Freddy Got Fingered

Name me a Tom Green film that came out in the last 10 years. You can’t, can you? Civilised society wins again.

The Partially Educated Review

And on the 8th day, Satan created Tom Green

In 50 Words or Less: Tom Green masturbates a horse. If that sells it to you, suffer through this. You deserve it.

In Detail: Goes to find that “flogging a dead horse” GIF.

There we go. It’s a gracious mercy that Tom Green has always been fairly well ignored over here in England. I remember The Tom Green Show first arriving over here and the palpable sense of indifference that came with it. Proof, if needed, that England has excellent taste when it comes to television shows.

Oh, sod off. This lack of care changed a bit when Freddy Got Fingered arrived, with a lot of interest suddenly appearing from teenage boys who gave the instant stamp of approval to anything remotely scatological. Usually, I was one of those teenage boys and yet, at at time when I liked most films that I was too young to watch, Freddy Got Fingered became one of the two main films that taught me how to hate my television screen. The other one?

It’s a charming tale of a man who wants to follow his dreams of being a professional animator. A man who, along the way, masturbates a horse, accuses his father of sexually molesting his younger brother (oops, sorry, spoilers) and swings a newborn baby around by it’s umbilical cord. Amongst other things.

Ordinarily, when a film is this bad, it involves having to root out the blame. You need to be fair, you need to make sure that everyone is held accountable for their actions. The writer, the director, the star. They must all share blame if it is there to be equally shared. Oh wait, Green is all of those things. This one’s for you, mate!

Now, I’m happy to accept that this sort of reaction may be precisely what Green wanted. There is enough in this film to suggest that Green was wanting to make himself into a real-life Max Bialystock, taking the notoriety that came with it and the ability to say: “at least I’m remembered for something”. Which is a mentality I just don’t get. Anyone can make themselves remembered. Tomorrow, I could go commando, walk into work and drop my chinos and I can guarantee that image is getting etched into everyone’s brain for all time. If anyone I work with is reading this, don’t worry, I’m not going to do it.

He’s failed though. Not at making a bad film. No way. This is a film so bad that if someone put a gun to my head and gave me the option of watching this one more time or only being able to listen to Mika for the rest of my life, I’d definitely want some time to think about it. Actually, imagine that. Imagine that the only thing you can hear for the rest of your miserable existence is THIS…

It’s not half as offensive as it’s trying to be though (the film, not Mika. Mika is very offensive). Mainly because it’s all so laughably transparent. Any initial wincing or grimacing that you may feel will go away fast, followed by the bleak, harrowing realisation that you just spent 87 minutes of your life watching celluloid dreams die. Those 87 minutes aren’t coming back. They’re gone. Lost. Wasted. And Tom Green has managed to make just as much of an impression on your life (be it good or bad) as a fart on the other side of the world.

ONE out of 10

Blended

I said to myself: “this week, you should really try and write something positive”.

And then I decided I don’t feel like writing something positive. I feel like destroying something. I feel like taking a sledgehammer wrapped in barbed wire and smashing the last vestiges of life out of something (entirely metaphorical, I assure you). Who could I possibly turn to for fulfilment of that purpose?

The Partially Educated Review

"Hello darkness, my old friend"

In 50 Words Or Less: would give away the last paragraph of the review. So read that.

In Detail: I will say this and you can choose whether or not you want to believe me. I don’t hate Adam Sandler quite as much as you would probably expect me to. Go back to some of his earlier work and there’s some enjoyable enough films kicking around in there (yes, Happy Gilmore). Then he started providing Rob Schneider with his own starring roles. As well all know, this yielded similar levels of success as would asking the Westboro Baptist Church to co-ordinate the global security for all Pride events. Though there were a couple of acceptable moments after that, the downhill slide was taking on a sharper gradient. Then Jack And Jill came down from the hill with no broken crowns and decided to dash the audience’s brains out instead. He hasn’t recovered since.

With Blended, Sandler made two fairly fatal mistakes. First off, he decided that he wanted a holiday in Africa, but should be entitled to make money from said holiday. As if that’s not enough to resent him for, he also seemed to think that Round 3 of his partnership with Drew Barrymore was also something everyone wanted. 50 More First Dates, anybody?

One of the worst box office openings of Sandler’s career followed and his box office reliability began to look a lot like this.

