A decade later and he has impressed yet again, this time with the film The Wrestler.

One of the movies of the year in 2008, The Wrestler was nominated for plenty of awards, including Oscar nominations for best film, best actor and best supporting actress.

The film follows the life of Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, a professional wrestler in the 1980s.

The Rams life was full of excitement and fame in his early years, and was an A-grade celebrity in the industry.

However, by the 1990s his popularity decreases, as too does his quality of life.

Robinson still does the odd show on weekends, in front of mediocre crowds, but during the week he gets by with part time shifts at the local deli.

He is rarely recognized, and when he is it is usually at his expense.

The movie takes the viewers on a journey through the life of a superstar who has the battles of letting go of the only thing he loves so much, and the one thing that has torn apart his family.

Mickey Rourke assumes the role of Robinson and one could not find a more perfect match.

The similarities between both characters are striking, with Rourke also going through a similar experience, only in the acting world.

The Wrestler will make you laugh, and cry, in an emotional rollercoaster.

The film is now out on DVD across the nation.

The film is directed by Steve Reynolds, written and produced by Mike Jefferies, both of whom were involved in the first two Goal films.

However, unlike its two predecessors, this film was not released in the cinemas, and rather only made its debut in the DVD section of your local video store.

After the successes of the first two films, it was no surprise there were plenty of fans desperate to check out the film, and many footballing fans who also would have been excited by the release.

However, Goal 3! takes the movie to  a whole new level, for the worse.

While most fans were expecting to see further developments in the Santiago story, what they got is this footballer who incidentally does not get to play football in the movie where he is the lead, and the game is left to two new characters that nobody even knows.

A real shock, I know!

I’m not sure why they went ahead with the third movie when the lead character they were building up over two movies didn’t even get to play.

Another major let down in the film was the skill and footballing scenes. There is evidentally a lack of class, even with the likes of Rooney, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Christiano Ronaldo.

In summary, Goal 3: Taking on the World is not a release worth chasing up, and if anything you will be left disappointed by the films end.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE19Uig3Ohk

6/10

Released late last year, the comedy film was expected to smash the box office with a wave of love by fans, but it didn’t quite achieve those heights.

The strange thing about all of this is that Funny People really is a good movie.

Just like the Shawshank Redemption did, expect Funny People to become a DVD success, with people talking about it in the high regards they currently give movies like Anchorman and Napoleon Dynamite.

The movie is all about stand up comedians, in particular the famous George Simmons, played by Adam Sandler, who finds out he is dying and decides to hire a younger comedian (Seth Rogan) to be his PA until that time comes.

The two form a strong friendship and before you know it they become best friends, tearing apart the comedy world.

Eventually Simmons goes in pursuit of his long lost love that happens to be married to an Australian, ironically played by Eric Bana.

In the end controversy surrounds the plot, but comedy still remains the dominant theme.

In summary, putting three hilarious actors in the same film is often viewed as a mistake, but not in Funny People.

The latest creation from Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up) is more than funny, and offers some great tips for any wannabe stand-up comedian.

After this huge success of the Borat in 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen has returned to the movie world in style.

The success of Borat may not have been so successful as his previous films, but it does not mean it is anything short of entertaining and fun.

The movie now finds it’s way on the DVD shelves after its box office release throughout the year.

For those of you who don’t know what the comedy is all about, it entails a wannabe celebrity who travels across the globe in search of glory and fame.

Bruno is a gay fashion lover and a self-proclaimed “voice of Austrian youth TV.”

Originally conceived as part of Baron Cohen’s cult television series Da Ali G Show, the character of Bruno offered a cleverly costumed Baron Cohen the opportunity to highlight the absurdities of the fashion industry by interviewing unsuspecting fashion icons and other haute couture hangers-on.

Viewers beware, the film contains a ridiculous amount of R rated footage, included a montage of penis, an overboard amount of gay connotations, and some unethical issues, including the adoption of a black baby, fittingly named Gaybie.

Bruno is out now on DVD in numerous stores across Australia and retails for around the $30 mark.

Following up a success story like Borat was always going to be a tough task, but Bruno has done pretty well at achieving the task well.

To celebrate the release fans who purchase Hannah Montana: The Movie in stores between the 21st and the 30th of October can go in the running to win seats on the V Australia magical journey flight to Disneyland!

Teen superstar Miley Cyrus brings her wildly popular Disney Channel alter ego home to Tennessee when Hannah Montana: The Movie comes to Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD from 21 October. The first-ever full-length Hannah Montana theatrical movie is available for a limited time only in a Three-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack that includes the film in both Blu-ray and DVD formats, as well as Two-Disc and Single-Disc DVD editions. Both the Blu-ray Combo Pack and Two-Disc DVD include DisneyFile, a digital copy of the movie that can be viewed on an array of electronic devices.

