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Movies

John Dies At The End (2012) a (mildly) belated review

Way, waaaaay back when, perhaps late 1979 or early to mid-1980, I got my hands on a betamax tape that carried a copy of the recently released horror film Phantasm.

There was an eeriness to the proceedings, of the story involving a young boy and the strange encounters he has with the supernatural.  It was almost as if the movie presented a particularly twisted version of a fairy tale, complete with a very scary “witch” in the form of the “tall man” and his deadly spherical weapons.

The film, quite frankly, scared the living shit out of me.

Watching the film again many years later, it was obvious the original Phantasm was a no-budget work that featured some rather rough (ahem) acting and effects that weren’t all that good.  While I suspect modern audiences may find the whole thing too slow and too cheesy, way back when Phantasm was a kick to the gut.

The years passed and sequels to the movie appeared.  I wasn’t as into them as I was the original, but then in 2002 I heard about an oddball sounding horror-comedy called Bubba Ho-Tep.  The plot certainly sounded intriguing:  Elvis Presley is not dead but in an old age rest home along with a black man who believes he is John F. Kennedy.  Together, the two old men face off against…a mummy’s curse?!

Clearly, one of the more…original…concepts out there.  Even ten years later.

The best part of it all?  Bruce Campbell was playing Elvis!

The film proved a delight, and it was only after doing some research on it I realized the director of that film, Don Coscarelli, was also the director of Phantasm, its sequels, and a few others, including the cult flick The Beastmaster.  Since then, Mr. Coscarelli has been on my personal radar, and when I heard about his latest film, John Dies at the End, well, it was a must see.

Alas, the film appeared to have, at best, a very limited release.  In fact, I don’t think it showed up at any of the theaters around my neck of the woods so I had to wait for Netflix to get their hands on it and, yesterday, I finally had a chance to give the film a look.

To put it simply:  If you enjoyed Bubba Ho-Tep, you’ll probably love this film as well.  However, Bubba remains the superior product.

Having said that, John Dies at the End (JDE from now on) is well worth your time.  The movie concerns two friends, Dave (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) who, while at a party in which John sings with his band, stumble upon a strange drug known as “soy sauce” which grants its users some extraordinary abilities…and may lead to the destruction of Earth as we know it.

The story is told in media res, with the drugged out Dave talking to reporter Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti) about the series of strange events that have led to this point in time.  The movie begins on a potentially ominious note, but quickly establishes the tongue in cheek attitude that was prevalent in Bubba Ho-Tep, delivering each scare with an armful of chuckles.

What the film lacks, however, are the stronger stroy concepts and established actors that helped push Bubba Ho-Tep into being something truly special.  This is not a knock against JDE’s young principals, but their characters are lacking when compared to following such historical figures as Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy.  Further, JDE plays out like an extra weird two-part episode of the TV show Supernatural rather than a self-contained film.

Still, and despite these knocks, I still highly recommend John Dies at the End to anyone who enjoyed Bubba Ho-Tep.  When all is said and done, nothing may ever surpass the clever lunacy of Bubba Ho-Tep.  However, while Mr. Coscarelli is still in the game and swinging, I’ll most certainly be around to watch.

Movies

Argo (2012) a (mildly) belated review

The two big films in the hunt for the Academy Award for motion pictures released in 2012 appeared to be Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.  I find this fascinating because both films share much in common.

There’s the obvious fact that both are based on real events that involve the United States and our dealings with the Arab world.  From a story standpoint, both films follow similar patterns.  In Argo, we start with a primer on the United States’ relationship with Iran and how all this lead to the eventual taking of the U.S. Consulate in Iran.  In Zero Dark Thirty, we start with eerie sound from the tragedy of 9/11.

Both films then introduce us to our protagonist and the job they devote themselves.  In both cases, our protagonists are intelligence agents.  In Argo, we follow Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) as he puts together a phony movie to use as a front to get six American who escaped the U.S. Consulate and are hiding in the home of a Canadian diplomat stationed in Iran out of the country.  In Zero Dark Thirty, we follow the more mysterious agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) as she spearheads the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.  Both movies climax with the end of their respective missions.

