"Backrooms" - Part and Parsons

Divorced architect Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) can feel his life falling apart and slipping away, and is attending therapy with Dr Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) to find some way to resolve this. When he finds a strange portal to an impossible world in the cellar of his shop, he finds a solution...

(Veronica Superguide)
An audaciously surreal character piece, and a bold debut which does not outstay its welcome. A reflection on trauma, crumbling psyches, the impermanence of place which uses its 90s aesthetic nicely: both as a meta-take on our misremembered idea of that decade, and to make for an unsettling, uncanny time period to play around in. The performances are uniformly excellent: Ejiofor is forever on fine form, and Reinseve continues her hot streak. I was surprised that a first time director (even with cameos from common indie/small-budget winner and reliable legend Mark Duplass) managed to nab such esteemed talents for what was essentially marketed as a spooky internet meme made into a horror film, but the script is actually sterling stuff: well thought out, coming full circle with its setting and use of stone-tape theory to create themes of decaying mental states and how we approach rebuilding ourselves after trauma and misery, with excellent recurring imagery and parallels with architecture and furnishings. It's clever.
It's the sort of script the two can devour as actors (there is a dinner scene which fucking rules) and it's a credit to the filmakers that I was perfectly content following the life of Clark in the 90s as it fell apart and he tried to sell furniture with his two disinterested employees. When the scares came, they were built to well, and sequences with a Christmas tree and a pirate (as surreal as they are) were spooky highlights. I loved the deaths, and its atmosphere was well-constructed, spooky, engaging, involving and never outstayed its welcome. It's an assured debut and the sort of thing not only worth the hype, but which we need more of in the ecosystem.

"The Invite" - Living on a Reza's Edge

Angela (Olivia Wilde) and music teacher husband Joe (Seth Rogen) have the house to themselves, so Amanda has (to his chagrin) invited their noisy neighbours Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penelope Cruz) for a dinner party, something she has never done before.

(Slant Magazine)
A return to form for Olivia Wilde, getting her and her co-stars' teeth stuck into some truly juicy scripting and dialogue (by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack of all people!) reminiscent of "God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza (there's a funny little nod to "Art" with Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton discussing identical shades of paint on a bedroom wall) tackling relationships and manners in a witty, extremely funny 4-hander. It has its stumbles (the soundtrack bumbles in at clunky moments) but the acting and writing are top notch, and Olivia Wilde directs it so as to not simply feel like a televised play adaptation (I rather liked the 70s style opening credits), and keeps a tight reign on things so it doesn't feel like farce. It's a far better examination of marriage and awkward character drama than that last fucking awful Bradley Cooper project.
A good, funny, clever time, and Rogen in particularly has never been better.

"Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie" - The Review

Struggling nerd band-duo "Nirvanna the Band" dream of playing at The Rivoli Theatre in Toronto. Matt Johnson conjures yet another crazy scheme to advertise their as-yet unbooked gig, and when it goes south yet again his buddy Jay McCarrol becomes further disillusioned with this seemingly futile enterprise. With the band at breaking point, another scheme is hatched by the hare-brained Matt, but this one goes horribly right, putting the band onto two very different paths...

(Credit: Instagram)
I was not familiar with the show, I went into this blind off the title alone, and am elated that I did:
A post-modern, punk piece of filmmaking ingeniously blending mockumentary, 2008 footage, internet show, riff track and comedy into an audacious puree of love, friendship and revellry for adventure and the best parts of the early internet anarchy. A mad, wild, very funny ride and the creative antidote to the ailments of cinema.

"Effi o Blaenau" - Wales Watching

Effi (Leisa Gwenllian) spends her days getting shitfaced, and her nights clubbing while shitfaced, in the quiet poor Welsh town of Blaenau. A chance encounter with a quiet, handsome stranger at one such club (Tom Rhys Harries) upends her life and offers her hope...

(Film Hub Wales)
An excellent, intimately observed portrait of poverty, hope and bleakness in North Wales, an old school 70s kitchen sink drama with an absolutely fucking phenomenal lead performance from Leisa Gwenllian. It's human, dark, hopeful, and more in equal measure, but maybe not the cheeriest of films despite the uplifting, glimmer of hope and rebirth it ends on. Be warned.