When Miley Stewart’s pop star alter-ego Hannah Montana starts to get too big for her designer-cowboy boots, her father Robby-Ray Stewart, played by Miley’s real-life dad Billy-Ray Cyrus, sends her back to her hometown in Tennessee for a dose of reality. For the first time, Miley has to learn to live without the superstar Hollywood life and be happy within herself in a coming-of-age adventure filled with fun, laughter and romance even Hannah Montana couldn’t imagine. Will Miley hang up her blonde wig forever and close the curtain on her double life? 

Tyra Banks plays a Hollywood rival and Vanessa Williams as Miley’s publicist. This family movie event also includes special music performances from Taylor Swift and Rascal Flats!

Your favourite Hannah Montana cast members and some new soon-to-be favourites are all here for Hannah Montana: The Movie. Starring Miley Cyrus, Billy-Ray Cyrus and Emily Osment along with newcomer Lucas Till, Hannah Montana: The Movie is a fabulously fun and heartfelt family movie with great role models and positive messages. 

ROCKIN’ BONUS FEATURES

The Three-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack, Two-Disc and single DVD include the following bonus features:
• New Music Video
• Find Your Way Back Home – Miley, Emily, Billy Ray, and other cast members share with us “THEIR” hometowns: the people, places & things that make them special. We’ll go to a pottery class with Miley & her sister, visit their favourite ice cream shop and other haunts around the Franklin Tennessee Town Square. Billy Ray saddles up his iron horse to show viewers a firsthand account of the beauty a country town like Thompson’s Station Tennessee has to offer. But not everyone is from a small country town. Emily will show us what it’s like to grow up in the entertainment Mecca we like to call Hollywood. Perhaps it will inspire us all to find a little reason to brag of our own hailing?
• I Should Have Gone to Film School – Jason Earles is more than Miley’s big brother on TV.  He is quite the accomplished actor. Here he will put his talents to use by interviewing cast & crew and giving us a true behind the scenes look at how this movie was made. He’ll cover the fashion, the music, the stars, lights, camera…action!
• Bloopers 
• Deleted Scenes with Director Commentary  

PLUS the Three-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack includes these exclusive additional bonus features:
• The HoeDown ThrowDown Home Experience – everyone in the movie has to learn to do it, and now you can too.  Famed choreographer Jamal Sims and some of the Hannah Montana cast will show us all step by step how to do the dance everyone is talking about.
• 7 Music Videos 

AVAILABLE OPTIONS

Available from 21 October, Hannah Montana: The Movie comes in the new 3 Disc Combo Pack which allows you 3 ways to watch the movie.  
- 3-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack which includes, Blu Ray + DVD + DisneyFile Digital Copy
RRP $64.95 (Includes $115 value!)
- 2-Disc DVD Pack, which includes, DVD + Disney-first DisneyFile Digital Copy
RRP $49.95 
- 1-Disc DVD edition
RRP $39.95

• Extras were hired to play paparazzi during one scene in which Hannah Montana is making a music video in Santa Monica. Meanwhile, off screen real paparazzi were trying to capture the moment.

• Star Lucas Till’s four-legged co-star, Seabiscuit, was the horse that played the title character in the 2003 film “Seabiscuit,” a true story about a Depression-era race horse that beat the odds. 

• Director Peter Chelsom was an actor for 15 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

• Hannah Montana’s concert, which opens the film, was shot at the Forum in Inglewood, California, the former home of the Los Angeles Lakers and L.A. Kings as well as the location of hundreds of concerts. During the concert, Miley Cyrus performed a couple of her revamped biggest hits for the 1,000 extras on hand. 

• Filming in Tennessee returned the Cyruses to their own home near Nashville.

• The shoe fight sequence between Hannah Montana and Tyra Banks was filmed in two locations. The exterior was filmed on the very posh Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, while the interior was shot in a department store in Tennessee. 

• At a fundraiser in the film, Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) gets up on stage and teaches the audience the dance steps to the show-stopping “Hoedown Throwdown,” a hip-hop country fusion number in which the song’s lyrics are the dance instructions. The filmmakers nicknamed the number “Miley’s Macarena.”

• Miley/Hannah performs classic crowd favorites such as “Rockstar” and “Best of Both Worlds” in addition to unveiling 10 brand new songs including “The Climb,” “Hoedown Throwdown,” “Let’s Get Crazy,” “Butterfly Fly Away” and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.” Also performing in the film are hit musical acts Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts.

I don’t really need to point out that Repo! The Genetic Opera has an amazingly original concept. Director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, III and IV) creates a stylised setting reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s La cité des enfants perdus (fancy French way of saying City of Lost Children), Alex Proyas’s Dark City, even Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. Based on the stage play written and composed by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich, Repo is heavy with back-story. Bousman uses Tank Girlesque comic book interludes to keep the exposition from weighing down the narrative.

The actors do their best with the musical dialogue, but it is Anthony Stewart Head who really stands out. I’ve been in this guy’s corner for a while now, and not just because he battled vampires as Buffy’s mentor. He’s strong and charismatic, underrated and very underused. Whilst Repo is no Sound of Music, it does contain a few moments of greatness. When spoilt surgery addict Amber Sweet (played by a perfectly cast Paris Hilton) starts her big number in the climatic on-stage Genetic Opera, her face falls off before a booing crowd.