The tone of the two films presents the biggest difference between them.  While Zero Dark Thirty was serious and mostly grim, Argo manages to insert considerable humor into the proceedings (mind you, the film is NOT a comedy) which play out like a real life Mission: Impossible episode, minus all the masks and sophisticated equipment.

The events in Argo took place in 1980 while the events in Zero Dark Thirty took place in 2011, some thirty one years later.  And while both films are highly recommended and are equally enjoyable on their own merits, I found it sad to compare and contrast them and realize that after all these years between the events depicted in the two movies we are still caught in a vortex when it comes to the Arab world.

Perhaps one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, we will finally, finally make a peace between our peoples.

Movies

The American (2010) a (mildly) belated review

Perhaps the most fascinating things about 2010’s The American is how skewed audience reaction was.  If you head over to Rotten Tomatoes’ summary of the film, you’ll find that critics, for the most part, liked it (66% approval) while regular audiences pretty much hated it (only 37% approval).

I found these statistics after seeing and digesting the film for myself.  My conclusion?  The results don’t surprise me.  I suspect The American is simply one of those divisive films that one is either going to love (or at the least like) or hate.

For The American is something of a throwback of a film, a 2010 film that nonetheless feels as if it is trying to evoke the moody character studies present in films of the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s.  For my money, there’s nothing wrong with that.  For others, the idea of following a dark, emotionally distant hitman over the course of nearly two hours with very little actual “action” may be simply too dull a trip to take.

Count me in the former category…though with one very big caveat.

The American begins with our main character, the mysterious hitman (George Clooney) in a small wooden cabin out in the middle of a serene snowy tableau.  He has company, a beautiful woman whom he is clearly intimate with.  They go out for a walk and, suddenly, the hitman realizes someone is targeting him.

Without giving too much away, our hitman is separated from the woman and is forced to leave this seemingly idyllic home.  He contacts his superior who sends him to a small Italian villa to cool off while he “looks into” the people who are after the hitman.  He also offers him a job.

The bulk of the film follows our hitman as he navigates two small Italian villas while working on the creation/modification of a silenced weapon.  Three times he meets his actual (Thekla Reuten), who, we know, will use this weapon for an assassination.  During this time we become close enough to our hitman to get a taste of his growing sense of paranoia.  Are the killers who nearly got to him at the start of the film still on his trail?  Is his client and/or his boss out to get him?  And, when he starts seeing a prostitute named Clara (the absolutely stunning Violante Placido), is she more than she seems…?

By the time the film reaches its climax, most of my guesses as to what was going on turned out to be true and, therefore, I have to say the plot of The American is -to me anyway- rather predictable.  It is this very predictability (the caveat I mentioned above) that keeps me from giving The American a hearty endorsement.  The movie is, nonetheless, a good slow burn thriller which features some incredible cinematography and acting (and, as mentioned before, the stunning Ms. Placido).  While it may not be as successful -at least from a story standpoint- as I hoped it would be, you can do far worse than spend your time with The American.  On the other hand, don’t expect a truly stunningly original and/or unpredictable story.

(Maybe one of the other reasons audiences were turned off by the film is that the trailers, like the one below, made the film look like more of an action/adventure/thriller than it was.  There are action sequences, but for the most part the film is a character study.  You have been warned!)

Movies

The Naked City (1948) a (ridiculously) belated review

“There are eight million stories in the naked city…this has been one of them.”

So concludes the narrator/producer Mark Hellinger at the end of 1948’s The Naked City, the justifiably famous film noir/police melodrama that features a fascinating -and prolonged- glimpse at the New York City of the then present but for us distant past.

I’ve seen the film before and was riveted by the sights and sounds and people presented in the movie, many of them little more than faces in the crowds.  The movie’s look at New York City circa the late 1940’s should appeal to all history buffs, but the story is equally interesting.

We begin with the city itself, late at night, and we are presented with various places that are, for the most part, deserted at this late hour.  Then, the meat of the story:  Two thugs in a blonde woman’s apartment have subdued their victim using chloroform.  Their reason for being in the apartment is not immediately clear, but their intentions with the beautiful woman are:  They decided to place her in the bathtub, to “make sure” she doesn’t live the night.

The next day, her body is discovered and the investigation begins.  We follow the police, principally Detective Lieutenant Dan Muldoon (a typically delightful Barry Fitzgerald) who sifts through the evidence and interrogates suspects and Detective Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) who does most of the case’s foot work.

