In the fictional world, there’s no place for Karma. Wishing a grizzly end on an antagonist is all part of the cinematic experience.

So it was with glee that I observed the rise and fall of independent filmmaker, Tory Duffy – the evil emperor of Overnight. One small issue though: Overnight is a documentary and Duffy is a real person – well just about.

Troy Duffy : What a Lovely Fellow

Troy Duffy is the guy you love to hate. His personality is more impressing than a steroid enhanced chicken, his moral compass more erratic than an ice-hockey player wearing slippers.

Duffy is on the cusp of success, having just sold his script to Miramax fat cat, Harvey Weinstein. Convinced of his status as the ‘second coming’, Duffy enlists friends Mark Brian Smith and Tony Montana to document his accession to Hollywood heaven.

As Duffy’s dreams crumble faster than a biscuit in a washing machine, the co-directors stick around to document his humiliation. You can hardly blame them either. Convinced of his invincible talent and power, Duffy’s out-of-control ego quickly turns to a barrage of vicious assaults on his unsuspecting friends.

Duffy displays blatant disregard for anyone with a pulse – anyone, that is, apart from himself. The wannabe filmmaker points the finger faster than an out-of-control marksman, taking down his friends with a visceral aplomb not seen since the invasion of Poland. Like all egocentric nut jubs, Duffy offloads responsibility for his shortcomings on those around him.

What starts out as a document of success, fast becomes an anti-fable on how not to make it in Hollywood. Heralded as the new Quentin Tarantino, Duffy’s 15 minutes of fame evaporate faster than the contents of an ice-cream van in a heat wave.

Hollywood Horror Story

While Overnight is amateurish at times in its composition, the central story is compelling enough to make this a must-watch movie. If you enjoy paying witness to someone wriggle like a sausage in trouser press, then Overnight is for you.

And frankly, failure couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Could this be the antidote to my woes I ask?

Detaching myself from the couch I wobble over and lay claim to the new arrival. What could it be?

Like Charlie Bucket discovering the golden ticket, I peel back the envelope with nervous angst. Pulling the disc partially from its jacket the title comes into view – it reads, Gamer.

Ok I say, it’s not going to be Citizen Kane, but maybe some mindless fun is just what the doctor ordered.

Let me tell you, I’ll never self medicate again!

Bad Medicine…

300’s Gerard Butler stars as Kable in a near-future dystopia controlled by online gamers. Kable racks up an endless body count as he crusades through online environments in a bid to regain his independence.

Sound familiar?

It should do! Directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor brazenly draw from a raft of films including The Matrix, Rollerball, The Running Man, The Condemned, Battle Royale and more recently, Paul Anderson’s 2008 Death Race.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind…

Let me make a quick admission: I rather enjoyed the adrenaline-fuelled Crank. Here Neveldine and Taylor successfully delivered a tongue-in-cheek parody of the modern-day action flick which at times displayed genuine visual invention.

So what happened with Lamer…I mean Gamer?

I’ll tell you what….

Neveldine and Brian pummel the viewer into submission with a barrage of stylistic devices that induce bewilderment rather than excitement.

Non-stop shaky cam, frenetic cuts, and bizarre interludes undermine any dramatic tension between the characters and subsequently you never feel the invulnerable Kable is in any real danger.

What results is action scene after action scene that play out like Transformers with blood – its almost impossible to tell what’s going on.

It’s long been an irritation to me how filmmakers continue to misappropriate the handheld camera. Surely this cinematographic technique of dispensing with stable images marks a calculated attempt to convey realism – think of Saving Private Ryan, the Bourne films and United 93.

So why the dastardly duo embrace handheld like a bull in a china shop is beyond me.

It doesn’t matter how much you shake that cam boys, you’re not going to paper over the thin plot and ineffective characters

High Concept…?

As is often the case with high-concept films, Gamer’s basic premise wears thin around five seconds in. Displaying the grace of an elephant at a mouse zoo, the film tramples all over the basic ingredients of successful action films. Where’s the emotion, snappy one-liners, explosive/fun action, characters you care about and want to succeed?

Its not rocket science, its simple mathematics!

As a result Gamer resides light-years away from high-concept classics such as Alien, Jaws, and Predator, instead plummeting into the pit of despair with Snakes on a Plane and Godzilla for companions.

