rosti-4 Reviews

Lab Rats (2008– )

A Comedy Experiment Gone Wrong

[2/10 · 18 July 2008]

'Lab Rats' is a new BBC show which started a little over a week ago in the middle of BBC2's "Thursdays Are Funny" evening schedule. I actually had reasonably high hopes for the show, as it sits on the schedule after 'Mock The Week', which is possibly the funniest thing on television right now, and before the superb 'Still Game'. I was hoping that it'd fit into the slot between the shows to create a superb evening of solid comedy. The trailer put the show in good light, and I was somewhat looking forward to it, thinking that it'd replace the now-finished 'Big Bang Theory' as my source of nerd-based comedy each week.

As you've probably guessed by now, it didn't do that at all. There's only been two episodes out of the six-episode series so far, but as of yet it's pretty dire. If it was any worse it'd be so bad that it'd actually be funny, but unfortunately it's stopped just short of that mark in the zone where it is actually just rubbish. Its main problem is that it isn't actually funny. There's no actual comedic substance to the show, and it doesn't try and substitute anything else for it either. There's no superb story to make up for the lack of laughs. The jokes feel reasonably forced, and the one-liners are generally pretty generic and witless. Pretty much the entire premise for the comedy resolves around the absurdity and stupidity of the characters. Firstly, it doesn't really work in a laboratory setting, where one of them is supposedly a Nobel prizewinner. Secondly, it just tends to cheapen everything to being silly, rather than funny. Stupid characters can work to reach brilliant heights in comedy (Father Ted's Dougal and Blackadder's Baldrick, to name two brilliant examples) but when every single character aside from the main one is eccentric and ditsy, it wears thin a little. The formula of having every character being mentally dysfunctional can work, as in 'The IT Crowd', but this show just doesn't seem to have the strength to pull it off in the same way. The IT Crowd is stupid and daft, but in a witty and surreal way that actually does result in a fair few laughs. Lab Rats, on the other hand, is just not written to the same standard.

Something else that really does irritate me about this show as well is the canned laughter. I generally dislike it in shows, but when there are so few actual laughs as in this one, it's almost like it's mocking you. To have the sound of laughter ringing through your ears when watching something that is just not funny is a torment. Sometimes there's laughter at a point where I can't even see how it could be funny. It's like they felt they had a bit of a gap in terms of the audio, so just threw a few laughs in there to fill the space. This show does occasionally have a few moments where it will raise a smile, or perhaps even a slight chuckle, but the fact remains that they are definitely few and far between. I'd suggest to anyone that they should watch 'Mock The Week' and 'Still Game', but they should definitely find something else to occupy the half hour in between. Even if it's just watching their lawn growing. It's not like shows such as 'Catherine Tate', or 'Little Britain', where I can at least see that there's humour there which is just a different flavour to what I would prefer and therefore I don't enjoy it that much. It's actually just a complete lack of any substantial humour whatsoever.

Thursdays on BBC2 is usually a haven for excellent comedy like Mock The Week, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, The Mighty Boosh and That Mitchell & Webb Look, and Lab Rats just doesn't come close to that calibre of TV show. Heck, I wouldn't even place it amongst the shows of lesser stature on BBC3, because it's still letting the side down. Like 'Supernova' (the space one with Rob Brydon) I have no idea why this show got commissioned, and given an instant prime-time BBC2 slot, when far better shows have had to spend months on BBC3 before being promoted to the main channels. Hopefully the people responsible will realise their mistake and won't allow a second series. Or they'll be fired. Either will satisfy me. As a short summary for the article, if you couldn't be bothered reading it all: don't watch it. It's completely rubbish and isn't worth your time.

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

Definitely Good

[8/10 · 3 May 2008]

Guys, would you love it if you had three different pretty girls at your command? Well, Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes who was in that situation and was in agony over it. Will is a divorcing man with a ten year old daughter, Maya, (Abigail Breslin) who questions how he met her mother. He answers, after some witty pleading, and his story takes off into a dramatic and comedic ride about a guy who is seriously confused. It starts out in the year 1992 with Will having high hopes in the wonderful field of politics. He temporarily leaves his girlfriend "Emily" (Elizabeth Banks) and goes to work in New York for the Clinton campaign. There he meets a wise cracking copy girl, April (Isla Fisher) and an aspiring (and slutty) journalist "Summer" (Rachel Weisz). There, the whole story takes off into one interesting mess.

I'm just going to say it now, I loved the acting. There isn't a single performance in the movie that I can rip to shreds, it was all done elegantly. Well, maybe the daughter, but she's young and it's understandable. Instantly the characters were set in stone; you knew whether or not you liked a character or hated their rotten guts. I've never been a huge fan of Ryan Reynolds, because he never did anything that really made go "Wow". I didn't exactly get that, but he easily made me believe the character. Elizabeth Banks is a magnificent actress, and she outdid herself in this film. She was really likable at the beginning, and eased you into the film. When Isla Fisher was first introduced, the script wanted you to laugh and I can happily say I did. Rachel Weisz wanted to shock you a bit, she shocked me, and she did her character well. The script was witty, which I am a huge sucker for, but it's also written in a way where you sympathise for the characters, and makes you think about your own complicated mess and how ridiculously easy it should be to fix. It flowed easily and added elements in the best way possible. I couldn't ask for a better way to add "I did not have sex with that woman!" in a movie. Pure magic.

I've tried to think of something hugely negative about the film, I just can't; it wouldn't be as terrific as it is now if anything was omitted. I wouldn't watch it with kids though, because the number of sexual references makes it a little uncomfortable. The rest of the movie made up for it. It is something I will watch again and again. I'd advise anyone who gets bored with romance to not watch it as it isn't for you, but if you like a good chick flick with intelligent humour, then watch it. You won't regret it.

Leatherheads (2008)

The Roaring 20's, Clooney Style

[8/10 · 3 May 2008]

Just yesterday, my family and I were itching to go to the movie theatre. After my grandfather recommended it to us for being "hilarious slapstick humour", and after seeing some funny previews, we decided to see Leatherheads. Leatherheads, George Clooney's latest movie, dives into the Roaring 20s, early professional football, the Chicago Tribune, and fake war heroes, all in about an hour and 44 minutes. As unappealing and generic as that might sound compared to the average comedy feature, it was actually a quite fun movie, which is to be expected coming from Clooney.

The movie follows the story of the Duluth Bulldogs, a professional American football team, and its most well-known player, Dodge Connelly. Luck is not always on the Bulldogs' side, as can be interpreted from the outcome of the first game you watch them play, but trickery and cheating is. Dodge becomes infamous for cheating almost every game and leading his team to victory because of it. It was okay then, though. There were no rules to American football early on, and cheating was what made the game interesting. That's one of the main themes of the movie.

After the introduction comes Lexie Littleton (played by Renée Zellweger), a quick-witted reporter for the Chicago Tribune who doesn't like her co-workers too much. After calling them "dimwitted" or something similar for the fortieth time, Lexie is assigned by her boss to a story on Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (played by John Krasinski), a war hero with a more than embellished story. When she is promised the assistant editor's desk if she brings back some dirt on The Bullet and exposes his fake war story, Lexie sets out on quite the adventure, meeting Dodge and the rest of the Bulldogs along the way.

I know that all of this probably sounds generic to the average moviegoer, but it's actually a quite fresh and fun movie. With any other actor and actress at the forefront at the movie, it may have come off as generic and boring, but Clooney and Zellweger have enough chemistry and enough quirks to make the movie fun. There are also some absolutely classic lines and scenes. It's just a fun movie. Don't expect too much depth, because there really isn't any. This movie is more than enough to quench the thirst of any moviegoer who asks for nothing more than an hour and a half of simple humour and slapstick antics.

The historical accuracy is there. Some scenes are featured in a speakeasy, with a female African-American jazz singer performing. Basically everything you see is typical of the time period. Actually, anyone watching the movie might get a little shock when they hear that coffee is only 10 cents a cup at a diner Dodge stops at early on in the movie. However, on the other hand, some major plot areas are not at all historically accurate, especially relating to the football commissioner, since there was no football commissioner for the NFL until 1941. However, this is perhaps looking too deeply into a fun, casual movie.

The main criticism I have of this movie is that some of the scenes just go on too long, especially the punching scene which was featured in the previews. After they punch each other in the face for the tenth time and finish it off with a bad joke from The Bullet, you already are hoping that one of them will bash the other's skull in by accident or something just so that the scene can end. To offset that, however, there were some very quick and humorous scenes, like the scene in which Dodge first meets Lexie in the hotel and tries to hide his face by reading an issue of a women's magazine.

Overall, Leatherheads is worth it for the entertainment value. The story isn't fantastic, but the acting is enough to make up for it, even if you only pay attention to Dodge's witty exchanges with Lexie. If you don't go in expecting too much, you will leave satisfied, refreshed, and entertained, and that's really all the movie aimed for.

Juno (2007)

Simple Story Packed With Laughs

[7/10 · 3 May 2008]

Juno? Like the city in Alaska? No. This film starring Ellen Page as a pregnant teenager and Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker (the father and best friend) will indubitably make you sob in laughter. The story is a simple one; it follows a 16 year old, eccentric girl named Juno, who gets pregnant. The plot follows her nine months of laughter, hardships, and new found friendships as she keeps the baby so she can give to an eager couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. This film was well received by critics everywhere, winning a total of 38 awards, one of them being an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Juno got it all for a great reason: it's a pretty good film.

The movie introduces the characters in the best way possible. At once you feel a connection with Juno and everyone else she interacted with. Ellen Page and Michael Cera worked adorably together, you can see their charisma but also feel a sort of tension between them during the film, especially during the scene where Juno moves a living room set on Paulie's lawn, that was fun to watch. Mark's scenes (Jason Bateman) were refreshing, but often uncomfortable due to little thing going on with Juno there, but the character himself was great all because he owned such pretty guitars.

The music in this movie was unique, strange, and refreshingly simple. Had I heard it anywhere else I probably would have hated it, but it's just right for this movie. It fits the weird characters and overall the oddness of the movie. It's mainly composed of simple guitar strums and drunk sounding people singing about whatever, but also features bands such as Sonic Youth.

I loved the acting. It's just eerie how good of an actress Ellen Page is, she really made the character lovable and funny. The way she defined relationships with other characters was fantastic, they seemed authentic. I also commend Jennifer Garner for breaking reality, she's talented enough to make you forget she's acting, which was a problem for me in the film. Leah's character (Olivia Thirlby) was interesting, but made the film seem just a bit artificial, we could have done without her.

I generally enjoyed this film. It was a great laugh with a simple story line. Usually something like that doesn't work out, but the way it was composed made it a refreshing watch. The actors and actresses all worked well together on the screen and they were fun to watch, the movie was just a little weak when it came to personal character development. And it was hard to forget that they were just actors on the screen. However, the music makes up for it, the simplicity of it gives the film the whole quirky feel. If you're looking for a movie for a good night-in on a Friday night, then this would be a superb choice. Its comedy is what makes it up, but it does it well.

Son of Rambow (2007)

A good film, but a little short on laughs

[7/10 · 3 May 2008]

Generally, the world film industry is dominated by Hollywood blockbusters, with the US producing most of the main action movies and high-grossing films. Unable to compete with the budgets for special effects that the main American movie companies have, British filmmakers tend to find more success with comedy films, which are at the lower end of the scale in terms of production cost. Wallace & Gromit and Hot Fuzz are probably two of the most successful films from Britain in recent times, and both are low-budget comedies.

Continuing this run is the release of Son Of Rambow. The cast of the film is largely child actors, none of whom are particularly well know. Jessica Stevenson is probably the only truly recognisable face in the entire cast, and even then she will be unknown by most viewers outside the UK. The overall plot is set in the early 1980's and follows a young boy, Will, who is in a family belonging to the strict Christian group, the Plymouth Brethren. Made to attend Bible readings, Brethren meetings, unable to watch television, Will is raised by his single mother (his father is dead). He has a vivid imagination, spending most of his time drawing in his Bible, and in a bathroom stall at school. Things change when he meets Lee Carter, the worst behaved boy at the school, who quickly spots Will's naivety and exploits it for his own personal gain. Through Lee, Will watches a pirated copy of Rambo: First Blood, and is enticed by it, his imagination conjuring vivid stories where he is the son of Rambow {sic} and is on a mission to rescue his captured father. From there stems the rest of the plot, following the two boys and their developing friendship and coming of age.

Overall, I thought that Son Of Rambow was quite an enjoyable film. It does build up quite a lot of compassion towards the characters, mainly because the crazed imagination and stories of a small child is something that pretty much all of us can relate to. My main gripe really is the fact that the film is mostly advertised as a comedy. With links to Hot Fuzz, I was expecting to find it immensely funny and to be laughing almost constantly throughout the film, but I didn't find this to be the case.

It isn't that the comedy is too low brow, or too high brow for me. I just didn't find it to be there at all. There were a few points where I laughed, and a few chuckles, but for the most part it didn't seem like a comedy. I would liken it more to the likes of About A Boy that I would Hot Fuzz, because it feels a lot more like a drama with a few comedic aspects than a full-blown comedy film. This is a good film, and though not one of my favourites of all time, I didn't walk out of the cinema with the feeling that I'd just wasted an hour and a half of my life without gaining anything. I did enjoy the film, and it is heart-warming, but I would advise anyone who may think of seeing it that it is definitely more focused on the drama than the comedy, because the laughs are not that frequent. If you're looking for a film that'll make you laugh out loud every few minutes, then I'd move on and keep looking, because this film isn't the one for you.

