Trumbo

It's not often that Hollywood explores the darker side of it's past. There's films like The Player and Bowfinger, but they're comedies satirising, rather than narrating. This is a biopic of Dalton Trumbo, played by Bryan Cranston, a screen writer who was blacklisted in the late forties for being a communist, but who continued to work under pseudonoms for B-Movie studios, eventually earning two Oscars for Roman Holiday and The Brave One. He finally recieved credit for Spartacus, breaking the blacklist and allowing him to work again under his own name.

A brilliant film, well acted by Cranston and an excellent supporting cast including Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper, the gossip columnist and anti-communist, and Diane Lane as his wife Cleo. Recommended.

RED 2 - Getting the Band Back Together

The first film of the new year is the sequel to the comedy\thriller adaption of local hero Warren Ellis' comic book. Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is trying to settle down with his new girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), but his former life intrudes in the form of a mad scientist (Anthony Hopkins) and a foxy counter-intelligence agent (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

While not quite as good as the original film, this is an entertaining two hours with lots of bangs and crashes. Willis plays to his strengths; Parker is her usual sparky self, especially when confronted with Zeta-Jones as Frank's former flame; the supporting cast is good, with Mirren and Cox enjoying themselves again, John Malkovich typecasting and Hopkins trying not to be Hanibal Lecter. Byung-hun Lee is also good as Frank's supposed nemesis, and Neal McDonough takes a break from Mob City to be a ruthless government agent. The plot lacks a little substance and the dialog could have done with sharpening, but, as sequels go, it isn't nearly as bad as the Expandables 2.

McDonough is also in The Prototype, a thriller based on the notion of the singularity, a concept talked about by the London Futurists quite a bit.

Looks like fun!