Without giving too much away, the case has its ups and downs and the protagonists have to deal with witnesses both good and bad and, in an especially poignant scene, the parents of the victim.  All the detective work leads to a fantastic climax that in many ways is reminiscent of the climax of King Kong (!!!!).

So, if you’re a fan of mystery films and/or are curious to get an extended, loving look at a New York City that for the most part no longer exists, I highly, HIGHLY recommend checking out The Naked City.

A couple of bits of Interesting trivia:

The movie eventually led to Naked City, the popular television show that ran from 1958 to 1963 and featured an amazing array of them up and coming actors.

Don Taylor, one of the two main protagonists in the film, went on to have a fascinating career as a director.  He was responsible for several interesting 1970’s to 1980 era sci-fi films, including (but not limited to!) Escape from the Planet of the Apes, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Damien: Omen II, and The Final Countdown.

Movies

The Day (2011) a (mildly) belated review

I first heard about 2011’s The Day from an interview of Dominic Monaghan, arguably the most recognizable star of the film and one of its producers.  Unfortunately, Mr. Monaghan gave away a rather large spoiler regarding the film which ruined what was surely one of the bigger surprises the filmmakers wanted to unload on audiences.

Afterwards, I heard almost nothing of the movie.

The Day received a limited U.S. release and, for all intents and purposes, became another in the endless string of (in this case almost) direct to video releases.  Then, a couple of “Movies you should see but didn’t” type reviews re-ignited my interest in seeing it.  So I did.

The Day is, essentially, a zombie flavored siege type story, only without zombies.  We have a group of five people, three men and two women, who are cautiously hiking through what we quickly learn is very dangerous territory.  The weather is cold and rainy and one of them is very sick.  When the group finds an abandoned home, they decide to camp out there until the rain lets up, unaware that the building is more than it seems.

As mentioned, this is a siege type story, with the villains turning out to be cannibals.  In this post-apocalyptic future, “regular” humans are few, animals are for the most part extinct and farming is a thing of the past.  Thus, there is no food source other than scavenging for scraps from the past (in the form of canned edibles) or joining cannibal clans on the hunt for other humans to feed on.

This is a low budget film, but the movie does manage to build up a nice head of steam and provides audiences with several interesting characters.  Of particular note is Ashley Bell’s portrayal of Mary, one of the group of five who, we find, has some very dark secrets of her own.  She is effectively the movie’s protagonist, and shines the brightest among the other characters as the stoic, tight lipped ass-kicking protagonist.

Having said that, the film is not without its problems.  Unfortunately, the makers relied on some very substandard computer generated effects for some of the more grisly scenes.  While I think computer generated effects can be used well in movies, when they are used to portray blood or injuries to the body they can be unrealistic to the point of being distracting.  In the case of The Day, the filmmakers probably would have been better served trying to use practical effects rather than the computer generated ones.

The movie also spends a little too much time, in my opinion, with the villains of the piece.  The movie might have worked a little better if those villains had been kept a little more obscure, a la John Carpenter’s 1976 Assault on Precinct 13, my all time favorite siege film.

Still, for a low budget and for all intents and purposes direct to video film, The Day delivers a decent amount of thrills and chills and a fascinating protagonist.  It may not be one of the best siege type films ever made, but it is far, far from the worst.  Recommended for those who like this type of movie.

Movies

The Five-Year Engagement (2012) a (mildly) belated review

I’m not a big fan of “romantic comedies”.  It seems just about all of them follow the same basic formula:  Guy meets girl and often they are attracted immediately (in which case they are often involved with other girl/boyfriends) or initially hate/despise each other.  Over the course of the movie, they realize they are meant for each other, but then in the later acts comes the “big split” and the couple go their separate ways and it seems love will lose out.  But in the movie’s climax, something makes them realize they were meant for each other regardless of whatever problems they just went through, and the movie ends with the two in each other’s arms or at the altar and on their way to living happily ever after.

In the case of The Five-Year Engagement, much of that first section of of the story is truncated (though it does appear in flashbacks) as the movie starts with the proposal between Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt).  She accepts, of course, and the film then proceeds to pull the couple through many obstacles on their way to the altar, including the inevitable split up and equally inevitable reconciliation and (believe it or not he says with more than a hint of sarcasm) climax at the altar.

