'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' directed by Rob Marshall.

Produced by: Jerry Bruckheimer.

Written by: Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot. (Based on the book by: Tim Powers.)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane and Geoffrey Rush.

Music by: Hanz Zimmer.

Year of release: 2011.

Budget: $150 Million.

Gross Revenue: $390, 847, 774... so far.

Ah Johnny Depp. Everything he touches seems to turn to gold (apparently with the exception of The Tourist, which I'm yet to see). What's more is that women love him. Apparently he's what's passing for bohemian these days, despite the fact that he's presumably loaded, which is certainly a paradox. I guess it goes without saying that you can be as bohemian as you want, but unless you're a power earner, you'll never be a sex symbol-- fuhgeddaboutit!

I was never a big fan of the Pirate movies. For the record, I think Johnny Depp saved them, and without him they'd all be mediocre films at best. But even with Johnny Depp, I still didn't get the appeal. For one thing, I could never understand what was going on. I only ever saw them at the movies, having never felt the need to rent them on DVD, which is a mistake since I'm guessing it's the kind of franchise that requires a mandatory movie marathon before you view the next one, kinda like Harry Potter. Alas, I never watched them religiously and I remember seeing Barbossa's big reveal at the end of the second movie and barely remembering who the guy was. Although, they must be doing something right, because they are really popular. My girlfriend loves them.

One thing that Stranger Tides has going for it is that you don't really have to be fluent in the intricacies of the plot of the previous films. No friends, this is a completely new adventure featuring old characters from the other films. Johnny Depp was the comic relief in the other Pirate movies, and I read in a review that he struggled as the lead in this film. I don't agree. Depp was great as the lead character. I guess you just have to accept that he's not going to be cracking wise every time he's on screen. There is exposition that needs to be taken care of after all. Penelope Cruz's character is underdeveloped, but hey it's a blockbuster right? They don't have time to give any women a fully developed role.

What I liked most about Stranger Tides was the sense of adventure that prevailed throughout. It's one those movies where you go in with all the worries of your life whirling around in your head like some kind of demented dervish and then as soon as Jack Sparrow appears you just say 'Fuck it!' and go along for the ride. A variety of interesting plot developments help sustain this sense: There is a scene that occurs about half-way through the film with mermaids. These aren't the type that sing about how wonderful marine life is with talking crustaceans however, rather they are talked about by the other characters as if they were vicious monsters, who lure pirates into the water to copulate with them before eating them under the sea. Their introduction is a great scene. When it played out in the cinema, an overweight guy sitting in front of me said: “Ha! Just like my last marriage!” No, nobody said that. But you can just imagine some forty-five year old man in a middle-management position at a moderately successful I.T. Firm taking his kids to see the movie on his weekend of custody, and saying it. The kids just get all teary-eyed and look up at him and later on he's telling them not tell their mother about what it because she'll just get “...all pissy.”

Also, Ian McShane should be in more movies. He kills as Captain Blackbeard, though he would kill even more if they let him swear. In-fact, they should've just cast him as his character in Deadwood, Al Swearengen. They could explain it by saying that one of the pirate ships in the movie is capable of time travel, and for some reason it goes to the town of Deadwood and Al Swearengen hops on board and kills the captain and decides to go on all kinds of crazy adventures. Then when he encounters the whole Priest/Mermaid sub-plot, he could just shoot the priest and say “That guy is so fucking cunt struck...” before sailing on around the world with his crew of thugs.

Anyway, what else needs to be said about this movie? Fuck it man, it's Pirates. You should know what you're gonna get at this point in the franchise. I guess I could tell you that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to. I was preparing for a 120 minute arse numbing experience, and while my arse was numb when I left the cinema, I was pretty satisfied with the adventure. Johnny Depp is funny as Jack Sparrow, and I'd sit through four screenings of Mariah Carey's Glitter if it was scored by Hanz Zimmer.

Three stars:

'Drive Angry' directed by Patrick Lussier.

Produced by: Michael De Luca.

Written by: Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier.

Starring: Nicolas Cage and Amber Heard.

Year of release: 2011.

Budget: $45 – 50 Million.

Gross Revenue: $40,117,335.

