VIDEODRONE

By only

Monday September 10, 2007

NEW MOVIE MONDAYS
D.O.A.
Based on a video game, this is barely a movie, but it’s perfect for a Saturday morning. Which is when we watched it. An ultimate fighting tournament is held on a mysterious island. The diabolical host is a guy named Donovan, played by a buff and swollen Eric Roberts. Donovan implants nano-bots into the fighters and then activates them and downloads the fighters’ skills using these freaky glasses. The best fighters are attractive, fit “women”… Oh what the hell, none of that really matters because in the words of one of the actors “it’s really just ass kicking broads with hot bodies. The best of both worlds.” The plot is ludicrous. There’s fun wire work and the girls look great in bathing suits, playing beach volleyball or fighting each other. They shot it in China at the same studio where they filmed Hero. Fuck you McG!


Away From Her
Sarah Polley isn’t even thirty yet, and here she goes, directing a movie. The subject matter – a bunch of 60 year-olds struggling with love and Alzheimer’s – is a seriously strange choice for a directorial debut, but what does Sarah care? She’s Canadian and everyone will love her film no matter what simply because there’s a shout out to Canadian Tire… The movie is slow and painfully sad, just like anything with or about Alzheimer’s.


Shameless
From BBC America comes the first season of creator Paul Abbott’s exceptional series about the Gallagher family. Broke and British, they live in a shitty public housing tenement. The mom has disappeared, the dad is a lonely alcoholic father of six, with the eldest daughter acting as mom. There’s blow jobs, gay porn, straight porn, boobs, balls, beer and violence, but they always manage to find the humour and fucking humanity in what should be a bleak and bawdy series about what it must be like to be broke and, well, British.


Who Loves the Sun
This little Manitoba made movie about two best friends (Lukas Haas and Adam Scott) who are both in love with the same woman (Molly Parker) should have totally sucked. One of them marries her, then disappears for five years. She sleeps with his best friend and they all meet up at the family cottage for one weekend to work it out. The guys are both writers. Tons of “Who do you love?” and “Why did you do that?” scenarios ensue, but the writing and acting is good enough to make you care… enough. Plus David Burman from Silver Jews throws a track their way, so you know, it’s cool.