THE CAMPAIGN: I demand a recount.. or a recut

Cut through all the breathless hype and what you're left with is just another under performing Will Ferrell comedy.
Once again countless opportunities for genuine belly laughs are overlooked in favour of a gag that provokes an easy half smile and the smallest of laughter-like sounds emanating from the throat.

Ferrell and Zach Galafianakis play a pair of political opponents running for a Congressional seat in North Carolina. Farrell is Cam Brady, the foul-mouthed, corrupt, insincere and dunderheaded Democratic incumbent whose supposedly effortless run for re-election descends into a down and dirty slugfest when two wealthy Republican businessmen brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow) decide to run a rival candidate, Marty Huggins, who will champion their underhanded and unAmerican business practices.
As played by Galafianakis, Marty is not only a most unlikely candidate, but also a most unlikely married man and father of two. However he soon mans up when he realises just what kind of dirty game his opponent is playing, and the two rapidly descend into the politics of the gutter where nothing is beyond the pale.
There's so much material in the 2012 version of American politics to poke fun you might imagine the makers of this film would be spoilt for choice, but while THE CAMPAIGN identifies much of the material it fails to effectively exploit it. Neither the screenplay writers, nor director Jay Roach or Ferrell and co-star Galifianakis ever figure out how to unleash the potential. There's a couple of very near misses, including Brady's blatant refusal to answer any of the questions put to him at a televised debate, and some manufactured outrage at his opponent's actions, but the film seems determined to rest its laurels on the baby-punching scene.
It's the highlight clip in the trailers, creating an impression of THE CAMPAIGN as wild and crazy comedy where absolutely anything goes (it's much the same image as the one promoted of Ferrell's screen persona and one he almost always fails to live up to).
"THEY'RE PUNCHING A BABY, FOR CRIPES SAKE! WILL FERRELL IS A CRAZY GUY! HE"S PUNCHING A BABY IN THE FACE! OH - MY - GOD!"
If this is all it takes to brand a comedy as wild, crazy and out there then standards really have slipped. Yes Ferrell very graphically punches a baby but it's an obviously cgi infant which drastically blunts the impact, and later on when he punches the dog from 'The Artist' my only thought was "what on earth is that dog doing in this film? He has absolutely no reason being there."
THE CAMPAIGN makes the point that we get the politicians we deserve, and that if only we were less gullible and susceptible to irrational emotional responses to trigger words like America, Jesus and Freedom then perhaps we'd get a better quality of politician to vote for. If only that were true, and the same logic could be applied to Will Ferrell comedies this country would be a much happier place.

TOTAL RECALL: urgh!

There's just so much that's bad and sad about this Paul Verhoeven directed sci-fi blockbuster.

For starters, it's dated horribly, unless that is, the fashions and hairstyles of 1990 are enjoying a resurgence in popularity in the 23rd century or whenever exactly it is that the story is set.
Apparently we can colonise Mars and turn it into a tourist destination but we can't move beyond the mullet.
TOTAL RECALL is also an object lesson in how to lavish $65 million on a film and make it look like it cost $6500. Verhoeven's idea of the distant future (in addition to the mullet and shell suits) is shopping malls in underground parking garages and acres and acres of unpainted concrete - something you can see today in any self-respecting rundown big city centre.
And don't get me started on the acting. Schwarzenegger is atrocious but he's not alone. Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox and Rachel Ticotin all contribute generously to the sense of watching summer stock in the converted barn of a small mid western town.
The only bright spot is Sharon Stone. For the rest of the film keep your thumb firmly on the fast forward button.

THE NAKED EDGE: caution - spoiler alert!

Stick around until the very end of the closing credits to THE NAKED EDGE and, as the screen fades to black, a disembodied voice will implore you not to reveal the secret of who killed Jason Roote to anyone else.

Well - spoiler alert - I'm going to do just that. There's no other way to provide a full and honest review of this 1961 thriller.

Gary Cooper's final film is a huge disappointment – and not just because there's no nudity or edginess.

THE NAKED EDGE depends entirely upon a false premise to sustain the tension, and the frustration I felt at the final denouement simply compounded the frustration that had already built up over the course of the story.

Cooper plays George Radcliffe, an American businessman living in London who comes into a large amount of money at the same time as a work colleague is found guilty - largely on Radcliffe's testimony - of murdering their boss, Jason Roote, and stealing 60 thousand pounds.

Radcliffe uses his windfall to go into business with a slightly shady Michael Wilding, and five years later he's living in an enormous mansion and being chauffeured to work in a Rolls Royce.

Life is tickety-boo, as the English liked to say in 1961, until a letter - delayed in the mail for five years - arrives accusing Radcliffe of Roote's murder and demanding half of the money he stole.  It's opened by Mrs Radcliffe (Deborah Kerr) who's immediately overwhelmed with doubts and suspicions which her husband does nothing to dispel by acting in an incredibly shifty manner.

There's faint - very faint - traces of Cary Grant's character, Johnny Aysgarth, in 'Suspicion' in Cooper's portrayal of Radcliffe, and a strong sense of director Michael Anderson attempting to evoke that earlier Hitchcock film, but really all the two share in common is a rotten ending.

Cooper's forced to drag out the ambiguity way beyond what's plausible, repeatedly deflecting his wife's increasingly distraught questions with increasingly ridiculous evasions. Why - when he's innocent - does he try so damn hard to look like a guilty man?

Everything he does and says is intended to fuel his wife's suspicions and push her to turn him into the police. Presumably if she did he'd be able to cop an insanity plea on the basis of his performance here.