The best grindhouse films don't just contain scenes of sex, violence and action just for the sake of it. These elements are very important staples in the grindhouse experience to be sure, but there is something else going on in the great exploitation pictures that separate them from their mediocre rivals. I don't think that this characteristic is easy to define, but I shall endeavour to define it: The best grindhouse movies contain an elusive bad-assery that is never definitively discussed within the framework of the film, but simmers in the subtext none-the-less.

Consider Kill Bill: Vol 1, which is a kung-fu film in the true grindhouse style. It contains violence (the Bride's showdown against the Crazy 88), seedy sex (the disgusting Buck who pimps out comatose patients for “...seventy-five dollars a fuck...”), and action (again the Crazy 88 showdown). However, there is something going on in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 that is really quite sophisticated. The Bride is a character unlike any other in cinema. It's not just that she's a female; there are dozens of action movies with females in the lead role. It's that she is an autonomous killer, who kicks ass without asking permission from a man. This is a stark juxtaposition to a film like Charlie's Angels, where the female characters are still essentially submissive to the aforementioned Charlie.

So! Where does Drive Angry fit into this? Well a few weeks ago I reviewed a movie called Hobo With A Shotgun and gave it three-and-a-half stars, citing that something seemed to be missing from it. What was missing was this above-mentioned elusive bad-assery. The Hobo was bad-ass, but he was still an essentially good character. Drive Angry is more successful as a film because the protagonist is a bad man trying to achieve redemption. Indeed this single character difference makes Drive Angry far more interesting than Hobo. The audience feels more empathy for Nicolas Cage's John Milton, precisely because of this redemptive angle, and it makes the action more enjoyable as a result. Cage is a phenomenal actor when he wants to be, so when he delivers lines like “Thank-you Webster but I don't believe I'll be having that beer just now; not unless I'm drinking it from Jonah King's skull”, you believe him. What's more, such lines fill you with a morbid tingling glee for the inevitable blood-thirsty climax.

What's more is that Cage's multi-dimensional character gets to develop in an insanely good plot: John Milton has escaped from Hell-- stealing Satan's shot-gun on the way-- to save his infant grand-daughter. It's so simple, and yet so brilliant. What follows is a mad-cap caper involving girls, guns, cars, cults and blood. Cage is chasing the cult, and the Devil's accountant (played brilliantly by William Fitchner) is chasing Cage. To give you an idea of the kind of action to expect, let me tell you that there is a gunfight that takes place during a sex scene, and the sex doesn't stop until the last bullet has hit the ground. You have to see it to believe it.

What could be improved? Some of the gore in this movie is obviously rendered using CGI, and I'm really not too keen on it. It's certainly because I'm used to the squibs and dyed red corn-syrup of the 80s and 90s. I just don't think that computer blood looks real enough. There were a few scenes of violence that just sort of took me out of the picture all together, and I don't think it would have been a problem if they weren't CGI. I understand that the excessive CGI is related to the fact that the film hit theatres in 3D, and maybe it looked good in that format, but it didn't really translate to 2D well. Apart from that, I would've also liked a little more character development, but it's all good.

Ultimately, I just had a lot of fun in Drive Angry, and if you set aside the hype, and prepare yourself for a true grindhouse experience, you'll have fun as well.

Four Stars:

'Insidious' directed by James Wan.

Produced by: Jason Blum, Jeanette Brill, Oren Peli, Steven Schneider, and Aaron Sims.

Written by: Leigh Whannell.

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye, Andrew Astor, and Leigh Whannell.

Studio: Alliance Films and Stage 6 Films.

Distributed by: FilmDistrict.

Year of release: 2011.

Run time: 100 Minutes.

Budget: $1.5 Million.

Gross revenue: $50, 319, 115.

This is the new movie from James Wan; the guy that came up with the Saw series, which was largely rubbish but somehow managed to become the defining horror franchise of the 00s. I guess I was interested in Insidious because it was completely unrelated to the Saw franchise. You have to remember that even though James Wan conceived Saw, he was only ever heavily involved in the production of the first and third film in the series. You definitely get the sense that Wan's non-involvement indicates a contempt for the Hollywood trend of pumping out sequel after sequel to a successful franchise, and in this respect I guess he deserves some admiration. That Insidious is a haunted house picture surely points to Wan's desire to branch out creatively within the horror genre, and this too must be commended.