Despite finding the whole romantic comedy formula rather obvious and not being a big fan of it, I don’t necessarily hate romantic comedies either.  When the formula is really subverted, as in the case of the razor sharp Grosse Point Blank, it can be quite delightful.

But despite some genuinely hilarious bits (and there are quite a few) in The Five-Year Engagement, what ultimately does the film in is its waaaaaaay too long run time.  Incredibly, the movie clocks in at just over two hours (124 minutes, according to IMDB) in length and, frankly, the screenplay by Jason Segel and director Nicholas Stoller needed a thorough going over and -yes- paring down.  If not in the screenplay stage, then certainly in the editing phase.  There were several scenes and sequences that could have easily been cut from the film without impacting the story in any noticeable way.  Two of the more egregious ones involved Tom’s near-infidelity with a fellow worker which resulted in him losing a toe (don’t ask, but it was neither funny or pushed the plot forward in any big way) and Tom’s subsequent relationship with a much younger woman (ditto).  No offense to either of the actresses involved in those sequences, but the film would have been perfectly fine without those -and a few other- scenes at all.

The bottom line is that there’s a perfectly good one and a half hour (at most!) romantic comedy hiding in the bloated two hour-plus The Five-Year Engagement.

Movies

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) a (mildly) belated review

Given the popularity of the film and the many, many reviews of the same out there, I thought hard about whether it was worth it to offer my own spin on Zero Dark Thirty, perhaps one of the more controversial films of the past year.

After all, what more could I add to the myriad of opinions regarding the film, both good and bad?  Perhaps there was…we’ll see.

Briefly, Zero Dark Thirty is a film very much worth watching.  It is a steely account of the manhunt of Osama Bin Laden for the ten years from 9/11 to his killing by U.S. forces in 2011.

The movie’s main controversy centers around some early scenes depicting U.S. “enhanced interrogation” techniques, ie torture.  While the film does show that some information is extracted from one such use of the technique, in the end the film also shows that it is detective work and persistence that ultimately pays off in the manhunt.

Having said that, I can’t help but wonder what the critics were so bothered by.  Had director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal completely avoided the topic of torture -something that was sadly very much a part of the early days of the “war on terror”- they would have rightly been accused of whitewashing a reality of those early days.  Also, this ignores what I found most intriguing about the later part of the film, how the many sins of the Bush administration wound up coming back to bite the protagonists in their quest to find Bin Laden.

For example, when our protagonist Maya (Jessica Chastain) pieces together the clues that lead U.S. intelligence to what they suspect is the Bin Laden compound, there winds up being great hesitancy (and 120 plus days of delay) before the order is given to assault the place.  In some of the film’s best moments (IMHO) we find that may of the higher ups in government are leery of committing any actions against the compound because of the dark specter of Weapons of Mass Destruction never found in Iraq.  In other words, the absolutist bluster of the Bush administration in that there were WMDs in Iraq and which led to the war in Iraq wound up causing the next administration to make damn sure they weren’t about to go down that rabbit hole again and assault a compound that certainly housed some high level figure (though they couldn’t be certain if they were terrorists or simply drug dealers) but one they could not verify was Osama Bin Laden himself.

If the film fails in any way it is that Ms. Bigelow chose to present her work in a very neutral, almost completely unemotional tone.  There are few ups or downs, with the notable exception being the tension from the raid on the Bin Laden compound.  For most of the rest of the film we “see” things through Maya’s eyes but because she’s presented throughout the film as an emotional cypher with no family nor lover and seemingly no friends, the film adopts her perspectives.

Which brings me to this:  In many ways, Zero Dark Thirty is not unlike another politically charged film, specifically All The President’s Men.  It is my feeling that All The President’s Men was a far more successful attempt to bring “real life” events to the big screen.  Both films shared a similar plot structure in that both sets of protagonists were hunting information.  In All The President’s Men, the information revolved around possible corruption in the White House while in Zero Dark Thirty, obviously, it was information leading to Bin Laden.

