ONE SMALL SCREEN, ONE GIANT SCHLEP

Last week I watched movies on a plane. Being an infrequent flyer, this was a great novelty to me – seat-backs converted into mini-cinemas! Literally tens of titles to choose from! Sensibly, I decided to kick off my 11-hour high-altitude journey to the States with a film centred on terrorism – the mildly disappointing Rendition (intriguing set-up, lukewarm payoff, not enough for Meryl and Reese to do). After that I turned briefly to the novel I’m reading, which promptly threw a plane crash in my lap.

My viewing experience improved with movie number two, one of 2007’s lost gems: real-life DJ drama Talk To Me, sporting lovely performances from Chiwetel Ejifor and Don Cheadle (so much better in non-Cockney). The journey was still barely half over, so I went for another: In The Shadow Of Moon, the deservedly lauded doc about NASA’s Apollo missions. Bit pointless, you might think, to eyeball such expansive subject matter on a screen the size of a lunchbox. And yet… despite the seven-inch viewing panel, despite the continuous passenger announcements, trolly-dollies bustling up and down the aisle and the kid bawling behind me, I got totally swept up in the moon-walking majesty of it all. Mankind’s giant step still loomed large on the tiddly little screen.

The point I’m nudging at is that with cinema, size doesn’t really matter – quality will out, whatever the format. Watching ITSOTM reminded me of catching Point Break (get well soon, Swayze; where did you go, Kathryn Bigelow?) for the first time on a mate’s piddly TV back in the dark pre-DVD ages. Didn’t hamper the tsunami-like adrenaline rush one tiny bit. Course, it cuts both ways – watching Beowulf in three dimensions at the IMAX couldn’t disguise the so-so-ness of the storytelling. Next-gen tech’s a true blessing – thank God the days of fiddling with the ‘tracking’ on the VCR are dead and gone – but no Blu-ray brainiac’s ever going to stumble on the formula for polishing turds.

Total Film Issue 140 (out 20 March, really good) has some exclusive words from John Sayles on the seemingly doomed Jurassic Park IV. Sad news. We love Jurassic Park in these parts - even the third one, sort of - and really, really, want another to be made. Sod the naysayers. Here's our idea. Read More

Just as everyone has guilty pleasure movies (er, Crocodile Dundee In LA), there are certain actors who are shit but ace, if you get my meaning.Read More

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I'm staying in tonight and having scrounged around the office for DVDs have scooped Hitman and Lions For Lambs. Should I just read a book instead?Read More

So there I sat at 5am, bleary of eye and fuzzy of head, pondering. Nothing especially revelatory. But it does seem...Read More

Total Film editor Nev Pierce on the ups and downs of Oscars 2008. And crisps.Read More

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You know how you didn't bother to see The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford because the title was too long and it wasn't showing anywhere near you and it looked a bit ponderous and boring?Read More

The Razzies are almost upon us. But shouldn't they be doing more to crucify the worst in cinema? Here's a few suggestions... Read More

Liverpool FC get rewarded for a job well done in Europe. But will the winners at Oscar 2008 be as deserving?Read More

EVERYONE THAT IS READING THIS, CLICK ON MATT OLIVER (II) ON THE IMDBRead More

We’re aquiver at the thought of Indiana Jones, but it’s missing a crucial ingredient: the name’s Sean, Sir Sean…Read More

Dear Mr Spielberg and Mr Lucas,

I enjoyed your trailer for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. I've done a little review of it, look...Read More

Following Wednesday’s abortion-themed blog, today I’d like to open a debate on which is the best religion….

….kidding. No, today I’m going to talk tat (no change there then, everyone cries).

Death Proof? Schmeath Proof. Planet Terror? Whatever. If you want a true, old-school grindhouse experience, watch the new Rambo. I have. It’s ace. It’s also rubbish. It’s ace rubbish, the kind of guilty pleasure that makes you want to walk straight from the stalls to the nearest confessional.

Don’t get me wrong – I lapped up the QT/RR sleaze-tribute project, both individually and as a double-bill. But it felt a bit… cosy. Playful. Affectionate. Knowing.

Rambo is none of these things. It’s exploitation in the dodgiest sense of the word, using real-life human horror (genocide in Burma) as a springboard for its cheap thrills. And they /are/ a bit cheap; where the Grindhouse movies betrayed the 70s shoestring ethos by utilising state-of-the-art CG, you can often see the joins in Rambo’s FX.

Death Proof and Planet Terror were both in on the joke; you laugh /at/ Rambo, not with it. Like the truest kitsch, the film’s camp as hell but doesn’t know it. Ok, there is some degree of self-awareness. As the Machete-esque trailer puts it, “You KNOW his name… You KNOW what he’s capable of!” Stallone KNOWS what his audience expects, and rubs their faces right in it, with all his crude, manipulative might.

The crowd I caught it with last week were the bloodthirstiest bunch I’ve ever seen in a cinema. (The hour of free boozing prior to the 9pm start might’ve had something to do with it…) They whooped every severed limb, cheered every exploding skull, went nuts whenever John J drew back his bow. When one of the bleeding-heart liberal pantywaists Rambo escorts up river mewled, “It’s never right to take a life”, someone down the front hollered back “Fuck you, asshole!” Like Stallone, that guy (was he from the Daily Mail?) was standing in a moral minefield, but he did kinda capture the disreputable, down-and-dirty, regret-it-in-the-morning spirit of the occasion. Pure grindhouse…