Big, brash, and nonsensical at times, the only thing Gamer will cure is insomnia; so proceed with caution, especially if you’re driving.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars – available on Blu-ray and DVD

The movie is aptly titled given that things are never quite what they seem. And like the two central characters – played with aplomb by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts – the audience is constantly kept on its feet in a world of double-crosses.

As good as Clayton? Nah. Better than Transformers 2? Does the Pope like biscuits?

Everybody does…

In a nutshell Gilroy shifts the action from the seedy legal underbelly of Michael Clayton to the slimy world of corporate espionage.

But unlike the ruthless depiction of America’s legal elite in Clayton, Gilroy adopts a more playful approach with Duplicity.

Sure, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of corporate America, but Duplicity throws out more one-liners than a cracked-up Scrabble player.

Roberts and Owen revel in their roles as corporate operatives who join forces to pull off the biggest heist of their careers. Tension ensues as the ultimate game of cat-and-mouse descends into one double cross after another.

And the slick dialogue – which at times resembles verbal tennis – meshes well with a plot full of twists and turns.

Looks and brains…?

Duplicity opens with a gloriously unusual slow motion fight between corporate tycoons Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson. Stylistically it bears no resemblence to the slick cinematography that follows. But as a set piece I found this daringly unusual intro genuinely funny.

The 24-esque split screen interludes were less appealing but nonetheless served to underscore the movie’s spy-like credentials.

At a running time of 125 minutes, Duplicity loses some of its sizzle in the third act as the intricate plot unravels, but the anticlimactic pay-off is worth it. At least, I thought so.

I’m a big fan of film noir and would cite classics such as The Big Sleep and Chinatown among my all time favourites.

And while Duplicity fails to reach the creative heights of such masterpieces, it oozes dialogue capable of rivalling landmark films.

Sleek, sexy, and smart…. and I’m not just talking about Julia Roberts.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – available on Blu-ray and DVD

Okay, let’s cut to the chase: there are two ways of viewing Sam Mendes’ Away We Go. Fans laud it as a heartfelt film that gracefully traces the journey of an expectant couple. Detractors are less forgiving. ‘Self-indulgent cheese-fest’ is one description thrown around. Where you stand will depend wholly on personal taste. For me, I’m going with the cheese.

Don’t get me wrong, the film is not without its moments and I have nothing against cheese. Academy Award winner Mendes does present an interesting meditation on domesticity in wonderfully visual fashion.

But even the lush cinematography failed to stop a self-conscious stream of quirkiness rearing its ugly head every other minute. It was so uncomfortable that at times I had little choice but to shield my eyes with a nearby cushion – an evasive measure last employed during Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist!

I was scared…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning Mendes’ intentions. Clearly he set out to convey an honest exposé of the difficulties facing first-time parents.

And to some extent he achieves this.

The expectant couple – played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph – trek America in search of the perfect place to call home. On their travels they encounter a raft of….you guessed it…..quirky people and are left to contemplate their own parental skills.

Throughout their travels the film espouses the notion that even the most carefully devised plan can’t account for the challenges life throws in the way; so have a little faith, love those around you and do the best you can.

Okay, fair enough, I’ll buy that.

But this hippyism is frequently overshadowed by the selfish demeanour of every character – with the exception of the two central players.

What results is a litany of heavy-handed messages stamped all over a movie not quite sure of its own identity.

Mendes could of course be caught in the throes of some meta-musing on the pervasive uncertainty swamping the minds of America’s parents – hmmm, maybe…maybe not.

Either way, it’s confusing.

Speaking of confusing…

You know, it’s the little things in life that bother me. Just those details and facts that, however irrelevant, need answering. It’ll come as no surprise then that I’ve spent a number of years speculating as to the exact temperature at which bread should be considered toast. And having watched Away We Go, I’m faced with a similar dilemma: when does quirky become sickly? Is there a means to measure the cheese-density of a movie?

To put my misgivings about Away We Go aside for one moment, I have to credit Mendes as a talented director. Having enjoyed American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead, as well as Revolutionary Road, I have no plans to boycott his future output. In fact, I remain excited by the prospect of a character-driven director taking over the reins of the Bond franchise (Away We Go would have benefited from guns, gadgets, and evil Persian cats).

