dMYD DVD
Starring Keanu Reeves
Y
Who cares? There’s a body by the river and its eyes have turned white, it’s naked and dead and it’s one of your friends. Want a beer?
Generation X didn’t give a fuck about you and it certainly didn’t give a fuck about not caring. Bill and Ted didn’t care about history, John Bender didn’t care about his Saturdays and the kids down by the stream don’t care that one of their friends has been stripped and strangled by their buddy John, then left on the River’s Edge to rot. There’s laid back and there’s stone dead, the line blurring slowly through the film as the tone slowly shifts from bemused satire to horrifying reality. They really don’t care? They really feel nothing? No, they don’t, and no one understands. Your film has a problem when a blitzed-out, one-legged, blow-up doll dancing Dennis Hopper is the pivot of your moral compass, but boy he’s sympathetic, a relic from another time when anything meant something, when reacting against the man gave a reason to be. But this is 1986 and the hippies are dead.
The film is laconically stringent at projecting a glazed, frosted over view of American life, grey lenses and minimal music accentuating the nothingness of the town and its inhabitants. The performances of the teenagers are suitably understated and empty, sometimes evoking the callous dumb-bastardy of Heathers but more often showing off a frightening, more realistic void that’s entirely believable, even when sloped out of the open mouth of Admiral Whoah, the human Bonsai. And then there’s Crispin Glover. The professional genius/ waxwork scarecrow here gives a performance of such breathtaking toddler-screaming and monkey-flailing that it’s a wonder he got cast at all, and nearly serves to throw the whole thing out of whack with his scrawny Brando aping tantrum disco of distraction. You were told never to come in here, McFly. It’s the film’s one jarring piece of rubbish but then again, who cares? Overall it’s a great work of art about nothing, a portrait of a generation born to a world where everything’s possible but pointless, a frightening fable of what could happen if really, genuinely, no one cared.
It’s based on a true story.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
dMYD
Starring Johnny Depp
d
The review became a rant. The film is an assault on childhood. See this instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA
Starring Johnny Depp
d
The review became a rant. The film is an assault on childhood. See this instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
STAR WARS (Or Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, for the Pedantically-Challenged.)
dMYD DVD
Starring Harrison Ford
D
Swords made of light. A hovering car. Spaceships that scream. A severed arm on a bar-room floor. A gun the size of the moon, blown up by a farmhand with the voice of an ancient religious fanatic in his head. Nearly being crushed to death in an ocean of shit and refuse. A gay, English butler made of gold. Harrison Ford. Rescuing a princess. Midget scavengers. All the best lines given to a character only capable of emitting beeps and whistles. The phrase ‘Millennium Falcon’. Charred corpses. People called Biggs, Wedge and Han. A gigantic walking shag carpet that emits guttural, existential sobs and carries a rapid fire crossbow. Something called a ‘Moff’. The greatest score by a composer known for a large heap of greatest scores. Alec Guinness. Killing a smuggler by blasting a white hot laser into his alien testicles. Running and shouting. An extra banging his head on a door. A walking bin. A strong, independent Princess who maims and cusses whilst wielding the most improbable haircut in this or any or galaxy. ‘Let’s blow this thing and go home.’ A respiratory-impaired eight foot gimp with the power to strangle you with his thoughts. War, in the STARS.
Starring Harrison Ford
D
Swords made of light. A hovering car. Spaceships that scream. A severed arm on a bar-room floor. A gun the size of the moon, blown up by a farmhand with the voice of an ancient religious fanatic in his head. Nearly being crushed to death in an ocean of shit and refuse. A gay, English butler made of gold. Harrison Ford. Rescuing a princess. Midget scavengers. All the best lines given to a character only capable of emitting beeps and whistles. The phrase ‘Millennium Falcon’. Charred corpses. People called Biggs, Wedge and Han. A gigantic walking shag carpet that emits guttural, existential sobs and carries a rapid fire crossbow. Something called a ‘Moff’. The greatest score by a composer known for a large heap of greatest scores. Alec Guinness. Killing a smuggler by blasting a white hot laser into his alien testicles. Running and shouting. An extra banging his head on a door. A walking bin. A strong, independent Princess who maims and cusses whilst wielding the most improbable haircut in this or any or galaxy. ‘Let’s blow this thing and go home.’ A respiratory-impaired eight foot gimp with the power to strangle you with his thoughts. War, in the STARS.
