Vito Rocco | 88 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | UK / English | 12
Apparently MySpace had some hand in the creation of this movie. Remember MySpace? It’s what there was before Facebook. It was always rubbish, it just took a lot of people a long time to realise that. Anyway, some reviews seem to dwell on its involvement in the production of this movie — whole articles exist asking if it’s just a gimmick — but, looking at it as a finished film, I don’t know why: if you didn’t know (and, to be frank, even if you do) you’d never tell the end product had anything to do with that antiquated social network.
Faintheart isn’t about social networking… at least, not in any modern sense. It’s about battle re-enacters; or rather, it’s a Brit-rom-com that uses battle re-enacters as its USP. “Brit-rom-com” should give you a fair idea of the territory we’re in, although this has a geekier edge than most, which plays to the sensibilities of someone like me. One character owns a comic book store, for instance. It doesn’t play an overt part in the plot, but battle re-enacting stands in for any kind of niche pursuit. And it does make for a better-than-average climax. Swords always do.
Most of the cast is drawn from the pool marked “British character actors” — you may or may not know the names, but you’ll probably know most of the faces. The lead is Eddie Marsan (Lestrade in Sherlock Holmes and A Game of Shadows; all sorts of other stuff, too much to even begin mentioning), his wife is Jessica Hynes (Spaced; all sorts), Ewen Bremner is his mate (Trainspotting; all sorts), Tim Healy (Auf Wiedersehen, Pet; all sorts), Anne Reid (dinnerladies; all sorts), Kevin Eldon (all sorts)… You may see a theme developing. And there are others, but they had even fewer things they were known for, or I didn’t recognise their names on the IMDb cast list.
Anyway.
Faintheart isn’t exceptional. Apparently it didn’t even get a theatrical release (though I remember someone coming on some chat show to promote it). Even if it was crowd-created through MySpace, that hasn’t made it something especially different, nor too stereotypical that it’s ruined. It’s not likely to be remembered in the never-ending pantheon of Brit-rom-coms, but for one with a slightly different edge I think it deserves better than it’s got.
(I originally gave it four stars. Looking back, that felt generous. For once, I tweaked it. Guess I ought to go fiddle with my stats now…)
RED here stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”, a description bestowed by the CIA on a group of former agents who, for reasons I won’t go into — because, quite frankly, I can’t remember — fight back against the Agency when someone starts trying to kill them.
Naturally, considering the theme, the cast is made up of older actors — a neat twist on the usual action movie format of making people younger and younger. Expect this to spread, especially as anyone that could still just about be dubbed a movie star is ageing, replaced only by flash-in-the-pan teen idols. They’re all great because they’re all great actors. Well, Bruce Willis isn’t a Great Actor like Helen Mirren or Morgan Freeman, but he can do an action movie and he can do humour well enough. John Malkovich is as barmy as he always is, but here it works. Sometimes things just line up like that. Karl Urban also gives another solid supporting turn. I’m sure he’s had a few lead roles at this point, but maybe this autumn’s 
As a final salvo in my fifth birthday celebration (yes, normal service resumes next week), here’s something I was 
Léon is one of my favourite films. I’ve loved it since a friend lent me the VHS at some point in secondary school. And that’s why, though the extended Version Intégrale was different enough to merit inclusion on the main list (it’s some 23 minutes (21%) longer), I would feel uncomfortable including it in a list culled from new films I’ve seen in the past five years. But it’s still one of my all-time favourites.
After a couple of decades, Ridley Scott was finally able to realise his ideal Blade Runner. Some prefer the 1992 Director’s Cut; some even like the largely-ignored original release; but, unlike his 
because I found 
And I didn’t really get either of them. I don’t think they’re bad films, but I struggled to get what they were for (especially the latter), and I certainly didn’t like or enjoy either. You don’t have to like a film for it to be great, but these two… Maybe I need to take the time to re-evaluate them, but I’ve already seen No Country two or three times and I’m not sure I can face it again.
Despite being on the IMDb Top 250 when some of my other choices aren’t (
Congratulations, you have the good taste to be reading this post on my snazzy new blog (though I do still love 
As 
Winnie the Pooh, as many reviews on its release were keen to point out, is for small children. It doesn’t have the attempts to placate adults with their own jokes that elevate/plague most American animation; it’s only an attention-span-friendly hour long; and it has a lovely, genial, friendly tone, with brightly coloured characters, plinky-plonky songs and heartwarming moral messages.
The majority of the film’s other elements click into place nicely too. The traditional animation is gorgeously executed, the voices are the ones we surely all know from growing up alongside Disney’s Pooh output, particularly Jim Cummings pulling double time as both Pooh and Tigger, as he has for decades. The exception I’d make is Bud Luckey’s Eeyore. I don’t know if he’s always sounded like that and I’d forgotten, but his voice didn’t work for me. It’s not the only problem: the songs can be a bit insipid; equally, a couple transcend that to work beautifully; and there’s no denying that it is a bit short; but then it doesn’t outstay its welcome, and hey, 