Here's your plot. After a blind date that’s just as painful for the characters as it is for the audience having to sit through it, Sandler and Barrymore’s paths just can’t stop crossing; a bit like my eyes after the convoluted chain of events that leads to them accidentally holidaying together in Africa. Most of the film’s humour comes at the expense of both characters' young children. Barrymore has two sons: a serial masturbator (remember, this is a Sandler film) and a tantrum throwing adrenaline junkie. Sandler, meanwhile, has three daughters. One of them’s there to be cute, but they still allow her to make devil noises and (in the film’s longest running joke) the other two apparently look like men. Despite the fact that one of them looks like this.

As ever, Sandler has failed to grasp the rule of three when it comes to a joke. Instead, his every amusement is rammed harder into the ground than a rat under a skyscraper. Further to the problem, rule of three’s only applicable if the joke is actually funny the first time. My face after every "is she a boy or a girl?" joke:

By this point, Sandler has been peddling his brand of humour for 25 years and it's not hard to argue that a lot of those who liked him at first have become fed up. Those who never liked him to begin with have taken such a joyous pleasure in his dwindling financial successes that I’m starting to wonder if they laugh when a puppy gets shot in the face. As for that handful of people who are still tolerating Sandler…

I went in to this film with a ONE out of 10 for it to improve upon and developed a system that would enable it to do that in a fair manner. For every time a joke in this film made me laugh I would give it one more point. That’s right, if it made me laugh 9 times I would be obligated to give this film a TEN out of 10, in spite of whether or not I hated everything else about it.

TWO out of 10

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice

Preconceptions can be a nasty old bitch. Either you’re slagging something off before you’ve seen it, or you’re complaining about the people doing the slagging off as if you’re completely innocent of ever doing it yourself. And you’re not. You’re lying. I include myself in that. Case in point: try telling me that the next Resident Evil film is going to be any good. 

There are, however, two films that I needed to be great this year. If only so I could see the mouths of those pre-judgers clamp shut for at least a few blissful seconds. There’s still a chance with Ghostbusters.

The Partially Educated Review

It’s the Caped Crusader taking on… hang on, aren’t they technically both caped crusaders?

In 50 Words or Less: Suffering from an amazing opening that it can't hope to follow, Batman V Superman is also beleaguered by dull characters and a total humour bypass. That being said, the film coasts by quite admirably on premise alone and certainly isn't the outright disaster many seemed to wish it to be.

In Detail: Let me clarify right off the bat (pun not intended, but I’m leaving it there). Batman V Superman isn’t a bad film and compared to Man Of Steel, it’s definitely superior. That being said, a bollock removal was preferable to Man Of Steel. There are even some true flashes of brilliance here. Remove the opening credits which seem to believe that we need reminding of the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, as if he doesn’t remind us enough himself…

…and we move straight into one of the best opening sequences to a superhero film that I can name. And I’ll stand by that statement. In this post 9/11 world, big budget films have felt an alarming need to re-create carnage on a similar scale, without bringing any thought whatsoever to the loss of life that comes with it. Man Of Steel was one of the most guilty parties of this and that is addressed here, as them pesky superhero shenanigans finally get shown to us from a real world point of view. It’s alarming, it’s gripping and it’s a brilliantly played effort.

So brilliant that the rest of the film can’t follow. Despite his best efforts, director Zack Snyder just can’t keep the momentum going, mainly because we’ve realised how boring the characters are. In just about all cases, feelings of warmth are as absent here as they would be in a polar bear’s nutsack (two testicle jokes in one review, this is your fault, Snyder). Both Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are played well enough (Affleck comes out best and I’m not just saying that), but there’s nothing new about their characters or their alter egos that hasn’t been explored elsewhere. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Batman and Superman are divisive figures in the eyes of the-

Making them really likeable though has always been a tough one. I would personally claim that no one’s properly achieved it, particularly in the case of Batman. Instead, they usually succeed if the villains are so hateful that you’ll cheer for anyone against them. Surely, Lex Luthor is that figure of hate?

Technically? Yes. He is hateful. Not in a good way though. It’s clear that Jesse Eisenberg didn’t want to play this as Mark Zuckerberg: Super Villain and that’s respectable. He’s gone quirky though. WAY too quirky. His presence on screen isn’t one that you’ll relish and enjoy. You’ll want to rip his voice box out and gaffer tape his mouth shut, just to make sure that little girlish giggle can never be audible again. There are other villains, but they’re either bland terrorists or smashy screamy monster types, undeserving of further mention.