"Jackass: Best and Last" - Pontius of No Return

A ragtag bunch of aging misfits, now accompanied by new friends and allies of their last adventure, embark on one final quest: one trip to round off their illustrious, respectable careers in debauched lunacy, one last ride onto the hysterical hellish highway of hijinks, looking back at just how far they haven't come...

(Credit: Entertainment Weekly)
As a send-off and epilogue to the elaborate, disgusting and gloriously unhinged war of escalating frat-house hazing rituals and painful shocks to the genitals: the movie does a fairly good job. It has a lot of affection for these lovable goofball idiots, and acts essentially as a clip show and look back at their best stunts, with a couple of new ones thrown in for good measure. I could have done with more of the new stuff, and some more screen time for the newer members (Poopies and Rachel Wolfson are absolute treasures, and apparently a wet-suit stunt involving the two of them was cut, I'm fuming), but what's here is funny, and I got a little glee from hearing Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius and Steve-O reminisce on the old times and how they'd be having to hang up their hats this time around, I'll miss this sort of lunacy. They've grown older with their audience, and as gross and disgusting and purile as their actions are, it's ultimately not done in any mean-spirited nastiness, and there is a primal glory to seeing this happen: I cannot pretend that I was too good to laugh at grown men drinking enema-inducing laxatives and proceeding to play Twister. As I said: I wish there was more of the newbies and new skits (though the "Escape Room from Hell" and the side-splitting "Marionette Theatre" capture the series' spirit wonderfully, and had me crying) or that we had a more pensive, soulful reflection like in part 4, or even that Rachel Wolfosn and Poopies and Zack-Ass got more stuff to do; I understand that this was a send off to the gang, and it works. I'm happy for them, we even get unused footage of Bam Margera, and Johnny Knoxville's first stunt which landed him the "Jackass" gig. It comes full circle with a bigger, louder re-enactment of the famous shopping trolley sequence of the first film, and has a sense of finality to it. I'm happy for the gang.
I'm not a big "clip show" guy, but still laughed, it's fun.
The opening sequence, wherein everybody bedecked in white suits enacts a violent prank-fuelled rendition of the "Virtual Insanity" music video done to "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonie Tyler (a sentence I had to type: I'm so happy she's out of her coma, good job Queen!) is, free of hyperbole, actually inspired creative genius. It's my favourite intro for these movies, and favourite opening credits I've seen in a long, long, long time. The movie never matches that impeccable standard set by that (and I get to hear Johnny Knoxville say that line one... last... time...)
Here's to you, gang.

"Supergirl" - Helen Sleater-Kinney

Lost, adrift and orphaned Kryptonian Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) is celebrating her birthday away from her adopted planet of Earth by having a week of getting shitfaced on a planet with a red sun: the only place where alcohol will affect her. But her carefree, avoidance-based life with her lovable dog Krypto is interrupted when she is forced to embark on a quest for vengeance with recently orphaned girl Ruthye (Eve Ridley) against the space trafficker, bandit and all-round shit Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), who made our orphan what she is, and poisoned Krypto in the process...

(Credit: Kino Check)
The script is ropey, and definitely could have used some work, with the movie feeling a tad flabby as well as undercooked, like a half-stretched spaghetti. But the building blocks are there, and the central performance of Alcock as the jaded, cynical, absolute disaster of a lead with a heart of gold is a winning one, and the film breezes along nicely enough under Gillespie's direction: he's a director I like ("I, Tonya" rules), and the tone mostly works. Its framework is a solid one, and I enjoyed the setting (particularly the cute space bus and grimy, dingy diners, it was fun) and the buddy-cop set up is simple and clear enough to not only follow, but sets it apart from "Superman" (though the excellent Corenswet shows up to remind us that he too is perfect in this part). The villain is dog rough: functional for the plot, but otherwise an empty vessel and bland charicature despite much sneering and snarling from Schoenaerts, who gives him the quirk of constantly snacking to try and make him pop. The themes could use some development and focus.
However, the whole thing is amiable and good fun, and there is a wonderful use of Jimmy Eat World in a fight towards the end (tailor made for me: I adore that song), with an also excellent, soulful, actually pretty powerful performance from David Krumholtz: though I am getting old enough to see the kid from "Numb3rs" and "Addams Family Values" playing dads now, and that scares me...
It's fun, breezy, and a good time. I refuse to engage in bad faith "takedowns" of the film, it's a solid enough work with its own problems, and that I have to clarify that is a sign of how disgusting the poisoned well of discourse has become.
I look forward to more Milly Alcock, she's excellent.