Cooper tries his best with the material he's got to work with, and given that he was suffering from cancer and would die before the film was released, he acquits himself well but it is a thankless role and surely not the swansong he would have hoped for.

If you're willing to not simply suspend your disbelief but also hang, draw and quarter it as you're jerked around by a deliberately deceitful and heavy handed plot, and are happy to be deafened by a ridiculously melodramatic musical score, THE NAKED EDGE is the film for you. For everyone else there's 'High Noon' and the chance to witness Coop at his Oscar winning best.

THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT: Benny blows a bum note

Comedian Jack Benny spent the second half of his long career poking fun at this film, disparaging it at every opportunity and mocking his performance in it.
For the longest time I believed this was just a joke and that the film wasn't nearly as bad as Jack made it out to be.
Oh boy, was I wrong.
THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT is possibly the most ill-advised project Benny ever signed up for, and I say that as a die-hard Benny fan and proud owner of every episode of his radio show.
He plays Athaneal, third trumpet player in a radio orchestra, who falls asleep during a broadcast and dreams that he's an angel sent to Earth to blow the last trumpet, signalling the end of the world, at exactly midnight. But a couple of fallen angels, who'd previously failed to do the job, are determined to stop him. Confusion ensues as the inept Athaneal attempts to complete his mission, oblivious to the deceitful wiles of his opponents.
Given the premise, the fine supporting cast (Reginald Gardner, Franklin Pangborn, Alexis Smith, Margaret Dumont, Guy Kibbee, Mike Mazurki) and veteran director Raoul Walsh at the helm, this should have been a surefire hit.
So why does the entire project fall flat on its face?
There's several reasons.
The script is terrible, the supporting cast is wasted and the comedy is lame in the extreme. Neither of the credited screenplay writers demonstrate the slightest talent for writing comedy above a fifth grade level, and it's directed with a complete absence of style. An overwhelming sense of desperation pervades every scene involving bits of business that might very - very - loosely be termed comedy, and the story's climax is so crudely constructed as to be downright embarrassing.
On their own these failings cripple the film, but what really sabotages any chance of success for THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT is the casting or - more accurately - the miscasting of Jack Benny.

By 1945 Benny's character was firmly established in the American psyche thanks to his long running and immensely popular radio show. As far as the public was concerned Benny was vain, penny pinching, petty, frequently exasperated and eternally 39 years old. He was a consummate comedian who didn't tell jokes but allowed himself more often than not to be the butt of jokes set up by the talented cast of characters he surrounded himself with on his weekly show. He could get a bigger laugh out of his patented pause than any punchline, and he was - despite his many apparent character flaws - universally loved by radio audiences.
THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT takes advantage of exactly none of these traits, choosing instead to have Benny play a thinly sketched character who looks like Jack Benny but doesn't resemble him at all. There's nothing in the part of Athaneal that contemporary audiences could identify with, and nothing in this new Benny character that's funny enough to elicit a laugh either. Why have him be a trumpeter when he was universally known as a (very bad) violin player is a mystery.
The sum total of these misjudgments is a film that's a major disappointment. I'm not surprised that Benny mocked it for the rest of his days. What else could he do? He had to have recognised it was an incredible career misstep and one which he was lucky to recover from because he didn't depend on films to sustain his popularity.
Had his radio show writers been similarly dumb enough to tamper with a winning formula we probably wouldn't remember him today as one of the greats of American comedy.

ELVIS AND ANABELLE: Common sense has left the building

Joe Mantegna is a fine actor.
In fact he's one of my favourite actors.
He is magnificent in "House of Games", "Homicide", "Bugsy" and - particularly - "Things Change."
What he's not so good at is convincingly playing a hunch backed, simple-minded embalmer with a Texas accent.
In fact he's downright bad - and hammy.
His portrayal of Charlie in ELVIS AND ANABELLE is a truly bizarre piece of casting.

From his point of view I can understand him seizing the role as an opportunity to stretch and play a character outside his regular range, but sometimes something is outside an actor's range for a reason.
Mantegna never gets to grips with Charlie, substituting a collection of twisted facial expressions for a credible character and spouting some of the hokiest dialogue this side of a Mickey Rooney made-for-tv Christmas movie.
True Mantegna didn't actually write the dialogue but he has to take responsibility for the manner in which he delivers it.
As for the rest of this 2007 film, it promises much but fails to deliver, turning out to be yet another of those teenage-outsiders-brought-together-under-unusual-circumstances-who-eventually-find-each-other-but-not-before-a-series-of-misunderstandings-threatens-to-tear-them-apart stories where the early potential gives way to the dawning realisation that - small details apart - this isn't going to be much different to all those that have come before it.
Max Minghella is Elvis, the darkly smoldering but hopeless-with-girls mortician without a licence son of Charlie. He's taken over his dad's funeral business and lives an isolated life at the rambling family home out on the plains of southern Texas.
20 year old Blake Lively (looking spookily like a young Kate Hudson) is Anabelle, She first enters Charlie's life as a customer, having collapsed and apparently died just moments after winning the Miss Texas Rose beauty pageant.  Given a second chance at life she determines to break away from her overbearing mother (Mary Steenburgen) and lecherous stepfather (a perpetually leering Keith Carradine) and moves in with Elvis and Charlie.
Life being turned upside down coming of age drama ensues.
Lively and Minghella both acquit themselves well, investing their characters with a degree of believability sadly lacking from the far more experienced Mantegna. Writer-director Will Geiger paints an alluring picture of Texas for those with a hankering for small towns and wide open spaces but the parts combine to form a less than satisfying whole.