Last night, in lieu of a social life, I saw three movies on TV. Two bad, and one very good. PAYCHECK was one of those movies that presented all these little moments of opportunity, forks in the road, where it had to choose if it wanted to be a smart movie or a dumb movie, and resolutely always chose to stick to the dumb side of the street. A real shame, because I'm a big fan of Phillip K Dick's source material, John Woo and Uma Thurman (who is lumbered with all the cheesiest lines in the script). The great Paul Giamatti is totally wasted, and as likeable as Ben Affleck is, the guy's career seems to be utterly banjaxed after a real pissy streak of mediocre movies.
CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE knew it was a spectacularly dumb movie and revelled in it. Though I'm sure everyone involved is now embarrassed by their participation in the project, I kind of admire the way the movie rejects all notions of linear storytelling in order to concentrate on being just a series of sketches aimed purely at male heterosexual fetishists. Bravo.
And finally, straight after the movie hereafter to be referred to as CA:FT, I turned it over and saw A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE (a.k.a. GIU LA TESTA, a.k.a. ONCE UPON A TIME... THE REVOLUTION, a.k.a. DUCK YOU SUCKER) a personal favourite of longstanding. I thought, Christ, there's a coincidence. I've just sat through a movie where the actor Justin Theroux essayed the worst ever Irish accent in the history of cinema. Now, I randomly flick through the channels and come across the former holder of that title, Jimmy Coburn's turn as John Mallory. The IRA man who sounded like an Australian. The difference being, DYNAMITE is a great film so you can easily overlook Coburn's dodgy accent. Theroux however, has just become an enemy of the state. Unlucky!