SHUTTER ISLAND
dMYD
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
M
It’s the ‘70s and dope-smoking, guilt-ridden Jewish celluloid-addict Marty ‘Eyebrows’ Scorcese is thrown into the back of a giant penis on wheels and deposited in an abandoned Technicolor warehouse by B-Movie Impresario and Poe-Acolyte Roger Corman. The bug eyed king of crap proceeds to pour eighty-six tons of industrial grade exploitation know-how into young Marty’s open mouth in a desperate bid to pass on everything he knows in case of an early syphilis-related death, before running out into the night and making seven films before he goes to bed. Marty, left to die, collapses under the weight of B-Movie technique and enters a forty year fever dream of masculinity issues, alienation and the Italian-American experience. But now he’s woken up, ran to the bathroom, and sicked up Shutter Island as a congealed mess of everything Corman crammed him with in ’72. So Scorcese has made a B-Movie then, but a B-Movie with a budget, a B-Movie based on a novel… a modern day crap-flick, with the integrity and good will that come from making nearly half a century of great movies. Somebody else already does this, with roughly half the respect. Tarantino’s Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds gloriously pastiched and applauded the genius of the Bs with a smile and a kick to the balls and despite being regressive and simplistic they were fun and funny, true to the spirit of the genre and directed with such verve and panache that nobody cared that they were essentially nonsense. Scorcese doesn’t quite work that way. Shutter Island is a grim, long, lonesome affair, devoid of fun but full of ridiculousness, with a twist that could be seen from Cardiff if it was locked in a room at the top of the Empire State Building. The dopey plot might have cut it back in the ‘50s with a bit more rough and readiness but here, buried under the slick camera work and insane period detail that propagate all Scorcese flicks it all seems a bit jaw-dragging and overblown. A festival of ham-acting is revived from the old days, but looks even stupider with all the HD-readiness and reality-bolstering CGI that scuttles around the corners of every modern thriller, meaning there’s no empathy for any of the characters or any real interest in what’s going to happen next or why. Taking the B-Movie approach to a thriller is obviously nice and cockle-warming for geriatric directors and walking picture-house-history deposits but essentially doesn’t work for an audience more attuned to subtlety and realism in its best pieces, crucially resulting in a yawning gap of non-thrills and heavy-handed exposition scenes. However, being Scorcese it’s all done with a sheen of class and professionalism, a cut above the other work-a-day wankers that Hollywood rents out on a regular basis to ruin ‘trilogies’ and prequels. It’s just not in the spirit of the Bs. Something of a confusing mish-mash oddity then, but shit-fuck-damnit not a very enjoyable one.
Jab this in your pipe and steam it instead, a true wedge of quality-non-quality from the cock of the bargain-basement walk: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C2E68D68B0CCA888&search_query=roger+corman+fantastic+four Martin can still learn from the Master.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
M
It’s the ‘70s and dope-smoking, guilt-ridden Jewish celluloid-addict Marty ‘Eyebrows’ Scorcese is thrown into the back of a giant penis on wheels and deposited in an abandoned Technicolor warehouse by B-Movie Impresario and Poe-Acolyte Roger Corman. The bug eyed king of crap proceeds to pour eighty-six tons of industrial grade exploitation know-how into young Marty’s open mouth in a desperate bid to pass on everything he knows in case of an early syphilis-related death, before running out into the night and making seven films before he goes to bed. Marty, left to die, collapses under the weight of B-Movie technique and enters a forty year fever dream of masculinity issues, alienation and the Italian-American experience. But now he’s woken up, ran to the bathroom, and sicked up Shutter Island as a congealed mess of everything Corman crammed him with in ’72. So Scorcese has made a B-Movie then, but a B-Movie with a budget, a B-Movie based on a novel… a modern day crap-flick, with the integrity and good will that come from making nearly half a century of great movies. Somebody else already does this, with roughly half the respect. Tarantino’s Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds gloriously pastiched and applauded the genius of the Bs with a smile and a kick to the balls and despite being regressive and simplistic they were fun and funny, true to the spirit of the genre and directed with such verve and panache that nobody cared that they were essentially nonsense. Scorcese doesn’t quite work that way. Shutter Island is a grim, long, lonesome affair, devoid of fun but full of ridiculousness, with a twist that could be seen from Cardiff if it was locked in a room at the top of the Empire State Building. The dopey plot might have cut it back in the ‘50s with a bit more rough and readiness but here, buried under the slick camera work and insane period detail that propagate all Scorcese flicks it all seems a bit jaw-dragging and overblown. A festival of ham-acting is revived from the old days, but looks even stupider with all the HD-readiness and reality-bolstering CGI that scuttles around the corners of every modern thriller, meaning there’s no empathy for any of the characters or any real interest in what’s going to happen next or why. Taking the B-Movie approach to a thriller is obviously nice and cockle-warming for geriatric directors and walking picture-house-history deposits but essentially doesn’t work for an audience more attuned to subtlety and realism in its best pieces, crucially resulting in a yawning gap of non-thrills and heavy-handed exposition scenes. However, being Scorcese it’s all done with a sheen of class and professionalism, a cut above the other work-a-day wankers that Hollywood rents out on a regular basis to ruin ‘trilogies’ and prequels. It’s just not in the spirit of the Bs. Something of a confusing mish-mash oddity then, but shit-fuck-damnit not a very enjoyable one.