Rose Byrne plays Renai Lambert, a mother and song-writer, who has just moved into a new house with her new baby, two older boys, and teacher husband Josh (played by Patrick Wilson). Whilst one of their offspring, Dalton, is exploring the house, he manages to fall off a ladder in the attic and bump his head. The parents are alarmed, but manage to settle him down and put him to bed. The next day, he doesn't wake up and a trip to the hospital confirms that he is indeed comatose. The Lambert's decide to take him home to care for him, and then the spooky stuff starts to happen: Renai hears a whispering voice in her infant's room through the baby-monitor, which gets progressively louder and more hostile. Then one of her boys tells her he can't sleep because Dalton, the comatose son, has been walking around in the night. After a few of these scary scenes, the Lambert's obtain help from a psychic medium and the mysterious forces working in the house are eventually revealed.

Insidious is genuinely scary for the first thirty minutes. Wan uses classic horror techniques which seem to be amplified by a hand-held camera style of filming. Relax folks, it's not like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield where the narrative unfolds from the point of view of the camera of one of the characters. Rather, the camera hovers around the characters during exposition not unlike the style that Lars Von Trier uses in most of his films. It's unsettling because it manages to create a really raw atmosphere, and in the best scenes you really feel like you are right behind the characters; exploring the dark and haunted house with nothing but your pyjamas and a flash-light.

Rose Byrne's stunning performance also lends a great deal to the scare factor here. She plays the part of the distressed mother really well, and scenes of her tending to her comatose son provide for great character development. Byrne successfully manages to create the slow boil that good horror movies need to have. When she has to scream and get hysterical, she pulls it off flawlessly and you really begin to empathise with her up until the plot takes a silly turn in the second act. Rose Byrne is incredibly underrated. I just hope that the producers gave her a decent pay-cheque for this, because without her, Insidious would barely rise above a 'straight-to-video' release, thanks largely to the second and third acts.

Yes, Insidious may well be the title of film, but if we were to judge it on it's last hour, a more apt title would be Ridiculous. I can actually pinpoint the moment when the film becomes shit: When the two comic relief ghost-busters turn up and start arguing over whose ghost-busting equipment is better designed. It's all downhill from there. I won't go into detail because it would spoil it, but your standard psychic-medium exorcism plot ensues, complete with a red-faced demon that has hooves for feet (I'm not kidding). The plot also kind of careens away from Byrne's character, which has been greatly developed, only to focus more on the husband and his back-story, which is considerably underdeveloped. It's quite jarring, because there would be a great film in there if they did away with the silliness and focussed more on Byrne's emotional hardship, but they don't, and it sucks.

This movie has performed well at the box office, leaving Scream 4 in the dust, and I guess I can see why. It's a fun and fresh movie that manages to get some genuine scares, especially in the beginning. The narrative would benefit from more focus and less silliness. Insidious is a lot like Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, only without the irony and humour. It's probably gonna get a lot of teenage interest, but as a long-time horror movie fan, I have to say it: James Wan, you consistently underwhelm me.

Two stars:

'Easy Rider' directed by Dennis Hopper.

Produced by: Peter Fonda.

Written by: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern.

Starring: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.

Studio: Raybert Productions and Pando Company Inc.

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures.

Year of release: 1969.

Run time: 94 Minutes.

Budget: $340, 000.

Gross revenue: $41, 728, 598.

Easy Rider is one of those movie masterpieces that everyone tells you you have to see. I only just got around to seeing it for the first time recently on blu-ray, which shows I've got a lot of work to do as a pseudo film-critic. I'd heard about it in the past, and I also must have seen the first ten minutes or so of the movie, because I remember the iconic opening credits which depict Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding huge choppers, as Born to be Wild plays on the soundtrack. For some reason I always thought that it was an action film of some kind. When I put the disc in to watch it, I thought that the entire 90 minutes would consist of two bad mother fuckers riding around America, robbing banks and running from the law. How wrong I was.

In reality, Easy Rider is a tale about the pursuit of the American dream at the end of the 1960s in America. Peter Fonda plays Wyatt, or “Captain America”, a free-loving dude dressed in leather adorned with the American flag, and Dennis Hopper plays Billy, a more intense hippy who knocks around in a wardrobe imitation of traditional Native American dress. Throughout the course of the movie, they travel on their bikes across America; giving lifts to hitch-hikers, including the leader of a hippie commune, and a young lawyer for the ACLU. All the while they have to try and avoid getting their heads caved in by local townsfolk who don't happen to take kindly to their long hair and free life-style.

