beans, peanuts, chillies and fish sauce. It's pretty fiery and I think it goes really well with grilled meats or other finger food. If I was going to review the meal and the restaurant, I'd probably tell you that they didn't meet my expectations. The salad wasn't as spicy as usual, there was an obvious lack of attention to detail with the shredding of the papaya - some of which had come off the mandolin in a whole, slightly serrated slice rather than the individual julienne. The grilled chicken also seemed half-hearted with some bits being a single bone with no actual meat on it. Top that off with the waiter's apology that they'd run out of beer and I left feeling decidedly underwhelmed. The Som Tam was still Som Tam, just not the kind of Som Tam that leaves me with a big smile on my face (trust me, it does when it's good).

Remarkably, this was pretty much how I left the movie too. Chapter Two ticks all of the boxes that made Chapter One such a huge success; guns, mixed martial arts, sartorial villain and this time even reminded me of a couple of Bond set pieces which if you're familiar with classic Bond movies will hopefully stand out to you as much as they did to me. But it lacked the heart, the soul that made the first one so fun and not as predictable.

Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe I should try to be less subjective and not allow my frame of mind or mood to cloud my judgement. Maybe if the Som Tam had been better I would have enjoyed the movie more, but I doubt it.

Keanu is still Keanu, Peter Stormare makes a great bad guy and is one of two characters to resume an on screen relationship with Reeves (Stormare played Lucifer in Constantine and Morpheus makes a return, or at least Laurence Fishburne does) and the transfer to Rome, highlighting that the crime syndicates are global, is a nice touch. Yet still I felt underwhelmed. It was like watching a chef make something he's made a thousand times and, rather than be interested in investing the dish with his enthusiasm, he just looks at the finished article and says "yeah, thet'll do".

As I said, the boxes are ticked and at times there is enough excitement to put you closer to the edge of your seat, you'll just never quite reach that far because something inside tells you it isn't really worth it.

iBoy

#StokerScore 3/10

Having seen the trailer for this new Netflix Original a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued. It reminded me of The Matrix with a couple of visuals, the casting of Rory Kinnear as 'the bad guy', following up his turn as the monster in Penny Dreadful, and Maisie Williams, whose character in Game of Thrones suggests a real talent is about to explode were well placed, the London setting was even reminiscent of Joe Cornish's 2011 sci-fi surprise Attack The Block, so all looked good. 

I haven't read the Kevin Brook's novel, on which the movie is based, so was coming to it with only the trailer's information. The unwinnable 'book vs novel' argument is not something I ever want to discuss as it is, IMO, unfair to both genres in terms of putting the story on the screen, but it does allow for some interesting comparisons in visualising the authors intentions. 

All was going along swimmingly, if slightly predictably, in this story of an underdog righting wrongs for the love of a fair maiden. It's every superhero story you've ever seen, but with a tweak rather than a twist, the tweak being the superpowers and how they are, unexplainedly, happening. That being said, it's easy to guess between the lines and is enjoyable right up to the introduction of Kinnear's Ellman. At this point, either the editor of the movie left a hugely important scene on the cutting room floor or the audience is expected to believe that a line has been drawn between two invisible dots. I was gobsmacked. What came after, the way the movie ended was right there alongside all superhero movies, but that hole in the story, that was really unexpected and quite spoiled the movie for me.

After forty minutes or so, I was looking at a solid 8 on the stokerscore-o-meter but the missing link, so to speak, has left me still annoyed after sleeping on my review thoughts. 

Underworld: Blood Wars

#StokerScore 3/10

International film distribution is a matter of pot luck in my opinion. Herte in Indonesia we sometimes get movies well in advance of the release dates in The UK and US, at other times we can be a long way behind. Still, whenever we get the advance screenings I can't help feeling a little priviledged, well, in most cases that is.

I can never remember if the Underworld franchise began as a movie that became a comic book, or a comic book which became a movie but what I do know is this; Kevin Gervioux, a Canadian actor and screenwriter-cum-bodybuilder with a voice that reminds one of a cross between the Bald Eagle on the Muppets and walking on loose gravel, created a visually excellent if not particularly well written account of a war between vampires and werewolves...and he was the writer! 

Coming out five years before the drivel that was the Twilight, Underworld had blood and battles, a fancy steampunk-ish/celtic visual, Matrix-style, fetishistic black leather and pvc costumes and Kate Beckinsale. The story, as I said earlier, was a little bit confusing with some plotholes and narrative devices that didn't warrant too close a scrutiny but dammnit the first couple were FUN.

With Blood Wars the whole thing just seems to be a mess. Internal politics in the Lycan and Vampire ranks are messy, the dialogue is messy, the plot is messy, and it's just NOT FUN anymore. I can tell this because none of the cast, even Cahrles Dance and Lara Pulver hamming it up, seem to be having any fun any more either. It's as if the whole oh-no-we-have-to-rid-the-world-of-vampires-/-lycans-again thing has just become too much for everyone and the end of the movie comes as a relief for both audience and cast alike. Sure they've left the door open for may more movies but I hope they can agree not to.