It should also be said that somewhere beneath all that violence and melodrama, there is a satirical warning that our society is relying more and more on cosmetic surgery. If there’s something about our physical appearance we don’t like, we can change it with one trip under the knife and… Whoa, whoa, whoa… hold on a second. Original concept, comparisons to City of Lost Children, social commentary! I’m making Repo sound like a masterpiece. It isn’t.

Lazy chorography is where Repo loses its step (puns are fun). The sleepy movement coupled with unmemorable songs keeps this from becoming the next Rocky Horror Picture Show (an obvious inspiration). There is an unparalleled lameness about Repo, but whilst it falls short of its goal, there is the nagging sense that this could have been something great. It all comes down to that old chestnut: Sometimes even with all the right ingredients things just don’t go right in the mixing bowl.
Two and a half stars.

Picture, if you can, Clint Eastwood as a snarling bitter old man, with a weathered face and a constant scowl. It’s a pretty simple image to conjure up, right? Not exactly a stretch from his previous roles, and he certainly brings forth the same acting abilities in his latest (and apparently last) performance in Gran Torino. Yet, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s almost a send off, a last hurrah to the tough guy he’s been playing on our screens for the past 50 odd years, and it works quite well.

Gran Torino follows Walt Kawalski (Eastwood) a hardcore racist war veteran, who lives in a suburban Michigan neighbourhood that was once Caucasian heavy, but now finds itself housing many Asian (Hmong to be specific) families…much to Walt’s disgust.

Walt finds it difficult to connect to his family, and with the recent death of his wife, spends most of his day alone, sitting on the front porch drinking beer or polishing his most prized possession, a 1972 Gran Torino.

All of this changes when a young Hmong teenager Thao (Vang), who happens to live next door to Walt, is pressured by his cousin – and gang leader – to steal the old man’s car. The robbery goes awry, resulting in the gang members attempting to beat up Thao, a threat which is made on Walt’s lawn…a bad mistake. Walt emerges, rifle in hand, scowling in a classic Eastwood voice “Get off my lawn”, it’s a line straight from a Dirty Harry film…if Harry were 70 years old.

I won’t describe too much of the story from here on out, as that’s delving into spoiler territory. The film continues with Walt setting out (begrudgingly at first) to help young Thao, forming a friendship with his sister Sue (Her) and their family, while all the time trying to deal with the ever increasing threat of revenge from the gang members, who feel both humiliated and betrayed by Thao.

It doesn’t take too much thought to see where the story is heading, and to understand that the themes of the movie are primarily about racism. The film has been criticised for being too obvious, but I feel as though this is a little unfair. I have been in the company (unwillingly) of people who are as bluntly racist at Walt Kawalski, and it’s comforting to see such a mainstream film confronting these issues head on.

Eastwood’s performance is on par with his best efforts, seeming to call upon the spirit of Harry Callahan a lot of the time. In fact, Gran Torino could very well play out as the final chapter in the Dirty Harry series. Granted, it’s not an ending a lot of fans would like, but it’s a realistic finale for a hard-hitting inspector who talks dirty and solves lifes problems through violence. Unlike the Harry franchise though, Gran Torino is light on action. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, as the trailers have cut together most of the action/thriller sequences. Don’t let this deter you though, as there’s a compelling and – dare I say it – heartwarming character study to be viewed here.

The direction, much like Eastwood’s previous efforts, is quite natural and flowing. Most of the shots in the film are long, allowing time for the characters to interact in a leisurely and realistic pace. Eastwood is known as a director who concentrates on performances above all else, never looking through the camera lens, but simply watching the actors play out their roles. It’s a shame then, that some of the performances from the younger Hmong actors vary in quality throughout the film. Having said that, none of them have participated in a film before, and they aren’t so bad that you feel like switching off the TV.

Gran Torino is a fitting end to the acting career of Clint Eastwood (although I’d be happy to see him back up there on the silver screen if he ever changes his mind). It’s a study of a quintessential Eastwood character – a man with a dark past who must confront his demons. It draws on performances from his previous films, yet I don’t think this is a bad thing. Ultimately, the film serves to both entertain and inform its audience, and despite some questionable acting at times from the supporting cast, there’s not too much more you can ask from a film.

3 out of 5 stars.

Theatre director Caden Cotard (Hoffman) is riding on a wave of success after his most recent production. He decides to move from working with the suburban theatre of Schenectady to tackle the bigger fish: Broadway. After being awarded a MacArthur grant, he plans to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play but finds his life veers widely off track. Determined to bury himself in his work, Caden steadily loses sight of the line between his real life and his production.

A group of bank robbers known as “The Cowboys” throw a town into shambles with one robbery after another. They soon learn of a rare emerald the size of a fist being held in a local bank. The Cowboys attempt to rob the facility, as do two other separate groups of criminals, on the same day.