Jab this in your pipe and steam it instead, a true wedge of quality-non-quality from the cock of the bargain-basement walk: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C2E68D68B0CCA888&search_query=roger+corman+fantastic+four Martin can still learn from the Master.
Monday, 15 March 2010
PONYO
dMYD
Starring Fantastically Descriptive Masterworks of Animation
Y
Well it’s not My Neighbour Totoro. And it’s certainly not Princess Mononoke. Studio Ghibli Films largely jump with a swath of bold colours into one of two categories; the epic, twisting, mind boggling genius of Miyazaki’s slightly more grown up works, coming of age fables carried aloft by an ancient mind fizzing on poppers and traditional woodcuts, and his simpler fare, his ones for the tots with their singing trees and buses made of cats. Ponyo swims neatly into the second group, a children’s picture book come to life in a standard tale of friendship, toy boats and A SEA WITH EYES THAT COMES ALIVE AND TRIES TO EAT YOUR MOTHER. It’s as deep as the ankle-high water that Saosuke spends much of his time splashing about in, but the usual Ghibli morphine drip of endless charm and mind-tapping flourishes of formless absurdity is still sat next to the bed, pumping away in a stream of incomparable animation. The sentences don’t get any longer than the one I just wrote and the usual flair for understatement and silence is adhered to, along with the myriad pleasures of everyday actions expertly animated. A film studio has never found so much quiet wonder in food and ripple effects, whilst the voice acting is unusually good for a Japanese translation, with the exception of Liam Neeson, the flame-haired king of the sea with an Irish Burr. Ireland has a sea. So what’s the problem?
Like the Princess and the Frog it’s not up there with the Studio’s A-List, but it’ll do until Miyazaki bows to the death threats and single-handedly adapts The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Starring Fantastically Descriptive Masterworks of Animation
Y
Well it’s not My Neighbour Totoro. And it’s certainly not Princess Mononoke. Studio Ghibli Films largely jump with a swath of bold colours into one of two categories; the epic, twisting, mind boggling genius of Miyazaki’s slightly more grown up works, coming of age fables carried aloft by an ancient mind fizzing on poppers and traditional woodcuts, and his simpler fare, his ones for the tots with their singing trees and buses made of cats. Ponyo swims neatly into the second group, a children’s picture book come to life in a standard tale of friendship, toy boats and A SEA WITH EYES THAT COMES ALIVE AND TRIES TO EAT YOUR MOTHER. It’s as deep as the ankle-high water that Saosuke spends much of his time splashing about in, but the usual Ghibli morphine drip of endless charm and mind-tapping flourishes of formless absurdity is still sat next to the bed, pumping away in a stream of incomparable animation. The sentences don’t get any longer than the one I just wrote and the usual flair for understatement and silence is adhered to, along with the myriad pleasures of everyday actions expertly animated. A film studio has never found so much quiet wonder in food and ripple effects, whilst the voice acting is unusually good for a Japanese translation, with the exception of Liam Neeson, the flame-haired king of the sea with an Irish Burr. Ireland has a sea. So what’s the problem?