Yet despite these issues, there’s still something that keeps the film ticking along. The idea of these two characters together for the first time should feel more massive than it does, but it does still hold some weight. To me, this feels much more important than any combination Marvel can offer us…

…though Justice League will likely feel like Avengers-lite, particularly given the moderately ham-fisted way in which they’re going about introducing other characters. For fear of spoilers, I’ll say no more than that.

By the end of it all though, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice leaves me with a quandary. It’s good enough to get a positive score and yet it’s still a failure. People were so dead set against this film from the get go that anything less than Dark Knight quality was going to result in the naysayers declaring themselves right all along (you weren’t right, kindly never speak again). In fact, here’s categorical proof of how not bad this film is. If you want to, go ahead and tell me that this film is awful. Now watch Catwoman. Tell me again that this film is awful.

SIX out of 10

I’ve just realised that’s the same score I gave Fantastic Four. May have over-scored that one.

Triple 9

Somebody's been watching Heat. Apparently, they've also been watching The Wire, but I've never seen that, so I can't comment, which usually garners a similar reaction to saying you haven't watched Breaking Bad. I haven't watched that either.

So, can someone explain to me what people see in Aaron Paul? Between this, Need For Speed and anything else I've seen him in, it's safe to say I just don't get it.

The Partially Educated Review

Because sometimes life just isn't quite miserable enough

In 50 Words or Less: It's not the unrelentingly bleak tone of the film that's the problem. It's that it's got that tone with absolutely no one to get behind. A cast this noteworthy should give us performances that are more than satisfactory. They don't. Ultimately, the film's own influences show themselves as preferable viewing.

In Detail: John Hillcoat isn't a household name. I don't think he's ever going to be one either because his films are all so unrelentingly bleak. When your most cheerful output to date has been the film Lawless, you're not exactly gunning for the feels. Triple 9 is no exception to this rule. The moment Kate Winslet presents a bag of severed fingers to the people from whom the fingers were taken, it becomes very apparent that she's not occupying the same territory as The Holiday. It doesn't get any nicer from there though, moving it's characters further into a life so dark that death may be their only way to a happy ending.

The film's plot revolves around crooked cops trying to stage a (wait for it) Triple 9; an event which results in the calling of all available police officers to the scene. This in turn will then take attention away from an upcoming robbery that they are forced into by Winslet's Russian gangster. Instead of the mechanics of the robbery itself, this is more bothered with the characters own internal conflicts, though most of the time they just need someone to tell them one thing.

Ordinarily, when a film's like that, it falls flat under the weight of it's own misery. Hillcoat has, however, made persistent depression work for his audience in the past, with The Proposition and (particularly) The Road showing us how you can still engage an audience despite an uncompromising nature. Much like Lawless though, he seems to have forgotten the essential mechanic in achieving that; there has to be someone to root for. For the most part, Triple 9's characters are either scumbags or conflicted scumbags, meaning that every time one of them holds a gun to the other, you couldn't care less if a small explosive device wiped the both of them out. As this sort of conflict makes a frequent appearance, that lack of someone to get behind is a real problem.

There's a couple of exceptions to the scumbag rule, but Casey Affleck's noble detective is duller than a greyscale painting of an empty goldfish bowl and Woody Harrelson is uncommonly dreadful as the cop with a drink problem. There are some solid enough performances here and there, but none of them are really noteworthy enough to warrant separating from the crowd. Perhaps Winslet would have been a saving grace, as her undeniable presence is there to be seen, but her performance keeps being off-railed by an accent that seems like she's taken John Malkovich in Rounders as an inspiration.

Triple 9 is a thriller by appearance only, distinctly lacking in the pluralized first syllable of that word. It's forgettability is apparent by the fact every time an offscreen character is referred to, you need some time to remind yourself which one that is. In the weeks to come, this will leave cinemas and make a fairly quiet home viewing release, only to become a footnote in the careers of everyone involved. Taking prior form into account, Hillcoat is still a director whose films are worth anticipating, but this, combined with Lawless, could suggest a downward slide has begun. Though hopefully not.

FOUR out of 10

Shit Christmas: Christmas With The Kranks

Tim Allen has starred in four Christmas films throughout his career. I've seen all of them. This isn't even the worst one.

Shit Christmas

The Partially Educated Review

In 50 Words or Less: Conform or die! That is the moral of this film. Don't watch it is the moral of this review.

