Best Sellers

Rated: MBest Sellers

Directed by: Lina Roessler

Written by: Anthony Grieco

Director of Photography: Claudine Sauvé

Editor: Arthur Tarnowski

Produced by: Jonathan Vanger, Pierre Even, Cassian Elwes, Arielle Elwes, Wayne Marc Godfrey

Executive Produced by: Petr Jakl, Martin J Barab

Starring: Sir Michael Caine, Aubrey Plaza, Scott Speedman and Rachel Spence.

Best Sellers is a film about a crotchety recluse writer (he has, ‘Piss off’ taped to his front door), and a failing publisher, Lucy Skinner (Aubrey Plaza).

Lucy’s boutique publishing house is about to go under if she doesn’t find a relevant writer fast.

Enter, Harris Shaw (Sir Michael Caine).

The introduction of Harris Shaw, follows his ginger cat as it makes its way into his study to find him coughing and typing.   The phone rings, ‘He’s dead.  Bugger off,’ he says.

Harris is the classic Johnny Walker, Black Label, cigar smoking recluse writer Sir Michael Caine was made for.

Swipe to classical music: the city, a clean office and publisher Lucy Skinner getting the latest review of her recent Young Adult publication being read by side kick and assistant, Rachel Spence (Elle Wong).  It’s bad.

She needs a writer that will save the publishing house.

She needs Harris Shaw.

He could be dead,’ says Rachel.

Owing the publishing house a manuscript, on the proviso there’s no editing as long as he agrees to go on a book tour, Harris and Lucy set off in Shaw’s green Jag where he starts trending after introducing his book by reading an excerpt from Penthouse.

His favourite way to describe the book tour: ‘It’s all bullshite.’

‘Bullshite’ becomes a hash tag.

And of course the publisher and writer don’t get along, but along the journey bond while Lucy vomits in the toilet.

I like crotchety characters and movies about writers, so I enjoyed the banter between, ‘Silver spoon’ Lucy and, ‘It’s all Bullshite,’ Harris Shaw.

There’s tension and obstacles to overcome, getting to the heart of this abrasive yet brilliant man that got me cheering and quietly chuckling as Shaw declares his hatred for critics – it really does suck to be a critic sometimes.

But I have to say (speaking of being a critic) the soundtrack with that 70s jangle of music to try to lift the film into old-man-cheek, cheapened the sentiment.  Shaw’s like a Hemingway character with his ginger cat and cigar smoking from his mouth while typing the next, Best Seller.  The character deserved something more deliberate.  More… blunt.  Not, dandy grandfather music.

So there’s discord between the thoughtful and funny script writing from Anthony Grieco and the underlying tone built by the soundtrack.

The script includes snippets of poignant sentences like, ‘Art is not propaganda.  It’s an expression of truth,’ giving the usual drama of, I’m-here-because-this-happened, a little more.

So when the character asks the question, ‘Who put a collar on you?’  Dandy guitars aren’t going to reflect the truth of the character.

Best Sellers is a good movie.  Could be been a great movie.

Child’s Play

Rated: MA15+Child's Play

Directed by: Lars Klevberg

Screenplay by: Tyler Burton Smith

Produced by: Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg

Executive Producer: Chris Ferguson

Starring: Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry and Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky.

‘Are we having fun yet?’

‘I guess.’

‘Yay!’

Child’s Play (1988) is a classic horror movie I remember watching when I was about twelve-years old.

I remember it was about a doll and it was scary; and I remember cringing and trying to get to sleep after seeing feet hanging out the end of a bed getting sliced by a knife.

So, I knew I was waking into a movie about a killer doll. But was somehow surprised by the horror, meaty horror at that, where the writing and the performance of single mom Karen (Aubrey Plaza) and son Andy (Gabriel Bateman) suspended reality enough to get a decent scare going when this life-like Buddi doll, doesn’t get possessed or start off being evil, but becomes a serial killer by mimicking what people do; by doing what he thinks his best buddy Andy wants him to do.

Afterall, he is a Buddi doll.

Chucky would do anything for his best mate.  Including ripping the skin off faces, hanging people, stabbing and setting up angle grinders to saw pesky people in half.

Child’s Play re-imagined manages to give a classic horror, but somewhat hard to swallow concept, a believable hook.

Here, we have ‘Chucky 2.0’ based on the technology of today – where electronics are interconnected, wireless and activated by voice command.

So all we have to believe is that Chucky is an animated doll capable of responding to commands like Siri or Alexa.

Sure there were contrived moments like a person with broken legs, bones broken through skin, still able to crawl rather than writhing in agony; and rope around a neck suddenly loosened when a body falls to the ground.  But it still kind of hung together.

And that had a lot to do with the tone of the film, director Lars Klevberg balancing the gore and horror with some dark humour that really hit the mark, like the question of why is there fruit involved?!

Just think watermelons being a similar shape to a decapitated head.

Yep, Child’s Play is gory and funny with Mark Hamill voicing the evil doll that is Chucky, surprisingly effective on so many levels – childhood, Star Wars, evil doll.  Why not?  If the voice fits.

There’s enough essence of Chucky-the-original to keep fans happy, while the fresh take lifts the original concept somewhere the audience can laugh with and not at – a close call for me at the beginning of the film, saved by the wry performance of Aubrey Plaza and the likable Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike who lives down the hall.

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