Tag Archives: James Franco

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

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A wanted sharp-shooter arrives at a busy saloon. A cowboy attempts to rob a small bank. A young limbless orator travels with his ageing, opportunistic handler. An old prospector searches for a hidden gold pocket. A betrothed woman finds herself travelling alone in a wagon train. Five strangers take a carriage ride together. These six stories make up the latest offering from the Coen brothers, a straight-to-Netflix western anthology of mostly consistent quality and impeccable casting.
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Spring Breakers

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This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

For this addition of my USA Road Trip I’ll be celebrating – albeit a little tardily – that great American tradition of Spring Break as I delve into the wonderful insanity that is Florida, home state of FTS’ very own Robert, and he has informed me that it is definitively the craziest state in the whole country. Judging by this movie, I’ll have to agree. Spring Break is not a thing in the UK, or at least if it is I was never invited, and for that I’m grateful. I have a reputation for being anti-fun and especially anti-partying, and that goes double for absolutely everything that takes place in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, a film that, if I were a character in it, I’d have happily remained in the nondescript, comparatively tedious college town at the start because, as I’m frequently told, I fail at life.
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Spiderman 1 & 2

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Never has a film been more squarely aimed at the nerds and outsiders of the world (OK, maybe Revenge of the Nerds), the guys with the smarts but not the brawn, good looks, athletic bodies and hot girlfriends. Fortunately, this description neatly encapsulates the majority of the superhero genre’s existing fanbase.
Tobey Maguire is Peter Parker, the afore-mentioned science nerd with a prolonged crush on Kirsten Dunst’s girl-next-door MJ, but lacking the confidence, wealth, strength and social standing required to do anything about it. After being bitten by a radioactive spider during a class field trip, he acquires some of the spider’s abilities, including wall crawling, mild precognition, shooting webs from his wrists, a vastly improved body and the ability to dangle from the ceiling into your mouth while you sleep. In real life, spider’s shoot the webs from an aperture closer to their posterior. This would have made for a much stranger film, I feel.  Unfortunately, Parker’s transformation occurs around the same time as Parker’s lazy rich kid best friend Harry’s businessman father trials a new super serum on himself, with predictably disastrous results, transforming him into a suped-up madman, terrorising the city in the form of fan favourite villain the Green Goblin.