Monday 6 February 2012

Double Bill Mini Musings: February 2012...

The Ghost:
Roman Polanski's thriller is about a ghost writer (played by Ewan McGregor) who is hired to re-write the memoirs of a British Prime Minister (loosely based on Tony Blair, with added cinematic appeal and backstory) who is in a spot of bother over extradition to the USA - sending terrorist suspects overseas to be tortured by the CIA. McGregor engages the viewer as a half-crumpled writer with a witty sense of humour, while the plot manages to duck and weave enough to second guess your suspicions of how the story will unfold. It kept me hooked throughout - it's worth checking out. A bonus for fans of The Walking Dead too - Jon Bernthal plays the agent of McGregor's ghost writer.


One Crazy Summer:
As I always say - if it's got John Cusack in it, then it's worth seeing - and here we are with him re-teaming with Savage Steve Holland, the director of Better Off Dead, which was only half-as-barmy as this decidedly 1980s 'romantic farce'. It's a good kind of barmy though, with a rather loose sense of plotting (at times it's nearing sketch comedy in style), and Demi Moore as a rock singer trying to pay off the mortgage on the house of her recently departed grandfather ... the same house that is stopping the local rich folks from turning the entire island community into a resort specialising in Lobster dining. What's more - in a way that was seemingly quite popular for 1980s comedies - it all culminates in a sailing competition (also see the John Candy-starring Summer Rental - a family film I'm rather fond of from my childhood years), replete with boat-fixing montage. Oh, and Bobcat Goldthwait's in it - in full-on madcap shouty form.

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