jpt-154-298566

In the vein of so-bad-they're-good movies like The Room and Plan 9 from Outer Space we now have this treat, available on Amazon for free. I'm glad they didn't try charging for it as it would somewhat spoil the joke. IMDb has its budget listed as exactly $1,000 and I don't doubt it. On the plus side, every penny is up there on screen.

Space Boobs from Outer Space is a collection of bizarre short films from Andrew Shearer and his Gonzorrific Productions studio. (By 'studio' I mean 'camcorder.') They are told in the format of a talk show / behind the scenes footage of the main "Space Boobs" segment which is definitely the best produced one. There's at least three different locations, and one actress is wearing a spangly space helmet. Sadly, the budget didn't stretch to ensuring that all the aliens have the same shade of purple hair. I guess they had to make do with whatever Halloween decorations they had lying around.

You'll know from the title if this movie is for you. If you like an anarchic, rule-breaking, slightly porn-like B movie vibe with busty women wobbling around in ridiculous costumes fighting vampires and aliens, then this will be right up your alley. If you thought that Three Billboards was too commercial, then please steer clear. Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

We are currently seeing a vogue for movies about famous sporting rivalries. I think this was kicked off by the excellent Senna (2010), which could have been a fact-of-the-matter biography of Senna but ended up (wisely) focusing on the rivalry between Senna and Prost, which brought an unintended emotional richness to the story. This was followed up by the almost-as-good Rush (2013) which goes back a decade to tell the story of dashing gentlemen racer James Hunt versus the cold, calculating Nikki Lauder. Now, a Swedish-led production effort is telling the story of one of the great tennis matches of all time: four-time champion Bjorn Borg versus the fiery tempered young John McEnroe at the Wimbledon men's final of 1980.

As a strange pre-note: I watched Borg vs McEnroe in a completely empty theatre. Clearly, this movie is not getting the attention it deserves. I think it definitely affected my viewing experience; I was able to completely shut off and see it my own way. Which is good, as this film has a real psychological edge.

In short, it was an excellent movie. Surprisingly so, in fact. It got to the point where I forgot I was watching a film and really seemed to be inside the heads of the two leads, right there with them, through every match, every up, every down, every argument, every triumph. This is quite the achievement for a film based in historical fact that can't take too many liberties with the story.

Within the first couple of scenes, I could tell this was going to be my kind of movie: a real character study. We see a day in the life of global heart-throb mega-star Bjorn Borg, who is beginning to tire of the trappings of fame. I noticed the filmmaking technique of filming Borg in tight, claustrophobic interiors with shadowy men in suits hanging around in the background. It suggests that his life is beyond his control, is being lived for him, and maybe he wants out ... but doesn't know how to do that. All he knows is tennis, and winning.

Enter the young and fiery John McEnroe, who is a major blip on Bjorn 'Ice'-Borg's radar. If Borg was the ABBA of tennis, McEnroe was the Sex Pistols. Known for ranting at umpires and crowds, he had whipped London's easily baited tabloid newspapers into a frenzy, they could smell blood in the water, and as McEnroe battled his way into the final with a combination of luck, talent and verve, a fairytale match (and perhaps a major upset) was being set up.

Borg is unquestionably the main character of this film. I think we get about a 70:30 time share between the title characters. This is something of a shame, as I thought that McEnroe was perhaps the more interesting character. How does a New York wiseguy from a good family and lots of opportunities end up pushing himself into becoming a tennis world No. 1? The movie never really tries to answer this question. It focuses much more on Bjorg's backstory as a trouble kid who was recruited - some might say brainwashed - into channelling all his anger into his tennis. In perhaps the movie's best scene, McEnroe makes the link between them clear, and spots that Bjorg may seem like an iceberg but really he's a volcano waiting to go off.

Shia LeBeouf was an inspired choice to play McEnroe. LeBeouf has always faced fierce criticism of his acting, his suitability for the kind of roles he wins, and has run the tabloid gamut lately with a string of bizarre stories about his life and behaviour. In scenes where McEnroe rants at the press, you feel LeBeouf is really getting something off his chest here. Also excellent is Stellan Skarsgard, who plays a tennis coach with just the right amount of highly questionable morality in pushing youngsters as hard as it takes to produce a champion.

My one criticism of the film was the cheesy title cards, which spell out explicitly what's supposed to be happening in the movie with things like "The rivalry would affect the players for the rest of their lives." Show, don't tell, is the first rule of filmmaking. However, the movie's technical excellence - the tennis sequences were utterly spellbinding - and surprising emotional heft and depth make this a wholehearted "Yes - see it" recommendation from me.

I'm writing this review in the week that Netflix's stock surged by 10% as they beat market predictions, moving away from their 'rent-a- DVD' model to concentrate on original, quality content. Normally, this one would have slipped under my radar, but I saw it was picked up by distribution by Netflix and thought: let's give it a go.

I would describe this movie as being a sort of cross between Clerks and Superbad. It's a day in the life of two low-achieving shelf stackers at a Wholesome Foods (definitely not 'Whole Foods') store somewhere in the urban sprawl of LA. Their goal is to obtain tickets for a sold out concert, and they are not short on schemes to do so: be it ripping off a drug dealer, stealing cash from their boss, counter-ripping off a ticket forging older brother, and so on.

This movie's great strength - its random, weird, unpredictable nature - is also its greatest weakness. When watching any one scene, you have no idea what is going to happen. However, it also means the film struggles to find a consistent tone. Some characters (mostly the freeloading Chris) are very wacky and cartoonish. Others, like the conflicted Chester are more maudlin, and it doesn't work very well together. The movie's best and most consistent performance is without doubt the psychotic drug dealer Jay, played by Chester Tam, who was also the movie's writer and director. Every time he's on screen, he's like a force of nature. I was strangely reminded of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, if he was a 6'5" tattooed Korean.

Oddly, the moments that worked the best were the more dramatic ones. The comedy sort of fell flat in a lot of places, probably due to the aforementioned problem of the film not really having a clear idea of how many feet it wanted to keep in reality. A scene where two guys dodge incoming bullets driving down the freeway in a battered Corvette does not play well with a scene where the same two guys have a serious and frank discussion about where their friendship and lives are going.

In summary, Take The 10 will probably play well for the late-night comedy (read: 'stoner') crowd, but never guns any higher than that. Bonus points for a cameo role from Andy Samberg ('The Lonely Island') who proves he can make just about anything funny.