The Good, The Bad and The Stagey

Sorcerer, is a remake of the French classic The Wages of Fear by director William Friedkin. It's a brave effort at updating the story but despite some good acting and a modest script it fails in matching the tension of the original. Roy Schieder stars as one of the desperate men willing to transport unstable dynamite into the hills and puts in a strong performance throughout, it's beautifully shot with some stunning vistas of the Domincan Rep. but sadly it just isn't capable of emerging from underneath it's illustrious predecessor. The Tangerine Dream soundtrack was pretty awful too.

Year One is awful, a really dumb, unfunny film with a couple of shitty lazy performances from Jack Black and Michael Cera. Guess it sounded a good idea on paper because even though it's got a bevy of cameos from actually funny people and it's willing to really plunge the depths for it's comedy it's one of the weakest films I've seen in a while. I'd avoid it.

And I finally got round to watching Deathtrap by Sidney Lumet. It's a twisty murder mystery based on a play by Ira Lewin and is well worth your time. There's two great performances by Caine & Reeve and one awful one by Dyan Cannon but it's a very entertaining film nonetheless. It's a tale about a failing playwright who decides to kill for his next big hit, it's chock full of witty lines and rips along at a fair pace. Only a few more Lumet's left, boo.