This film is significant in so many ways. Thematically, it was the first movie to really deal with the collapse of the hippie way of life, and the subsequent rise of a more conservative social zeitgeist in American society. This is of course illustrated by a pervading sense of anxiety throughout the film. Our protagonists are drug-runners, who score a white powder that could be heroin or cocaine-- it's never specifically stated which-- and sell it to a rich guy played by Phil Spector in his famous cameo. They travel across America with the cash from the deal hidden in plastic tubing which is concealed in the gas tanks of their bikes. In the first act, there is the lingering threat that their cash stash will be discovered and stolen by the first hitch-hiker they pick up. This creates and ambient feeling of menace which escalates as the film plays out.

Make no mistake, this is no hippie movie. You don't get to watch Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper stoned off their tits running around dewy meadows for 90 minutes. The themes explored aren't as pleasant as that. Rather, Easy Rider is more concerned with showing how incompatible the hippy ideal is with the human race, which is, by virtue of biology perhaps, vicious. There is a sense of seediness to virtually all the characters the protagonists encounter. The first hitch-hiker they pick up is a nameless leader of a hippy commune (Luke Askew credited as 'Stranger on Highway'), and when the protagonists accompany him to said commune, the whole establishment seems just a little bit too creepy. The leader appears to be in a relationship with multiple women at once, and the followers are planting seeds in baron soil in the futile hope that they will be able to live off “...simple food, for [their] simple tastes...” It's not a thriving community at all; it almost appears as if they are barely managing to survive.

Things get a little better when the pair encounter Jack Nicholson's character, George Hanson, who is an alcoholic lawyer yearning for life on the road himself. After he springs them out of gaol, the protagonists agree to give him a ride to New Orleans. During the ride, Hanson tries weed for the first time and spouts off a monologue about UFOs and an idealistic alien society-- which according to the retrospective documentary on the disc was all ad-libbed by Nicholson. Later on, Nicholson also gets to deliver the most iconic exchange of dialogue in the movie, and maybe even in the history of American cinema itself. After the trio are run out of a local cafe because of their appearance, they set-up a camp fire and Hopper and Nicholson start to discuss the events of the night:

George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man.

George Hanson: They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.

Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.

George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.

George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

Billy: Well, it don't make 'em runnin' scared.

George Hanson: No, it makes 'em dangerous. Buh, neh! Neh! Neh! Neh! Swamp!

This exchange pretty much sums up the entire purpose of the movie. It's a rather scathing indictment of both capitalism and the current model of liberal democracy, where conceptual terms like 'freedom' are almost Orwellian doublespeak. It's really rare that you get to see a film where the entire thesis can be so eloquently put in one poignant line, and this is one of them.

Another way in which this film is significant rests in the ramifications it had for the future of American cinema. Prior to the release of Easy Rider, Hollywood films were all highly polished, stylised, and sanitised for the purpose of broad appeal to audiences. The success of Easy Rider, and other movies like The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde led Hollywood production studios to finance independent films made by more avante-garde directors. This New Hollywood environment would ultimately lead to such classics as Apocalypse Now and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It was not until the creation of the contemporary blockbuster, thanks to directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, that Hollywood would return to producing more stylised projects.

In terms of contemporary watchability, Easy Rider is still a delight. Whilst viewing the movie, I was consistently reminded of one of my favourite novels, On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Both are set in different time periods, but both deal with this idea of the elusive and illusive American dream, and the anxiety that comes with the consciousness raiser that is existentialism. The soundtrack absolutely shines in this movie. Watching the protagonists ride their bikes to the tune of The Weight by The Band is a tremendous moment, that I suspect won't be as good the second time round. All in all, Easy Rider is a disturbing, yet profoundly touching film, that haunts the viewer long after the credits have rolled.

Before I conclude this review, I just wanted to mention how interesting the retrospective documentary is on blu-ray disc. Watching the film, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing was a professional experience for Fonda and Nicohlson, however after hearing them talk about the production, you realise that making Easy Rider was fraught with the same difficulties that are plot developments in the movie.