Ergo Proxy (2006)

Deus Ex Machina - A Review By Cythrosi

[9/10 · 3 May 2008]

A while back, as I was scouring through the Internet, I came across some beautiful artwork from some anime series I had not come across before. Upon further research I found this series to be none other than Ergo Proxy . Intrigued, I went out and found the full series, purely out of interest in the art, and the desire for something new to watch.

Starting off, the series is somewhat confusing. You are given very little background on any of the characters or the strange world they inhabit. All you find out is that the story begins in the Utopian city of Romdo (also seen as Romadeu in some adaptations). You are quickly introduced to one of the main characters, Re-l (also seen as Real) Mayer, an investigator with the city's Intelligence Bureau, along with her AutoReiv Iggy. AutoReivs are androids created to aid, serve and protect the humans of Romdo. However, Romdo faces the issue of the Cogito Virus (a reference to René Descartes statement "Congito, ergo sum" which translates to "I think, therefore I am"), which causes these AutoReivs to become self-aware. Some of them, in their desire to find their raison d'être, or reason to be, attack the human inhabitants of Romdo. Re-l is in charge of investigating these AutoReivs. Not too long after meeting Re-l and Iggy, we are introduced to Vincent Law, an immigrant that recently arrived from the city of Mosko (also seen as Mosque) who is working for the AutoReiv Control Division, hoping to be made into a full citizen. His duty is to find and dispose of AutoReivs infected with Cogito. The peace and order of Romdo is soon disturbed shortly after Re-l is attacked by a mysterious humanoid creature during one of her investigations. Another one of these creatures attacks her in her home, and the other joins it. Re-l later learns these creatures are called Proxy and her curiosity soon begins to drive her to discover more about the mysterious Proxy. She will soon find that there is a connection between her, Vincent Law and the two Proxy that attacked her home which will lead her on a long and difficult journey for the truth, whatever it may be.

As the story unfolds, many new characters are introduced, such as Pino, a Cogito infected AutoReiv, who then takes on innocence and curiosity of a young child (and is also thought to be loosely based on Pinocchio). She is probably one of the more beloved characters of this series, with her constant positive outlook and adorable appearance (she spends a nice portion of the series a pink bunny snowsuit). The series also makes references to several famous philosophers and historical figures, as well as having a deep meaning behind these names for the characters. The stone AutoReivs that help rule Romdo are all named after famous philosophers and one psychoanalyst: Lacan, Husserl, Derrida and Berkeley. Then there is the character Daedalus Yumeno, who is a reference to the tale of Daedalus and Icarus. The series has many other references to various people, places and ideas from history. The series attempts to address many issues concerning society, our desire for answers and the truth as well our own raison d'être.

I, personally, thoroughly enjoyed this series. It took the typical dysfunctional utopia idea and shed a new light on it, showing a new perspective on what it means to be human, on religion, and one's sense of self. It had its fair share of action, but also causes you to think about various issues. Some episodes heavily focused on battles, others on various ideologies and philosophies. I enjoyed all the characters and their unique personalities, especially Pino. She made some of the heavy scenes tolerable, acting as a bit of comic relief, but also made the deaths of a few of the characters all the more saddening. Re-l bothered me at first, seemingly a cold-hearted, self-centred woman set only on finding the truth, as the series carried on, a more humane side of her either emerged or developed. Vincent was a character easily to identify with for those who try to fit in but never quite seem to be able to find a way to. It had a great choice of music as well as literary and artistic references in it, such as the stone AutoReivs that were mention earlier being based off Michelangelo's Night and Day and Twilight and Dawn statues. The series flowed very well too, considering it didn't always travel in a linear storyline, but rather played with the notion that reality is not always what a person perceives it to be. However, not everyone enjoys this sort of plot line, since at times it can be a bit confusing, jumping around and not entirely clear about everything. Some things are later explained, however there are many thing in the series that are left up to the viewer to discern on their own. There is also a rather dark tone to the series, with a majority of the characters dying during the series, as well as some rather graphic and bloody action sequences. The effects of these on how you enjoy the series are all a matter of preference. However, I encourage everyone to at least give the series a try, for it provides a great deal of food for thought.