But what worked better in All The President’s Men was the fact that as a viewer I found myself far more engaged, emotionally, in what was going on.  Because of this emotional engagement as a viewer I was far more invested in the unfolding mystery and the very real fear that something sinister was going on here.  In Zero Dark Thirty, unfortunately, what I mentioned above regarding Maya’s lack of emotions winds up making most of what goes on an emotional blank and, therefore, we aren’t as deeply involved in the hunt as we might have been.

Despite this, I still recommend Zero Dark Thirty.  It is a worthwhile chronicle of a very dark time in U.S. history.

And, just for the heck of it…

 

Movies

The Innkeepers (2011) a (mildly) belated review

Director/Writer Ti West developed a strong cult following among horror film aficionados with the release of his 2009 film The House of The Devil.  Many viewed it as a great throwback to the slow buildup/high tension horror films of the past.  His 2011 film The Innkeepers, which he also wrote and directed, would appear to follow in the same tradition, this time focusing on one of the more tried and true horror tropes:  The haunted house.

Or, in this case, the haunted Inn.

Claire (Sara Paxton) is a very young twentyish woman who works at the Yankee Pedlar Inn along with the slightly older Luke (Pat Haley).  The Inn is on its very last days and will be closed forever following the coming weekend.  Yet Claire and Luke work on despite the low number of tenants and high level of boredom.  Why?  Because Claire and Luke believe the Inn is haunted by the spirit of one Madeline O’Malley, a woman who in the Inn’s distant past (the Inn is perhaps a hundred or so years old) hung herself in the basement.

Claire and Luke are effectively just like the various “ghost hunters” you (over) see on TV nowadays, people with cameras and audio recording equipment hunting for any evidence of ghostly doings.

While there is one humorous, though completely superfluous, scene outside the Inn wherein Claire visits a coffee shop run by Lena Dunham (yes, that Lena Dunham) and we get a few minutes of Ms. Dunham doing her thing, the rest of the movie is exclusively set within the Inn itself.

Claire, we come to find, is starting to hear things.  Her co-worker worries that she may be getting a little too involved in this whole “ghost hunting” situation.  Meanwhile, two final guests show up at the Inn, Leane Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) a one-time famous actress now devoted to crystals and assorted spiritual pursuits, and an old man (George Riddle) who insists on being given a room on the third floor, despite the fact that the rooms up there have already been stripped in preparation for the Inn’s closing.

I don’t want to give away too much more but suffice it to say that for those who are patient enough for this “slow burn” type film, the scares are delivered in bulk by the film’s delirious climax.

However, the ending itself left me rather…cold.  In fact, while I could forgive some of the extraneous elements in the film (the already mentioned Lena Dunham cameo, the mother and her son), the ultimate resolution of the film simply didn’t work for me.  It came across as a little too downbeat.

Anyway, that’s just me.  Regardless, The Innkeepers offers plenty of good buildup and a terrific climax that should have just about everyone suffering from white knuckle syndrome.  My only reservation lies in the film’s final few minutes, but otherwise its a keeper.

Movies

Holy Motors (2012) a (mildly) belated review

When I first heard of Holy Motors it was via some seriously positive reviews that noted the film was surreal yet thought provoking, bizarre yet beautiful.

My spider senses were definitely tingling.

Mind you, I’m not a huge fan of surreal cinema, but when its good (Mulholland Drive, for example) it can be really, really good.  Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that when its bad, it can certainly be very, very bad.

It’s been only a day since I finally got to see Holy Motors, and my opinion of it is still evolving even as I write this sentence.  As a very surreal film, it defies easy explanation regarding its plot.  The best I can offer is the following:  A man named Oscar (Denis Lavant) is being driven through Paris for a day.  His driver (Edith Scob) is his only constant company and she takes him from one “assignment” to another, wherein the man dresses and/or disguises himself for a series of different “scenes” he is playing out.  Oscar, you see, is an actor and during the course of the day he will participate in nine different sequences which vary wildly from place to place.

A comment on acting and cinema?  A comment on how individuals “appear” differently from scenario to scenario throughout life?

It’s open to your interpretation.  There are hints and allusions to other works of art, from film to novels (I apparently wasn’t the only one to catch a wiff of Moby Dick in the film’s DNA).

