Martin Cuff Consulting

Crazy Stupid Love takes no time with set up, it goes straight for the sucker-punch. Steve Carrell plays Cal, a middle-aged Dad whose life falls apart quite spectacularly when his wife asks for a divorce. He’s jarred from his melancholia by the friendship of a handsome young player called Jacob (a pitch-perfect turn by Ryan Gosling) who recognizes something of his late Dad in the bumbling Cal. And thus Jacob re-styles Cal, teaches him the finer points of dating, and sends him out into the world. He’s only side-tracked from this Samaritan’s mission by the arrival in his own life of the delightful, charming fire-cracker Hannah (Emma Stone – let’s hear it for Emma Stone!) who turns his own world upside down. Throw in a love-sick baby sitter, a couple of scenes with Marisa Tomei, a brilliant Asian sidekick with nowhere near enough screen time, a bit of Josh Groban, crackling chemistry, great pacing and a really funny script, and you’ve got what’s actually a pretty delightful grown-up rom-com.

It also filmed in LA – I recognized several of the stores and walkways at the Westfield Century City Mall, where Jacob takes Cal shopping (Jacob: “Are you the billionaire owner of Apple Computers?” Cal: “No”. Jacob: “Oh, ok. In that case, you’ve got no right to wear New Balance sneakers, ever.”) Westfield is very pro-film, and sponsored one of the strands at the Produced By Conference last year.

Made in Serbia. (It’s almost ridiculously pleasing to see Belgrade look so good on screen.)

You know those stone-cold Bankers who destroyed the global economy and screwed every single one of us in the process? This is their movie. Cracking. (And Zachary Quinto also produced – cool!)

Immortals, the latest mind-blowing Tarsem Singh extravaganza produced by the same guys who made 300, is the most brutal, bloody, violent movie I’ve ever seen. It is also, by far – and I mean, far – the most phenomenal fight choreography I have ever seen too. The styling and art direction and costumes are astounding, sublime even, and it’s so damn beautiful to look at it fails to matter that the plot – a re-telling of the Theseus and the Gods myth – is wafer thin.

But that’s all kind of irrelevant because of Henry Cavill. Henry Cavill in a skirt. Henry Cavill shirtless. Henry Cavill shirtless in a skirt. Did I mention shaggy, doe-eyed Henry Cavill shirtless? Henry freakin’ Cavill. Sometimes he reminded me of a chipper public school hockey captain leading the First XI into a county championship, but most of the time I was just speechless.

Immortals. Henry Cavill. That’s all.

Happy Thanksgiving to my dear Amerifriends.

It’s not news that I’ve not been altogether fond of La Jennifer Lopez. But this video not only continued to rehabilitate her image (she seems sweet and self-deprecating), it also demanded quite a lot of the filming location, including more stunts than an episode of The Walking Dead.

I found the casting call info but not the shoot location.

On the plus side, Anonymous offers enough of a dynamic, vividly realized world of late Elizabethan England to make my inner geek backflip. Shot in Babelsberg Studios in Germany, the movie presents a pretty pungent portrait of muddy streets, stylised court life, and most excitingly, the immediacy of the Globe Theatre where theatre-goers are close enough to be spattered with action. The scenes of rich and poor alike moved by the power of words is mesmerising and fantastic, and the good actors – Ifans, Richardson, Redgrave, Thewlis, Spall – are worth every cent of their pay cheque (they fortunately make up for the weaker, usually younger, ones.)

But it’s the minus side that you’ll probably remember – the reduction of contemporary literary giants Ben Jonson and Kit Marlowe to simpering side-acts, the historical revisionism of Good Queen Bess’ multiple pregancies (s’true!), and of course most central to the entire film, the conceit that Shakespeare was in fact a wenching, illiterate wide-boy chancer, whilst the aristocratic Earl of Oxford was in fact the Bard responsible for the plays and poems and sonnets.

Having studied English Literature and Drama for my Batchelor’s Degree, and being something of a history buff for the late Elizabethan era, I don’t abide that kind of “literary birtherism” generally – and in this case it has the added insult of class-ism. I understand there’s little/no actual proof that the working class actor William Shakespeare wrote the jewels in the crown of English literature (indeed cultural achievement) but that doesn’t mean that Edward de Vere (poor little rich boy!) did either. Besides, who’s actually going to take seriously the historical interpretations of the same bloke who made 10000 B.C?

Aside from the fact I’ve got a secret-ish crush on Michael Fassbender, I’m really not at all sure about the new Soderbergh movie Haywire. I mean, haven’t we seen this kind of female-led action adventure before – from La Femme Nikita to Kill Bill to anything with Milla Jovovich? It doesn’t seem very original, so I wonder how it can be anything more than a intellectual-ish WWE movie staring someone a bit prettier than Jon Cena?

Is that Ja-Ja Binks at 1.08?

Actually, the full trailer makes it look like a complete mish-mash. And, what – is it played for humour? Because believe me, nothing about living under Thatcher was that funny.