In Detail: The first thing that may throw you with Christmas With The Kranks is the opening credits, namely the bit that says that this is based on a novel by John Grisham. Yet there's not a taut legal proceeding anywhere to be seen. Instead, we've got Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis as a couple who decide to forego Christmas, rather than face the prospect of spending it without their daughter. If this was a normal scenario, everyone would ignore them and allow them to continue with this plan as they wish. I'd have been a lot happier if this was the case. Instead, we get Dan Aykroyd leading the sort of villagers that you'd usually expect as a precursor to a load of teenagers getting slaughtered. Aykroyd doesn't like the idea of a gap in his street's festive displays and so he sets out to force Christmas upon the Kranks. God forbid if a Goldstein or Patel family move in.

But this is not a film that wants to dwell on the possibility that Christmas may not be celebrated in some households. Instead, it wants to bring us all in to a sheltered existence in which Christmas is the only thing that matters and what better way to do that than accepting your own cult-like neighbourhood and discovering the importance of community. 

Not that one.

Christmas With The Kranks has a message that it thinks is heartwarming, but it's horribly misguided, instead demonstrating a conform or die attitude, as though it's making a B-line for Kim Jong-un's DVD collection. It also has a dearth of laughs and an inability to decide whether it's characters are grounded in normality or nestling into the bosom of insanity. Particularly in the case of Allen, whose occasional rationality is offset by the sort of erratic behaviour that would suggest a bipolar diagnosis is on the way. At one point, skipping Christmas will save them money. At the next point…

Curtis doesn't fare a whole lot better, as she can't decide whether she's on board with the idea or not; a rational thought process, but it doesn't give you anything to enjoy, just excited shrieks followed by nervous panic. Then, the film really shows it's ineptitude with a final character twist that ranks on the idiotic scale somewhere between Dude, Where's My Car? and any combination of words leaving the mouth of Donald Trump.

If that's not enough to put you off, then bear this in mind. My boss likes this film. She also thinks The Muppet Christmas Carol is rubbish.

THREE out of 10

Shit Christmas: Jingle All The Way (plus Star Wars)

It's Star Wars week, which is somewhat coincidental as Shit Christmas continues with a film that directly attributes the blame for the existence of Darth Vader to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Shit Christmas

The Partially Educated Review

In 50 Words or Less: Arnie's on a toy hunt. He kills no one. Kind of defies the point of an Arnie film.

In Detail: There are those who will defend Jingle All The Way. There are also those who will defend Charles Manson. Both parties exist in the same realm of correctness.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays salesman Howard Langston who, on top of missing his son's karate exam, has completely forgotten to buy the "must have toy of the season" Turbo Man. Cue a Christmas Eve of charging round the stores in a desperate bid to find a Turbo Man, all of which sold out a long time ago. All the while, he must contend with a rival father looking for the exact same toy (Sinbad, that's the actor's name, not the character's), a rival neighbour on the hunt for his wife's affections (Phil Hartman) and his own son crying and telling him what a bad father he is. Which would be bad enough, but then you suddenly realise said son is played by Jake "Anakin Skywalker" Lloyd and spend the whole time thinking…

I'm not entirely sure what Jingle All The Way thinks it is. Other than funny, but it's misguided on that one. At times, it's striving to be a comment on the consumerism of Christmas. At other times, it's gunning for the wholesome family "Spirit of Christmas" role. Then, at others, it's an off the rails slapstick farce. Is it possible for a film to be all three? Yes, of course it is, but Jingle All The Way isn't capable of multi-tasking so it flits from one style to the other like a Ritalin addled 2 year-old with no skill in handling any of them. It's rally cry against the commercialist side of it all is undone by it's own mentality that Christmas is all about toys. The family side of it is negated by the fact that no one whose age has reached double figures will be able to stand it. As for the farce, it's painful, providing cheap gags and painfully misjudged cartoonish moments. When Schwarzenegger becomes (admittedly second handedly) involved in a fake bomb threat, there's only one way for your mind to react.

The ending is a foregone conclusion, which doesn't always mean the death knell. In fairness, it would be unwise to expect anything different from a film aimed at children, but if a film is predictable, it needs something to keep you going and this rarely has that. Most of the enjoyment to be had comes from hearing Schwarzenegger's enunciation issues and laughing at just how low this man will sink in the name of a paycheck. Still, occasional enjoyment deserves some reward, so it's only fair to reflect that in a slightly elevated score.

THREE out of 10 (yes, that's elevated)

No, Arnold. No.

There'll be none of that here. Honest. Though to ensure that, I'm keeping it brief.

Shut up.