Early in the movie we have the two most show stopping segments.  The first involves our actor participating in a “motion capture” film.  He is dressed in black with motion detection silver spheres spread throughout his body.  His movements during this sequence, which eventually becomes highly sexual, are beautiful to behold, and toward the end of the sequence when we finally see what our actors’ motions are being animated as, I suspect the message delivered is that the human form is so much more beautiful in motion than whatever the computer animators come up with afterwards.

The next sequence, certainly the most off-the-wall of the bunch, involves our actor becoming a “beast” and kidnapping a “beauty” (Eva Mendes).  One of the more interesting things about that segment, other than its sheer, unambiguous bizarreness, is that early on in the skit when the “beast” is walking through a graveyard the tombstones, rather than announcing who lies beneath, announce websites they would like people to go to.  Not sure what the meaning of that is, other than that the internet is full of dead sites.  Anyway, unlike the motion capture segment, this one had me scratching my head and wondering just what the hell all that was about.  For those who are averse to male nudity, the conclusion of that particular segment might be a (ahem) turn off.

From there, the movie becomes a little more sedate, featuring interactions between Oscar and what appear to be a series of family relations.  A daughter, a niece, an old lover.  There’s also segments involving assassination and murder, both equally strange.

As I said before, I’m still digesting this film.  Immediately after watching it, I was bewildered and overwhelmed by the strange sights and sounds but after a day of sorting things out, I’m far more enthusiastic over what I saw.  Having said that, I find it difficult to recommend this film to the casual theater goer.

The fact is that Holy Motors demands your attention and patience as well as a desire to follow its strange cinematic paths.  If you give it a try, you may well find yourself well rewarded in the end.

Movies

Hit and Run (2012) a (mildly) belated review

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.

And how.

I can’t tell you the number of “comedy” films I’ve seen which may have elicited, at best, a chuckle or two rather than the hilarity promised.  Thus, I’m often weary when thinking of putting on a comedy.  However, when I first heard of the 2012 film Hit and Run, I was intrigued.  The movie seemed to come out of nowhere and the critics were relatively kind to it.  But what interested me the most was their description of what the film was:  A romantic comedy that was also a throwback to 1970’s car chase films.

Man, its been a while since those type of films were released, having buried themselves in mediocrity or worse in the 1980’s.  So, when the film made it to home video, I had to give it a shot.  The result proved a pleasant diversion and certainly a decent enough time killer.

Hit and Run’s plot isn’t all that original and I got more than a little wiff of Ron Howard’s directorial debut, 1977’s Grand Theft Auto (no relation to the popular video game series) in its Romeo & Juliet-like plot.  Grand Theft Auto featured two young lovers on the run from assorted crazy people, including the female lead’s ex-lover.  In Hit and Run, we have Kristen Bell playing Annie Bean, a teacher who has been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to leave her small town and become the department head at a school in Los Angeles.  The only complication is that her boyfriend, Charles Bronson (yes, you read that name right and there’s a definite joke involved in this), played by Dax Shepard, is in the witness protection program and venturing outside of that small town could be hazardous to his health.

Nonetheless, the two do venture outside their small town with a very tight deadline to reach L.A.  Along the way, they quickly are pursued by Annie’s ex-boyfriend, the Marshall assigned to protect Charles, a pair of cops, and, finally, member’s of Bronson’s ex-gang.

There are plenty of amusing cameos (and one larger cameo by Bradley Cooper) that liven things up.  Unlike the car chase movies of the 1970’s, there is precious little actual vehicular mayhem in this film.  There are a few chases and they’re reasonably well done, but unlike Grand Theft Auto, there’s very little actual wreckage to be seen.

As a comedy, the movie works for the most part, drawing laughs from dialogue and situations.  Having said that, there are occasions where a joke was pushed along a little too much.  Without giving too much away, one of the movie’s funniest jokes involves one of the character’s “adventures” while in prison.  The joke builds to a hilarious punchline, but once it is reached the characters talk on for another couple of minutes and effectively dampen what should have been a hilarious bit.

In other words, some judicious trimming might have helped.

Still, Hit and Run is a decent if not spectacular film to spend a couple of hours with.  Afterwards, you may want to dust off your copy of Smokey and the Bandit and give it a whirl.

I’ve provided the trailer below but if you’re planning to see the film I suggest you don’t play it. Like too many trailers, it gives away the biggest joke (but stops where it should have!)

And now, a blast from the past…the trailer to Grand Theft Auto!