Like the Princess and the Frog it’s not up there with the Studio’s A-List, but it’ll do until Miyazaki bows to the death threats and single-handedly adapts The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
BADLANDS
dMYD DVD
Starring Martin Sheen
Y
BADLAAAANDS YOU GOTTA LIVE IT EVERYDAY, LET THE BROKEN HEARTS STAND AS THE PRICE YOU GOTTA PAY! WE’LL KEEP PUSHIN’ TILL IT’S UNDERSTOOD AND THESE BADLANDS START TREATING US GOOOD…
Bonnie and Clyde for cynics and psychopaths, Badlands is another fine film in the outlaw-running, lawman-shafting genre, but tonally-totally different to the jolly blood letting of Parker ‘n’ Barrow. Essentially a commentary on the romanticised nature of the older film, and of love and violence in general, the film depicts the teenage hoodlum Kitt as a genuine sociopath, his swathes of uncaring squib-blasting overlaid with the endless laconic babble of Sissy Spacek’s bored girlfriend. The mix of romantic cliché and almost cartoon levels of violence makes the film seem like a fairy tale from the mind of Harold Shipman (If he was cool. Which he wasn’t.), whilst the soundtrack and genius images compliment the overall feel of sixty pound prints on a college student’s wall. The scene in the posh man’s house is a masterpiece of cross-generational, class-snubbing comedy, whilst you must enjoy Michael McIntyre if you don’t admire Kitt blasting towards a police helicopter with only a torn-off Cadillac door for protection. Knights in denim, fucking the world up. A stupidly cool movie, and it rips it out of the media two decades before Natural Born Killers. KABOOOOOOM!
Starring Martin Sheen
Y
BADLAAAANDS YOU GOTTA LIVE IT EVERYDAY, LET THE BROKEN HEARTS STAND AS THE PRICE YOU GOTTA PAY! WE’LL KEEP PUSHIN’ TILL IT’S UNDERSTOOD AND THESE BADLANDS START TREATING US GOOOD…
Bonnie and Clyde for cynics and psychopaths, Badlands is another fine film in the outlaw-running, lawman-shafting genre, but tonally-totally different to the jolly blood letting of Parker ‘n’ Barrow. Essentially a commentary on the romanticised nature of the older film, and of love and violence in general, the film depicts the teenage hoodlum Kitt as a genuine sociopath, his swathes of uncaring squib-blasting overlaid with the endless laconic babble of Sissy Spacek’s bored girlfriend. The mix of romantic cliché and almost cartoon levels of violence makes the film seem like a fairy tale from the mind of Harold Shipman (If he was cool. Which he wasn’t.), whilst the soundtrack and genius images compliment the overall feel of sixty pound prints on a college student’s wall. The scene in the posh man’s house is a masterpiece of cross-generational, class-snubbing comedy, whilst you must enjoy Michael McIntyre if you don’t admire Kitt blasting towards a police helicopter with only a torn-off Cadillac door for protection. Knights in denim, fucking the world up. A stupidly cool movie, and it rips it out of the media two decades before Natural Born Killers. KABOOOOOOM!
AVATAR
dMYD
Starring Myriad Blue Humanoids with Vaguely Rubbery Skin
M
Damn they look rubbery. Get up close. Let the 3D get up close to you. Look at those Navi, look at their skin. They look rubbery. The dawn of the digital picture is upon us and the ridiculously advanced computerized flesh looks rubbery. Like a man in a rubber suit.
So it’s one step forward and eight steps back then, stepping backwards and flumping back into that coke addled seat to watch the movie that took eighty six years to make and couldn’t find a likeable character. The mass experiment to develop the cameras of the omni-future, descending from timelines random to bring celluloid rapture to an undeserving world that couldn’t bring itself to think up a vaguely original story. The work of art with no script. The ‘unobtainium’. It’s easy to kick Avatar in James Cameron’s face because of the marketing, the steady tributary of revolutionary concepts and barefaced lies that propagated from the first inkling of his bashed about dream project. But taken just as a film it’s beautiful. It’s beautifully shot and beautifully conceptualized, with great leaps forward for the digital age of film. But it’s a Mills and Boon book printed and bound with diamond. Every aspect about it aside from the visuals is a film that you’ve seen before, from the acting to the script to the score. The themes are trite and basic, the characters stunted and stupid, the bad guys cliché-mongering American-cigar-chomp-yee-ha-boredom-deposits… But it looks like a Turner painting. In 3D. The audiences of one hundred years hence will sit and watch a clip in the New Johannesburg Celluloid Museum and think, ‘Wasn’t Heath Ledger amazing in The Dark Knight?’.
