Quick Movie Review: Fast Sofa – 2001 – directed by Salome Breziner

Eric Robert crops up when you least expect him!!!!!

The film concerns Rick played by the very good Jake Busey (son of Gary) as he travels across america to have sex with his porn star idle Ginger played by Jennifer Tilly. Along the way he meets the eccentric Jules played by the brilliant Crispin Glover. Together they go on an epic road trip full of sex, violence and Eric Roberts.

Eric Roberts only appears in the film for a short amount of time but he is amazing and plays a pretty scary role in what is possibly one of the most awkward kinda rape scenes I’ve ever seen in film. It’s a hard film to place in a specific genre or even fully explain as it hops around wherever it feels like (much like the characters contained within it.) All I know is It was good, verging on very good.

I was really surprised by this film as it had a lot more depth to it than I expected, with some actually quite moving segments towards the end. I must also say that it has a pretty brilliant ending that left me feeling a lot more satisfied then i expected.

It is really well acted and although the plot isn’t wholly original, I think it has just enough to make it stand apart from the crowd. I’d say it’s worth checking out. 6/10

Quick Movie Review: Step Up 4, Miami Heat – 2012 – directed by Scott Speer

Say what you will about the insane amount of dance films that have come out in recent years but I’d argue that most of the haters haven’t actually watched the films they claim to hate. I belive it’s more of a ‘I won’t like that kind of film’ mentality that sways judgement without even giving the film the benefit of the doubt. I would’ve had the same mentality (heck, I did for a while) but then I decided to give some of the films a shot and you know what …. I kind of enjoyed some of them. I would even say that I really liked some of them.

Before you stop reading, hear me out……

At some point a few years ago I caught ‘Step Up 2’ on Tv and thought it was awful except for the final dance number which I thought was incredibly well choreographed and really well filmed. This in turn led me to start checking out some of the other dance flicks out there to see what the dance numbers were like.  I grew to kinda enjoy big ensemble dance numbers as well as just good choreography (in a way I kind of enjoy the dances in films much like the fights in martial arts films).

For some reason I was really interested in seeing Step UP 3 (will review at a later date) when it came out and after seeing it became really excited about the prospect of number 4 (to a lot of mockery from friends). When it was finally released on dvd I didn’t hesitate picking it up.

I watched it and was like ‘WOW’. The dances are amongst some of the very best I’ve seen in modern films and to be fair the acting isn’t all that bad. One of the things the film does 100% right is the fact it focuses on the dance numbers more than the rather basic plot (your usual Romeo and Juliet-esque love story). I was hooked from the first dance to the very last and thought that all of them were amazing (especially the one in the offices of the big land grabbing cooperation (oh yeah there is the other side of the plot about the lead female’s father trying to buy up land to turn into hotels.)

Ryan Guzman and Cleopatra Coleman are both great in the two lead roles and actually look to have a spark between them in the more romantic scenes (again generally dance numbers).

I’d say that this film is well worth seeing, or even trying. It’s much better then one would think (especially for the fourth film in a franchise). I’d even say that this is possibly the strongest of all the Step Up films. It’s brilliantly directed, amazingly filmed and a great piece of fun….  8/10

 

Quick Movie Review: Deadly Whispers – 1995 – directed by Bill L. Norton

recently I’ve discovered the wonderous back catalogue of films distributed by Odyssey Films. Almost all of them are TV movies but every one I’ve seen has been anything from good to brilliant. Most of the films are ‘based on true events’ which always makes me slightly dubious but here the stories do feel like the stories that inspired them. Many of these films feature some big name stars (generally before they became big) such as, Brad Pitt, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ving Rhames, Terry O’Quinn etc….

‘Deadly whispers’ concerns the murder of a nineteen year old girl. Every clue leads to her father, but how could a nice, kind family man do such a thing?

Tony Danza gives a brilliant performance as lead male Tom who is nice family man with a dark side. He has the perfect balance and his performance reminds me slightly of Jack Nicholson’s in ‘the Shining’ (not as great but just as creepy). His wife is played by Pamela Reed (who I’d only seen in comedies prior to this). As she is kind of the main character of the piece, it is on her shoulders that the threat rests. If we didn’t feel for her and the kids, the film would be a failure. The good news is she’s great. In fact almost everyone in the film plays their role really well.

The direction is tight as is the camerawork. It does have that feel of ‘TV film’ but it never detracted from the action on-screen.

Overall I really enjoyed the film (not as much as some of the others from ‘Odyssey’, but still…) It’s well worth seeing if you have an afternoon free, although I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again. 6/10