Mendes’ offering sets sail among the raft of contemplative dramedies produced by the American filmmaking machine over the past decade. Away We Go does, for example, exhibit similar sensibilities to Little Miss Sunshine. But unlike its predecessor which just stayed on the right side of quirky, Away We Go delivers like an over-excited fondue fountain.

So if be advised: if you watch this movie wear a raincoat and stand well back…

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars – available on Blu-ray and DVD

Every couple of years or so a film comes along capable of turning the most ardent arm-chair viewer into a temp cinema-goer. Avatar is one such film. Scores of people continue to brave the harsh winter in a bid to catch a glimpse of this year’s ‘Event’ movie.

“If you haven’t already seen it, you’ve got to” – at least that seems to be the general consensus of the movie-going public.

And the numbers don’t lie. Since storming into cinemas late last year, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic has become the largest grossing film of all time – sinking the director’s own world-box office record set by Titanic.

Things can’t be bad for the self-proclaimed “king of the world”.

Is it worth a watch…?

In a nutshell: definitely. Like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, Cameron manages to usher in a new age of special effects. As with its predecessors, it’s hard not to be blown away by the detail and depth of imagery on display. To this extent, Cameron surpasses the dubious post-film buzz, and delivers above and beyond expectations.

The plot and characterisation, on the other hand, is a whole different story.

We are thrown into the world of Pandora through the eyes of Jake Sully, a former Marine restricted to a wheelchair. The planet, which rests light years from Earth, is consumed by an atmosphere toxic to humans. This is where the Avatar Program comes in. Our reluctant hero, Sully, plugs into a machine that links his consciousness to an avatar – a remotely-controlled biological body blending human DNA with DNA from Pandora’s indigenous, the Na’vi.

Given the complexities of convincingly rendering such imagery on the screen, it’s no surprise Cameron waited 15 years before executing his pet-project.

And watching Avatar, 3-D glasses glued to my face, I can say the results – for the most part – were worth the wait.

The photorealistic CGI technology seamlessly brings the Na’vi to life in a world so full of texture that at times it threatens to drip off the screen straight into your popcorn. And while I remain sceptical about the ability of 3-D to “save” cinema, Cameron’s rendering of the technology is a delight. Rather than promiscuously splashing it all over the screen, the director opts for the ‘less is more’ approach – a move allowing the fourth wall to remain intact.

Style over substance…?

The ‘style over substance’ question is one that I found myself asking about halfway through its 162 minute runtime. Once the initial shock and awe of the visuals had subsided, I felt sort of the same way as when I watched 2012 earlier in the year. The creaking screenplay and thinly drawn characters quickly floated to the surface.

Now I’ve long been a believer that special effects should first and foremost serve the progression of plot and character. Even the granddaddy of CGI George Lucas agrees with this thesis – which fails to explain why he embraced style over substance in the most recent instalments of the Star Wars saga.

But Avatar is a rare cinematic case that should be viewed as an experiment in the visual. Cameron’s attention is clearly focused first and foremost on furthering the technological tools of the cinematic and producing a visual opera of epic proportions.

To put it in the same cannon as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey would be remiss. The two movies are worlds apart in terms of their mastery, Kubrick’s magnum opus operating gracefully on both a visual and intellectual level. But where Avatar lacks 2001’s mind-bending pretence, it successfully creates a world which in itself is filled with profundity. The attention to detail is such that it all but renders the clunky and repetitive dialogue irrelevant.

And despite a lack of originality in the storyline and the tired reluctant hero device, Cameron displays brains as well as brawn. He subtly builds in a strong Green and anti-war message, as well as inventing a new language, Na’vi, adding to the film’s authenticity.

A cultural milestone…?

Say what you will about Avatar, but Cameron’s brainchild unquestionably raises the bar five-fold for any CGI/3-D films that follow. Avatar has planted its hefty feet in the cinematic landscape and will surely be looked back on as a turning point in the filmic revolution. Talk is already sounding round the back-lots of Hollywood studios concerning the ability of this new motion capture techonology in bringing, for example, James Dean back to the screen or making Alec Baldwin look thin again.

Flawed, but fantastic in all its grandeur, Avatar invites you to step into the world of Pandora; the only question is: will you want to leave?

Official Avatar Movie