Starring Myriad Blue Humanoids with Vaguely Rubbery Skin
M
Damn they look rubbery. Get up close. Let the 3D get up close to you. Look at those Navi, look at their skin. They look rubbery. The dawn of the digital picture is upon us and the ridiculously advanced computerized flesh looks rubbery. Like a man in a rubber suit.
So it’s one step forward and eight steps back then, stepping backwards and flumping back into that coke addled seat to watch the movie that took eighty six years to make and couldn’t find a likeable character. The mass experiment to develop the cameras of the omni-future, descending from timelines random to bring celluloid rapture to an undeserving world that couldn’t bring itself to think up a vaguely original story. The work of art with no script. The ‘unobtainium’. It’s easy to kick Avatar in James Cameron’s face because of the marketing, the steady tributary of revolutionary concepts and barefaced lies that propagated from the first inkling of his bashed about dream project. But taken just as a film it’s beautiful. It’s beautifully shot and beautifully conceptualized, with great leaps forward for the digital age of film. But it’s a Mills and Boon book printed and bound with diamond. Every aspect about it aside from the visuals is a film that you’ve seen before, from the acting to the script to the score. The themes are trite and basic, the characters stunted and stupid, the bad guys cliché-mongering American-cigar-chomp-yee-ha-boredom-deposits… But it looks like a Turner painting. In 3D. The audiences of one hundred years hence will sit and watch a clip in the New Johannesburg Celluloid Museum and think, ‘Wasn’t Heath Ledger amazing in The Dark Knight?’.
TAXI DRIVER
dMYD DVD
Starring Robert De Niro
D
Ambiguity is a confusing thing. You’re never going to watch Forest Gump and label him a closet racist, or take Nightmare on Elm Street as a treatise on the Falklands War, though this would make both of them infinitely more interesting. ‘AND AH MISS YOU GINNY’ takes on a whole new meaning. Taxi Driver is so well painted and open to interpretation that it’s a completely different film depending on what sort of person you are and crucially what sort of person you think Travis Bickle is, if a person at all. Horror, war film, romance, tragic-comedy… though shot through with violence and beauty, it increasingly falls to De Niro’s performance as to how you view the piece, with him sometimes seeming a babbling pervert and others a clear-headed voice of old fashioned reason in a hopelessly confused shit-world. Watching it nowadays it all feels like a modern fairy tale, the endless streams of headlights and dive-theater signs creating an eerie otherworld of gothic castles and helpless virgins, with Bickle as the courageous knight strolling through searching for someone to save. His disgust with the world around him seems particularly noble in light of society’s recent acceptance of some of the film’s harsher themes, whilst the tiny glimpses of hope that blink through all seem to stem from his dedication to simple common sense. Of course, you might watch it and think that he’s a sick-inducing sociopath with a racist haircut and firearm addiction, like everyone else in America. But you’d be wrong. Or right, or something. Good film, clever film.
Starring Robert De Niro
D
Ambiguity is a confusing thing. You’re never going to watch Forest Gump and label him a closet racist, or take Nightmare on Elm Street as a treatise on the Falklands War, though this would make both of them infinitely more interesting. ‘AND AH MISS YOU GINNY’ takes on a whole new meaning. Taxi Driver is so well painted and open to interpretation that it’s a completely different film depending on what sort of person you are and crucially what sort of person you think Travis Bickle is, if a person at all. Horror, war film, romance, tragic-comedy… though shot through with violence and beauty, it increasingly falls to De Niro’s performance as to how you view the piece, with him sometimes seeming a babbling pervert and others a clear-headed voice of old fashioned reason in a hopelessly confused shit-world. Watching it nowadays it all feels like a modern fairy tale, the endless streams of headlights and dive-theater signs creating an eerie otherworld of gothic castles and helpless virgins, with Bickle as the courageous knight strolling through searching for someone to save. His disgust with the world around him seems particularly noble in light of society’s recent acceptance of some of the film’s harsher themes, whilst the tiny glimpses of hope that blink through all seem to stem from his dedication to simple common sense. Of course, you might watch it and think that he’s a sick-inducing sociopath with a racist haircut and firearm addiction, like everyone else in America. But you’d be wrong. Or right, or something. Good film, clever film.
