SUNNY GREWAL’S SEPTEMBER FILM WATCH

September 22 2014

Sunny (above left) and his wife (Sunny and Shay) are on BBC West Midlands 95.6FM between 2-4pm, every Monday to Thursday. Be sure to listen in. It’s here.
You can continue to hear the couple on their signature BBCLondon94.9FM show every Sunday between 6pm-8pm. It’s here.

*The couple are also compering the British Asian Music Awards, which take place on October 4 at the NIS in Birmingham.

HEY, WELCOME to movie watch for the month of September – these are some of the films I am excited about this month.

“The BoxTrolls”. This is a children’s animation movie and the trailer looks really exciting. I am into animation in a big way, so therefore it’s something I am really excited about. The trailer is very entertaining, there’s stock animation, and bit of computer generated imagery, and I am big fan of all this stuff, it’s definitely something worth looking out for. It looks really amazing.
Trailer Rating: 5 Boxes…(out of five)

“The Equalizer” – It is the remake of a TV series I was a big fan of…which starred Edward Woodward, and now it’s been made into a movie starring one of my favourite actors, Denzel Washington. I can’t see him do anything wrong in my eyes and the trailer looks amazing. How good is the film going to be? The trailer gives a lot of the story away, so when I go to watch the movie, there’s not going to be much left for me to surprised about. The trailer has brought me to the movie to a certain extent already, but that does not mean I am not going to see it.
Rating: 2 stars

“A Walk Among the Tombstones” is a thriller based on a best-selling novel, starring Liam Neeson. From the trailer, you can get straightaway – it’s quite gripping, it’s almost like a ‘who done it’ . Neeson is doing another version of “Taken” (2008). I think it’s engaging – from the trailer and I am really intrigued.
Rating: 4 books (Because it’s from one)

That’s it, for the films to see this month.

Now what I saw last month (and previewed here).

“Inbetweeners2” Like I said last month, if you’re not a big fan of the “Inbetweeners” you might not understand or like the humour. I suggested you should see the first film or the box sets from the TV series, which are available ‘on demand’. For me, unfortunately it wasn’t amazing. I think it’s overplayed – there’s no gut-spilling laughter – it’s that kind of uncomfortable scenario we are used to from “The Office”, a kind of embarrassing humour, it’s funny, but I think it’s not something I came out of from feeling entertained. There are some cringeworthy moments – with the poo humour – and all that kind of stuff, it is gross. How far can you make it go? What will you do next? It’s not brilliant.
Rating: 2 stars (Well poos, no, ed: let’s keep it to stars)

“The Expendables3” – it’s not what I expected it to be. It’s Sylvester Stallone and the whole premise of these films is that he gets a group of old men who get together and they kick ass. Straightaway in this movie, he disbands them and looks for a younger crew. What is the point of all that? All the stars in you see in the poster, you think they are going to be there and have one-liners – there’s not a lot of that. The only thing that really stands out, head and shoulders above the rest, is the villain, played by Mel Gibson.
One particular scene in the car, where he starts explaining why he is who he is, and the way he is – it is just one of the best moments in the movie and it shows just how brilliant Mel Gibson is as an actor – you can just see him shining through the movie, it’s really very good. Tony Banderas is annoying – I liked him in “Desperado” (1995). I don’t know what they were thinking about that character. Daft.
If this film had a bit more time to develop the characters and breathe, it would be much better. It is a PG certificate, but I think it was shot as a full 18-rated movie, you can see patches of CGI (computer generated imagery), trying to cover up and you can’t see the blood – where you’re supposed to have blood, you have dust flying around, it looks ridiculous. The reason I liked this movie in the first place is because they were going back to the 1980s, full out blood and guts, so much hardcore and fun.
It let me down. If it is going to come back, make it a 18-rated movie and have more of the old guys doing their stunts – leave the newbies to be in B rated movies, which is where this is headed, but Mel Gibson gets 5/5 – I would watch it just again for Mel Gibson and he is the best thing about this movie.
Rating: 1 skull.

“Lucy” – Scarlett Johannson has an amazing role in this movie – we start by seeing her as a ditzy blonde, really shaken up and she has to take this package to this hotel where this villain is – he is this ruthless Chinese mafia figure and she has to carry these drugs across the Atlantic to the US. If the drugs gets into your bloodstream, which it does in her case, it gives your brain a 100 per cent boost and makes your brain work at another level. As a result she can control everything around her and herself.
Another version of this is in “Limitless” (2011) with Bradley Cooper (and Robert De Niro), there’s a bit of the premise in this film and similar to Morgan Freeman in his role in “Transcendence” (2014), the Johnny Depp movie. It had elements of those movies. “Lucy” had some good action sequences, it generally held my attention to the best of its ability, I walked out of there thinking, it’s fine, it’s okay, not brilliant. You can wait for it to come out on Sky.
Rating: 2 brain cells.

“Million Dollar Arm” I said a lot about this movie last time and this is my final verdict.
Rating: 4 baseballs

“Let’s Be Cops”, is basically about two guys living in Los Angeles, not really getting anywhere in life and a just a bit pissed off with the whole system. They decide to go to a fancy dress party kitted out as cops. Really good premise, but it falls flat on its face. There was not one moment in this movie where I was laughing and thinking OMG, that’s hilarious, this is amazing.
The trailer is amazing, you can see their authority, when this kid is on the skateboard and they say ‘stop’ and he falls off. That’s when they show their powers and do that a couple of times early on when they have the uniform on. The pacing of the movie is not all there, the jokes aren’t amazing, and I think if someone could write this movie again and take a bit more time, it would be brilliant. It just didn’t hold together – it was that bad.
Rating: ½ a uniform.

That’s it.

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Do tell me what you think of the films I’ve talked about here on ACV.

See you all next month. God Bless.