Up until now, I have stood firm in my resolve. I wouldn't hand out a 5 star review to any Star Wars film. Maybe The Empire Strikes Back if my own enjoyment hadn't been limited by the fact that I knew the ending, but that didn't happen. Now that I've seen The Force Awakens, I can say that I STILL wouldn't give a 5 star (or 9-10 out of 10) review to any Star Wars film. The Force Awakens is good though. At times, it's very good and in comparison to the prequels, it's certainly a huge improvement. It's new stars are almost all excellent, with flaws often down to their characters being underwritten (Oscar Isaac), rather than issues with their performance, though Domnhall Gleeson is only a few steps shy of Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending. 

Particular praise must go to John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, who show George Lucas the type of unknown (relative in Boyega's case) he should have cast when finding his Anakin Skywalker (either of them). As for the old hands, they're coasting a little bit, but nostalgia allows them to. The plot ticks along nicely and the action is well made, with a particularly exciting final fight. One of it's main moments of impact is telegraphed way ahead though, which kind of flattens it and there's also a resounding feeling that the film has blown one of it's later twists before it's even got there. All in all though, it's a return to form, though again bear in mind that I only class my Star Wars fandom as casual at best.

SEVEN out of 10

Shit Christmas: Surviving Christmas

Partial Education Presents

Shit Christmas (half) Month

The path to the Full Education of Seven Pounds is taking longer than I thought, particularly when I can think of a multitude of things that I'd rather be doing than watching every single episode of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (shin kicking for one). That being said, I have noticed that posts on this blog have been infrequent at best over the past few months, so I'm going to do something about it. Lucky you.

So, welcome to Partial Education's December, hereby known as Shit Christmas (half) Month: a (half) month in which I will look at the some of the real Christmas stinkers that have come out over the years. The type of films that feel like biting into a Pig in Blanket, only to realise it's a vegetarian one. It's not hard to find bad Christmas films, so, rather than just delve in and randomly pull one out, I'm only allowing films which had a wide release in cinemas. We begin with a Ben Affleck film released but one year after Gigli. A film that made me consider Jennifer Lopez a lesser evil.

In 50 Words or Less: A witless, aggravating abortion of a film. Ben Affleck's career took it's swan dive before this. This just completed the face plant.

In Detail: This is a film that deserves more infamy than it has. Those who know of it know it's reputation even if they haven't seen it (lucky bastards). There are many though who don't even know of it's existence (luckier bastards) and that feels like an injustice to me. Surviving Christmas deserves to be decried in the same breath as Batman And Robin, The Last Airbender or any recent Adam Sandler effort. Yet, despite the fact that the film deserves it, I can't help but feel like I'm about to be unfair on this film. Picking on it is starting to feel a bit like the horse decomposed years ago and I'm still beating the ground into which it went.

It's just so damned awful though, with Affleck playing the type of millionaire that even the Kardashians would consider shallow. After suggesting he and his girlfriend holiday in Fiji, he finds himself spending Christmas alone, when she informs him that he's an odious tower of pond-scum. That or she wants to spend it with her family, I forget which and either are justifiable. A couple more contrivances later and Affleck winds up at his old family home, now populated by James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara avec family, where he pays them to pretend they are his family over the Christmas period. Cue gags about the awkwardness of it all, interspersed with painful moralising about the importance of family.

In fairness to the performers, O'Hara always gives her best for a laugh, probably because she's gotten used to appearing in crud like this. Giving your best only helps if there's something to play for though. This doesn't have that. Gandolfini plays pissed off very well, though it's debatable whether this is acting or his general attitude towards the film. During the shoot, he apparently locked himself in his trailer for a day, demanding rewrites before he would continue filming. It didn't help. Meanwhile, Christina Applegate provides the film's sole voice of reason, but pretty much stands there commenting on how grotesque it all is. Yeah, we know. You still agreed to be in it though. I wonder where your motivation came from.

Affleck, on the other hand, is in a league of his own. The bottom one. His smile is at it's most excrement consuming. The attitude of his character makes Jordan Belfort seem borderline humane and the worst part of it all isn't that the film sends the character on the dreaded JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY!…

…it's how he ends said journey. This next bit will qualify as a spoiler, but I wouldn't worry. I won't. Affleck ends his journey just as self-centred and hateful as he was when he began and the film clearly hasn't realised this. It thinks we now like him. It believes that it's done enough to convince us that the other characters can now accept him. All that achieves is us hating all of them for their failure to leave him festering away in the most miserable Christmas of all time.

If you survive Surviving Christmas, you deserve nothing less than canonisation. I've now survived it twice, so from here on out you may refer to me as Saint James.

TWO out of 10