FROM PARIS WITH LOVE
dMYD
Starring John Travolta
d
I’ve seen the full trailer for Kick-Ass now, and it does look very good. After nearly a decade of CGI catching up to comics in order to make superhero films… kick ass, it finally seems as if clever directors are bringing a second wave of all-new, all-different hero flicks to piss about with the formula, such as the forthcoming ‘A RENZOKUKEN TO THE FACE OF THE ENTIRE FILM INDUSTRY, THE MOVIE’ and this, Mark Millar’s hyperjumpy teen-kicking fantasy punktacular. The colours are as bold as spitting in Barack Obama’s face, and the action looks suitably wire-tastic, specifically the bits where a ten year old girl literally kicks a gangster in the arse whilst shooting him in the face. Funny too, with swearing and dick jokes a-plenty, like going to a Blink 182 concert in ’96 with Jason Statham. Most unbelievable award goes to Nicholas Cage though, who finally seems to be doing something good in something good. A return to greatness? This greatness? http://cageloveskart.ytmnd.com/. I’m looking forward to it, and it looks 860,000 times better than Wanted.
From Paris With Love is pure shit.
Starring John Travolta
d
I’ve seen the full trailer for Kick-Ass now, and it does look very good. After nearly a decade of CGI catching up to comics in order to make superhero films… kick ass, it finally seems as if clever directors are bringing a second wave of all-new, all-different hero flicks to piss about with the formula, such as the forthcoming ‘A RENZOKUKEN TO THE FACE OF THE ENTIRE FILM INDUSTRY, THE MOVIE’ and this, Mark Millar’s hyperjumpy teen-kicking fantasy punktacular. The colours are as bold as spitting in Barack Obama’s face, and the action looks suitably wire-tastic, specifically the bits where a ten year old girl literally kicks a gangster in the arse whilst shooting him in the face. Funny too, with swearing and dick jokes a-plenty, like going to a Blink 182 concert in ’96 with Jason Statham. Most unbelievable award goes to Nicholas Cage though, who finally seems to be doing something good in something good. A return to greatness? This greatness? http://cageloveskart.ytmnd.com/. I’m looking forward to it, and it looks 860,000 times better than Wanted.
From Paris With Love is pure shit.
E.T THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL
dMYD DVD
Starring A Charming Puppet or a Soulless CGI Ninja Turtle, Depending on Which Year you were Born
Y
E.T isn’t a family film. It’s not for everyone. Your fifty-eight year old Uncle, pissing, slurring his words and making crude fist motions for whiskey and tits isn’t going to be placated by the heart-warming story of an elderly space penis desperate to go home. So not fun for all then, not a film for family but rather about family, about connection and about trust. Spielberg’s soppiest jump to sci-fi nicks a lot from his own Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the lighting, the small town weirdery), but sugar carpet-bombs everything else into oblivion with cross-dressing comedy interludes, fish out of water slapstick and an overreliance on the admittedly pretty good child actors. The film isn’t funtastic, but it is sweet, with a simplistic fable of lonely people finding friendship that resonates through the pop-culture references and broken family tear-grabbing. Drew Barrymore’s never been better, and the first time that the bike flies over the woods your sad, jaded heart will splutter and gasp out a trickle of nicotine-negative, possibly for the last time. E.T kills with love.
Starring A Charming Puppet or a Soulless CGI Ninja Turtle, Depending on Which Year you were Born
Y
E.T isn’t a family film. It’s not for everyone. Your fifty-eight year old Uncle, pissing, slurring his words and making crude fist motions for whiskey and tits isn’t going to be placated by the heart-warming story of an elderly space penis desperate to go home. So not fun for all then, not a film for family but rather about family, about connection and about trust. Spielberg’s soppiest jump to sci-fi nicks a lot from his own Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the lighting, the small town weirdery), but sugar carpet-bombs everything else into oblivion with cross-dressing comedy interludes, fish out of water slapstick and an overreliance on the admittedly pretty good child actors. The film isn’t funtastic, but it is sweet, with a simplistic fable of lonely people finding friendship that resonates through the pop-culture references and broken family tear-grabbing. Drew Barrymore’s never been better, and the first time that the bike flies over the woods your sad, jaded heart will splutter and gasp out a trickle of nicotine-negative, possibly for the last time. E.T kills with love.
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