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This weekend there are six new films out for you to choose from: offbeat comedy in Accidental Love, horror in Cute Little Buggers, mystery in Mr Holmes, more comedy in Legacy, possible comedy in Entourage, and tedious romance in The Longest Ride.
Accidental Love stars Jessica Biel as small town waitress Alice, who accidentally gets a nail lodged in her head, which causes unpredictable behaviour, leading her to Washington DC. Sparks fly when she meets a clueless young senator who takes up her cause – but what happens when love interferes with what you stand for?
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Senator Howard Birdwell, plus James Marsden, Paul Reubens, Catherine Keener, Kirstie Alley and James Brolin, the title is appalling, but get past that and we have a very intriguing idea, here. Not sure if I give a damn who she might end up with, though.
The only downside is that it’s being ignored by the chainstore cinemas like the Odeon, so it looks like it’ll be one where I have to wait for the Blu-ray. But if you can find it then it’s a…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Cute Little Buggers comes from Tony Jopia, the director of Deadtime and Crying Wolf. Will you let them take our women? It’s Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz set in the English countryside. When hostile aliens crash land on local farmland the villagers at the summer ball get suspicious when young women start going missing. The villagers soon band together around our hero Melchoir to fend off the invaders and bring back peace to the sleepy English countryside! B-movie laughs in this creature feature.
Well, that’s the sales pitch, and in a cast that includes Hammer Horror legend Caroline Munro, and as well as the fact this movie looks bloody (literally) hilarious, this film is a…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Mr Holmes is set in 1947, and follows Ian McKellen as a long-retired Holmes living in a Sussex village with his housekeeper and rising detective son. But then he finds himself haunted by an unsolved 50-year old case. Holmes’ memory isn’t what it used to be, so he only remembers fragments of the case: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.
The film also stars Milo Parker, Laura Linney, Hattie Morahan, and is directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey, Gods and Monsters) from a script by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the novel, A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Legacy
What do you do when the party of the year kicks you to the curb? Simple… create your own! When Sean (Franz Drameh – Attack the Block) and his friends are refused entry to the night of their year, they embark on a mission to stage a monster event, whilst at the same time taking down the opposition.
Looking like a decent comedy, and also starring Amy Tyger, co-produced by Doctor Who’s Noel Clarke, and featuring a number of great floor fillers from the likes of Rudimental and Example, this is a definite…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Entourage is the film version of the sitcom of the same name where suddenly-risen film star Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier), a ‘jeune premier’ of humble origins, learns the ropes of the business and the the high-profile world of the wealthy happy few in and around Hollywood, but not alone: he brings from his native New York his atypical ‘entourage’ (hence the title), not glitterati or professionals but a close circle of friends since childhood, and his professional agent finds they often make his job harder as the Queens boys not only sponge on the star but also have his ear, so Vince is much harder to counsel.
Vince chooses his friend from home Eric as his manager, and LA professional Ari Gold as his agent. Over the course of the Series, they progress from kids from Queens, to actors, to producers and chase the funding and support to try to make the perfect movie for Vincent.
And in this film, Vince Chase and his cronies finally take on Hollywood.
Entourage also stars Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Jeremy Piven, Alice Eve, Haley Joel Osment, Ronda Rousey, Billy Bob Thornton, Jeremy Piven, Gary Busey, Debi Mazar, plus Mark Wahlberg as himself, and I never saw the sitcom, but the trailer looks amusing enough. On balance…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Longest Ride tells the tale of a star-crossed love affair between Luke (Scott Eastwood), a former champion bull rider looking to make a comeback, and Sophia (Britt Robertson), a college student who is about to embark upon her dream job in New York City’s art world. As conflicting paths and ideals test their relationship, Sophia and Luke make an unexpected and fateful connection with Ira, whose memories of his own decades-long romance with his beloved wife deeply inspire the young couple.
In practice, this looks like a syrupy-sweet pile of tosh for teenage girls to weep over on Valentine’s Day, but it wasn’t released over here until April 8th, but in any event, 20th Century Fox have missed the important boat, although it would’ve been overshadowed by Fifty Shades of Grey anyway.
Also caught up in this mess are Jack Huston, Melissa Benoist, Alan Alda, Lolita Davidovich, Peter Jurasik and Oona Chaplin, who was most recently seen in Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror: White Christmas.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.