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  • Ghett’a Life Trailer Hits Hard

    Ghett’a Life Trailer Hits Hard

    Jamaica’s highest grossing box office hit Ghett’a Life is out on DVD this February and it does look interesting.  Having looked into the production, it is associate produced by former world heavy weight boxing champion Lennox Lewis, and holds a soundtrack featuring Damian Marley and Shaggy.  The trailer is below and I feel it shows the feel and tone perfectly.

    Ghett’a Life follows Derrick, a ghetto teenager who dreams of being an olympic boxing champion, but the only gym capable of training him is situated in a rival part of town and his attempts to cross enemy lines soon descends into a spiral of violence.

    Ghett’a Life is only the second feature from Jamaican director Chris Browne (Third World Cop) and was produced by Justine Henzell, daughter of Perry Henzell – the director of the first Jamaican feature film, The Harder They Come. So great talent involved.  The screenplay recieved The Hartley Merril Award at Cannes Film Festival in before going into production in.

    Here’s the promo…

    …and some praise.

    “Like Boyz ‘N The Hood…an authentic street cred experience”
    – Philip French, The Guardian

    “A heartfelt plea for national unity in the face of ‘politricks’ and sectarian violence”.
    – Tom Dawson, Total Film

  • Manborg: Not For the Serious Minded

    Manborg: Not For the Serious Minded

    The synopsis of Manborg provides a certain level of pre-emptive disappointment, particularly if you’ve never heard of Steven Kostanski, or his sometimes-writing partner Jeremy Gillespie. Their gruesome tale is set in the wake of a great war between man and hell in which the evil leader Count Draculon reigns and ‘with every passing hour, another nation crumbles’ to his technological might, army of monsters and incomparable evil.  After watching Draculon kill his brother, a soldier wakes from death to find himself half man, half machine, in an apocalyptic and hopeless future swarming with demons. Quickly taken prisoner, the self-named Manborg is recruited to fight hellbeasts to the death, Gladiator style, alongside a lethal motley crew of cellmates. He must fight to keep himself and his new friends alive, though ultimately all he truly wants is…revenge.

    It sounds awful. And, actually, it is awful. But it’s also something else altogether. Let me put it another way.

    Manborg is like the mewling, blood-drenched Troma-esque hybrid-spawn, fathered by Terminator, birthed by Mortal Kombat, raised by Grindhouse horror and hanging out with the wrong crowd consisting of badly dubbed vintage Kung Fu movies, The Lost Boys, Mad Max, Nazis and the vampires from Buffy, all on VHS.

    It sounds AWESOME. And, actually, it is awesome. But it’s also something else altogether. Or at least something more. Let me put it another way.

    Astron 6 is a Canadian production company/brain trust made up of, in addition to Gillespie and Kostanski, Matthew Kennedy, Connor Sweeney and Adam Brooks. Collectively they are five mentally questionable individuals responsible for creating a film (or two, if you watch the equally indescribable Father’s Day, produced in the same year) of revolting and marvellous paradox; taking the terrible and making it pretty glorious. In Manborg, the narrative is inconsistent and poorly thought out, the acting hurtles wildly between wooden and cartoonish (the fantastic Matthew Kennedy as Manborg and Connor Sweeney as Justice respectively), steered vaguely by the awful script, and the cinematography is appalling, with low budget green screening, out of time and unrealistic non-diegetic sound, crass editing and Art Attack CGI. The result is glowing; a convincingly and hilariously brilliant homage to a badly aged era and an exploration of everything that can be wrong in cinema. Much like the Diana and Blackbird toy cameras, which at their time were cheap and nasty contraptions rife with the imperfections they are now celebrated for, Astron 6 celebrates all the cinematic drawbacks of cheap and nasty 70s and 80s cinema and, in its celebration, makes it utterly wonderful. It is both demented and genius.

    Manborg

    The pitfall of a film like this is to be found in its potential to be taken seriously by the average viewer, or one who is poorly versed in so-bad-it’s-good 80s sci-fi, who will despise rather than applaud its heroic dreadfulness. There are also those who will hate it to begin with and adore it by the end, going from one extreme to the other during a sudden moment of sparkling comprehension that this film cannot be serious. As the latter viewer, my glowing moment happened when my laptop caused the film to freeze at the exact moment a head exploded. I stared at the incomprehensible, unrealistic, vile gore and my head exploded too as I realised Kostanski had been taking me for a ride. The problem here is that with a running time of around an hour, by the time you realise he’s not taking himself seriously and have settled down to enjoy it without cringing, it’s over.

    Premiering at Austin’s Fantastic Fest and officially selected for Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Lund in Sweden, Sci-Fi Film Festival in London and Toronto’s After Dark Film Festival, Manborg has since been picked up for distribution by Raven Banner, a spectacular boutique agency responsible for A Little Bit Zombie (Casey Walker, 2012) and Deep Dark Canyon (Abe Lee & Silver Tree, 2012) amongst others. Its successful screenings reminded its audience that bad acting and worse graphics don’t necessarily limit the brilliance of a film or the imagination of its creators.