One example? Well on the doco, Peter Fonda recalls shooting the famous LSD trip sequence: Dennis Hopper told him to sit on the lap of the statue of Queen Elizabeth and talk to it as if it were his mother. Of course, Peter Fonda's mother committed suicide when he was just ten, and Fonda had yet to deal with the emotions surrounding such a tragic event. Fonda and Hopper fought about for a while and then Fonda asked: “Why would I do that?” and Hopper said “Because I'm the director, man!”

Five stars:

'Reservoir Dogs' directed by Quentin Tarantino

Produced by: Lawrence Bender.

Written by: Quentin Tarantino.

Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, and Michael Madsen.

Edited by: Sally Menke.

Studio: Live Entertainment.

Year of release: 1992.

Run time: 99 Minutes.

Budget: $1.2 Million.

Gross Revenue: $2,832,029.

It's a little late in the game to be talking about how Reservoir Dogs revolutionised cinema and spawned dozens of imitators. That sort of analysis has already been performed by countless academics and film critics the world over. You don't need me to tell you that Quentin Tarantino pretty much birthed the concept of a bunch of ruthless gangsters dropping pop culture references in their dialogue, you already know it to be true.

I guess the purpose of this review is to see how well the movie has aged. The first time I saw Reservoir Dogs I think I was about 15 and I remember thinking how fucking cool it was. My dad was the one that actually got me onto it. He played in a local touch-football competition, and the name of his team was 'The Reservoir Dogs.' I think they lost every game they ever played, but I remember asking him what the team name meant and he told me it was his favourite movie. So the next time we went to the video store, I hired it out and watched it. When I was done watching it, I jumped straight onto Limewire and downloaded both Stuck In The Middle With You and Little Green Bag. For the rest of the day I blared the tracks as a loud as I could without pissing the rest of my family off. Good times.

Now that I'm a lot older and more in control of my finances (though not by much), I had the good opportunity to buy Reservoir Dogs on blu-ray. The HD transfer is really quite something. It feels like you're discovering a whole other movie hidden away in the one that you previously had to view on VHS or DVD at a crappy resolution. The candy red blood is rendered so bright in the HD version, it really is pretty fucking amazing.

All technology aside, how do I think the film has held up after almost 20 years? Yeah pretty good. I mean the whole glorification of violence is still as shocking and cool as ever. It's one of those movies that really benefits from multiple viewings, because once you know what's going to happen, the build-up to certain events sends you giggling with morbid glee. In the second or third viewing, you really begin to appreciate Mr. Blonde's introduction: Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi are in the middle of a moderately serious argument and Mr. Blonde appears only to say: “You kids shouldn't play so rough; somebody's gonna start crying.” It's such a classic line, that is morbidly hilarious the second time round because you know that the character is a complete fucking psychopath.

Indeed, the older I get the more I think I'm affected by the violent spectacle that is the torture sequence set to Stuck In The Middle With You by Steeler's Wheel. There is something so darkly nihilistic about Mr. Blonde's innate hatred for the police officer in this sequence. We already know that he doesn't consider them as real people, so when he says: “The best that you can do, is pray for a quick death; which you're not gonna get.”, you know that he's telling the truth. The thing that is so disturbing about the sequence is that it's such a cool sequence. The music begins and Mr. Blonde starts dancing before we cut to the bound police officer who has just realised that this is really going to happen. What's more is that the cut is done to the rhythm of the music. By allowing us to groove to the song for a few moments, Tarantino effectively lowers our socially constructed abhorrence and ever so slightly exposes that primal thirst for violence that has enabled us to survive for so long. So, when we view this sequence we are simultaneously overjoyed at its inherent coolness, but also disgusted that we find such a thing cool.

For the above mentioned mind-fuck, the film earns five stars right off the bat. Where it loses a star is in the lack of character development between Keitel's Mr. White, and Roth's Mr. Orange. The whole hook of the ending is that Mr. White is so fucking in love with Mr. Orange that he refuses to believe that he is the undercover cop. When Joe Cabot, the mastermind of the whole heist, accuses Mr. Orange of being a cop, Mr. White defends him to the point of death. I just didn't buy it the second time around. I think there needed to be a few more scenes between Keitel and Roth to further cement the nature of their relationship. As it stands, the ending feels unnatural and it really dampens what would have been a perfect film.

Four stars: