A rude gesture at the MCU

This blog is rated 12A for implied strong language and references to violence and torture.

Those with a passing interest in British film certification will have noticed that they’ve recently adopted a new turn of phrase as part of their catalogue of film ratings reasons: ‘rude gesture’.

It’s been flagged for several films, including Pacific Rim Uprising, Rampage and Walk with Me. The former two are 12A and the latter is a PG, which suggests to me the BBFC can’t quite decide if using the middle finger is a 12A or PG-rated offence.

The Worst Acting Performances of 2017 [5 to 1]

Emma’s shade-throwing at bad acting continues! Read 10 to 6 here. I like to think I was relatively measured in my snark before. As we’re now onto the bottom five, I can’t promise to be so kind! Ehehe.

05. Johnny Depp, Murder on the Orient Express

As the sketchy art dealer Ratchett, Depp’s character is killed off early on, leaving Kenneth Branagh’s sleuth the rest of the film to piece together whodunit. The Johnny Depp of old, the Depp we saw in Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one, not the 34897 laboured sequels after), Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands would have seized this role with aplomb and made an indelible impression in his limited screen time.

Two Guns (the Sequel).

The last time I waxed lyrical about Gary Cahill's insane biceps, Chelsea had beaten Manchester City at the Etihad. Well, this weekend, we beat Manchester City at the Etihad (ironically enough, the man with the golden guns scored an own-goal, but we'll just chalk that down to him kindly giving Agüero a masterclass in finishing), so it's time for another appreciatory post  for Gazatron's arms!

The best arms in football, bar none. Appreciate his commitment to constantly making them even bigger, too.

------

I shan't be watching Passengers. It stars a certain actress who's acting prowess I don't exactly hold in the highest regard,  and I don't like sci-fi much (Arrival was an exception to this rule). Plus I don't see the point in hate-watching a movie when I barely have time to view the many films I actually want to see.

However, whilst I'm still staunchly 'you'd have to drag me to the cinema to see this', I have to admit the BBFC have trolled me slightly, in that by using 'sexual activity' rather than 'sex' in the short insight, my interest is piqued as to what the 'sexual activity' is.

I've noticed an increase in the prevalence of this curio turn of phrase recently. It seems to be employed for situations rather than intercourse, e.g. describing the masturbation scene in The Survivalist. In Childhood of a Leader (a shining example of a film I'd love to see but sadly didn't because the Odeon didn't screen it), a film rated 12A for moderate sexual activity, the activity in question is a husband running his hand along his wife's leg in a horny manner.

Which is fair enough, it's good to be prescriptive and delineate the lines between a shag and sexual behaviour to the audience. But I'm intrigued as to why it's been used in Passengers' case, given that in interviews about this film, Lawrence has been bleating on and on about her sex scene with Chris Pratt, and even falsely claiming this love scene is her first. (I've seen Serena, Jennifer. You might like to pretend that film never happened, but I saw it).  She also had a sex scene with the late Anton Yelchin (RIP) in Like Crazy, so I don't know why she's pushing selling the fallacious narrative that this is her, quote, 'first sex scene'. To sell more tickets for the film, perhaps? 

So I would have thought Passengers would feature an out-and-out love scene. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they start having Cesc, then J-law's character starts reading her whiny essay about how underpaid she was for American Hustle instead and Pratt's character loses his wood.

Just speculating.

Film review: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Antoine Fuqua, 2016)

The town of Rose Creek is terrorised by mercenary Bart Bogue and his henchmen, who wishes to mine it for oil. In standing up to the villains, several innocent people are slaughtered in cold blood, including Matthew Cullen, leaving his grieving widow Emma (Haley Bennett) seeking retribution. She implores bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) to defend her townspeople, a request he initially declines, until he hears who the enemy is. 

However, Sam alone isn't enough to overturn Bart's army, so he recruits wayward gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt) using Josh's horse as barter. Faraday then enlists the help of Sam's former acquaintance, a sharpshooter named Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and gets his companion, assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), thrown in for free. The foursome are rounded off with wanted outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), giant Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio),  and a Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier).

The trailer for The Magnificent Seven was so cool and enticing that it made me momentarily forget my aversion for needless Hollywood remakes, of which Oldboy is the worst of a sorry bunch from recent years. But, in Antoine Fuque's plodder of a film, I realised that the film peaked at the strategic bass drop on the ad.

The film's four most well-known stars: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Peter Sarsagaard barely make it out of first gear. Pratt and Sarsgaard, in particular, both who have done exemplary work in the past, phone it in on crushingly disappointing levels.  Pratt, so charismatic in Guardians of the Galaxy, seems to think he can ride on the memory of his charm in this film, and exhibits no attempt at characterisation in his role. Waving his hands around to do a card trick is about the most he exerts himself.

Sarsgaard is equally limp as the villain, to the point where it detriments the film. Because The Magnificent Seven then lacks a compelling antagonist, it renders all the expensive (the film had had a eye-watering budget of $95 million) training montages shown in the film hollow, because we're simply not afraid of the force they're all priming themselves to face.

For the Training Day fans out there, of which I am one, the scenes between Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke lack the spice and spark that the two organically just had in Antoine Fuqua's earlier film. This is as much to blame on the clunky screenplay as it does the performers, where practically every character in the film speaks in (not very incisive, it has to be said) one-liners but strung together, it doesn't come close to resembling dialogue.

The cast member who makes the most lasting impression is pretty Haley Bennett as Emma, who the script graciously refrains from making a damsel in distress trope. Bennett fleshes out a 2D(ish) character into something resembling a human with a beating heart, and her early scenes where she pleads to Chisolm's sense of humanity do carry genuine pathos.

Perhaps rising star Bennett (who will next be seen in October's release The Girl on the Train), unlike the four male movie stars who I've named and shamed, actually bothered in Magnificent Seven because she cannot yet rest on the laurels of her name alone. The supporting cast also feature some witty turns, especially South Korean actor Byung-hun Lee who throws knives with panache and inhibits his taciturn/cool character with ease, and the always memorable Vincent D'Onofrio, who plays against his formidable physicality as surprisingly soft-spoken tracker.

There are a few gripping action sequences (which were the main contributor to my generous decision to award The Magnificent Seven 6/10), but they could all have been trimmed by at least 20% in the editing room. The final set piece dragged far too much and caused the payoff to feel frustratingly anti-climactic.

The Magnificent Seven touches upon topics of substance such as male companionship, the destructive nature of greed, carrying the guilt of one's actions (Hawke's character is crippled with bouts of PTSD) and bigotry, but they are all dealt with and resolved in a very superficial, Hollwood manner. Some of the cinematography is nice and the iconography of the seven men riding on horses will certainly make for some decent gifs. But sadly, The Magnificent Seven proved to be a lot less than the sum of its parts.

Not so magnificent, after all.

6/10