    More than that, it is…under the surface…a very cleverly made film, superbly balancing the level of low-budget badness needed to be true to itself whilst retaining audience interest. Fans of the cataclysmic The Room (2003) by the man and the legend Tommy Wiseau will revel in everything cheesy that Manborg has to offer and be left foaming at the mouth hoping for more, whilst anyone with a little love for Rodriguez or Roth will at the very least appreciate the gore. Personally, I’m sitting back and waiting for the Manborg Drinking Game to develop, and when it does (and it will), I’ll be more than happy to sit through it again and again in the name of hilarity and Captain Morgan’s rum. Cheers, babes.

     

  • Searching For Sugar Man Makes Oscar Shortlist

    Searching For Sugar Man Makes Oscar Shortlist

    After receiving rave reviews upon it’s theatrical release both in the UK and around the world, Malik Bendjelloul’s acclaimed documentary has been named on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences shortlist for the Best Documentary,. The film, which follows the remarkable story of singer-songwriter Rodriquez, made the the list which is whittled down from 126 eligible films. Searching For Sugar Man hits DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on 27th December 2012.

  • Were The Mayans Right? This Is The End

    Were The Mayans Right? This Is The End

    Seth Rogen and James Franco introduce a scene from their Mayan Apocalypse bunker.

    This is Red Band, so NSFW.

    This is the End is being directed by first time directors’ Seth Rogen and writing-partner Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express) and is scheduled to open in theaters on June 14, 2013.

    The comedy This Is The End follows six friends trapped in a house after a series of strange and catastrophic events devastate Los Angeles. As the world unravels outside, dwindling supplies and cabin fever threaten to tear apart the friendships inside. Eventually, they are forced to leave the house, facing their fate and the true meaning of friendship and redemption.

  • Jack Reacher & The Top 5 Renegade Cops

    Jack Reacher & The Top 5 Renegade Cops

    “Get Jack Reacher.” The only three words the primary suspect of a series of sniper homicides writes before slipping into a coma. Cryptic? Just a little. Cue the appearance of the mysterious Jack Reacher, an ex-army cop known for being untraceable to anyone and everyone unless he wants to be found. You don’t find him, he finds you. As he investigates the supposedly open and shut case of the murders, he realises that things are not quite what they seem. So, to celebrate the release of Jack Reacher, (in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Wednesday 26th December), we have compiled a list of our top 5 renegade cops who, like Jack, come to discover that the law is not as black and white as it seems once they uncover the truth.

    THE DEPARTED (2006)
    Our first renegade cop, or should we say, almost cop, is Billy Costigan. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as the young police academy student who drops out when he is given an undercover police assignment before he can even graduate. Going undercover as an ex-con, Billy must infiltrate a mob syndicate headed by criminal, Frank Costello (played by Jack Nicholson). As he is drawn further and further into the realms of mob activity, Costigan discovers that there is a mole in the Boston State Police Department and the longer he remains undercover, the more danger he is in of his true identity being discovered. With a brilliant performance by DiCaprio, The Departed shows us how the lines between cop and criminal, and between good and bad, become blurred once the law is called into question. As Frank Costello would say, “When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”

    THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002)
    Matt Damon stars as Jason Bourne in this little film you may have heard of! Though not technically a cop, Bourne is a trained government assassin who once served in the army (as did Jack Reacher, see what we did there?) With no memory of who he is, Bourne finds himself being hunted by members of the CIA with no knowledge of why they want him dead. Working through the haze of a life he cannot remember, Bourne must fight against the all-seeing, all-knowing CIA if he is to find out who he is, and more importantly, stay alive. A battle of wills ensues in this thrilling action-packed film between one man and a government agency trying to desperately erase any trace of his existence. Bourne needs answers and he wants them badly enough to get them. But what will he do if he doesn’t like the truth once he discovers it?

    TAKEN (2008)
    From CIA baddies, we move onto some CIA goodies for a change! When former CIA agent Bryan Mills’ teenage daughter, Kim, is kidnapped in Paris, he must move quickly to find her. Alone in a foreign country, Bryan will do what it takes, burn old bridges, and kill whoever he must if he is to ever see his daughter alive again. Those who cross Bryan Mills be warned, he will look for you, he will find you, and he will kill you. We wouldn’t get in his way either!

    DIE HARD (1988)
    New York City Detective John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) arrives in Los Angeles to reconcile with estranged wife Holly when the company Christmas party she is attending is taken hostage. Detective John McClane is not a hero, but if he ever wants to see his wife again, he has no choice. Using his police training, he must move quickly in order to unravel the terrorist’s plans to secretly steal over $600 million dollars from a vault in the basement and save his wife and the rest of the hostages, all without revealing his true identity to the gang of terrorists. Sounds simple enough!

    DIRTY HARRY (1971)
    Clint Eastwood stars as Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan in this classic cop thriller. Sadistic serial killer, “Scorpio”, demands the city of San Francisco pay him $100,000. For every day they refuse, one more person dies at his hand. Inspector Harry Callahan is assigned the task of catching Scorpio before he can kill again. With time running out, Callahan must make a choice between serving his badge the right way, and doing what it takes to prevent a serial killer from continuing his reign of terror. So, what do you think? Is Inspector Callahan feeling lucky enough to triumph? “Well, do ya, punk?”

    So head down to cinemas to see a former cop uncover more than he bargained for when he begins to investigate a seemingly simple case. Just don’t get in his way because he has nothing to lose and if “you’re smart that scares you.” Oh, it does Mr Reacher! Jack Reacher hits UK cinemas Wednesday 26th December!