The Van Dammeathon - "Cyborg"

I've delayed this one partially because of work and partially because my thoughts on it are going to be extremely telling not only of my taste, but of how the rest of this is going to go. That, and the stream I initially found of this wouldn't allow screen-capture (oh the joys of modern watching...), and surprisingly I do not own this, but did own "Black Eagle" at one point. Go figure.

(Credit: City on Fire. Man, posters used to be FUCKING AWESOME)
A post-apocalypse knock off in the same vein as "Salute of the Jugger", "1990: The Bronx Warriors", "Yor: Hunter from the Future" (hey Spoony fans), "The New Barbarians" and "Hell Comes to Frog Town", we know we're in for a good time right off the bat because it's from our old friends

CANNON, baby!
Clearly wanting some of that sweet, sweet "Mad Max: The Road Warrior" and "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" runoff money, they decided to have "Mad Max" at home, the Cannon way! I am so excited for more Cannon!
Let's get to it!
Concept:
It is "The Future"

And with a virus known as "the living death" running rampant, things are pretty bad. A scientist named Pearl Prophet has not only cybernetic implants (making her some sort of... "cyborg" if you will) but also a cure, and is on the run with it. To help her not die at the hands of these charming fellows representing me and the boys on the way to watch this:

Pearl hires a "slinger" named Gibson Rickenbacker (played by our man) to protect her across the wastelands. Gibson is reluctant, despite initially saing her life, but soon comes to realise that her quest may line up with his own hunt for revenge...
Concept:
Jean Claude Van Damme protecting a cybernetic lady and a magic virus vaccine across a post-apocalyptic wasteland?

I like it. I mean, it's the sort of movie idea I would have come up with at the ages of 13 and 47, but I like it. It's the perfect vehicle for the man, his talents, some bloodshed and some lunacy, expect kicks, cheese, Canon madness and blood galore. Plus it's a man named after a guitar fighting cyborgs after the apocalypse, that's just awesome.
Concept: 4.
Excellent work so far!
Onto the next part:
Execution:

I'm only partially joking.
The movie wishes to be a "Mad Max" knock off from Canon, and essentially boils down to a vengeance-fulled Van Damme (whose family were slain by the villain, whom I shall get to) pursuing some coslpayers across the wastelands accompanied by an equally vengeful bandit girl orphan:

In practice it's a series of brawls in old, run down buildings, which is a fine way to hide the low budget, but the true crime is the mean-spiritedness of it all. It wants to be about cyborgs and high-kicking mercenaries taking on bandits and having fun, but it also wants to show brutal murders and the barbarous senseless cruelty of a species circling the drain. So there's going to be bloody, unpleasant senseless murder of families, with an admittedly quite good shot of a burning centrepiece in parallel:

Followed ever so shortly by fight scenes with dummies like this:

And fights like this:

Then, spoiler, alert, the cheap nature of it all really showcases the meanspirited nature of the kills and the deaths at the end when his fellow traveller goes to get revenge on the man who killed her family only to die.
It's lower budget, but did give us this gloriously horrifying prosthetic which resembles me whenever I look up Libertarians:

On the whole it's competent enough, but never quite rises above that.
Execution: 2
Now then, Charm!
The lower budget does give us some fun filmmaking mayhem, like the aforementioned sets. We do get this absolutely disgusting haircut:

Followed rather swiftly by this one:

Disgraceful. It's the attempted dark tone which lets it down, because "Gibson Ridenbacker" fighting crime in the Apocalypse is fucking awesome:

Charm: 2.
The Villain!
Vincent Klyn, a profesional surfer apparently, plays Fender Tremolo, and does a servicable enough job roaring and snarling lines about how much he "likes the virus" and "likes the hatred" with a baritone almost parodying Dolph Lundgren.

The real star of note is an early cameo from Ral Moeller as one of the boys.

Villain: 3.
Score standing at 9.
Bonus round!
Future collaborators:
Michel Qissi (from "Bloodsport" and soon to be seen in "Kickboxer" and "A.W.O.L")
So that's 1 point.
Splits!

Final Score: 12.
A mediocre effort Van Damme seemed to not really get behind and regret, but don't worry: soon he'd turn a fucking corner, this was merely a stumble...