Shit.

The A-Team is the most recent in the long line of Hollywood movies drawing off mildly successful TV series. First going to air in 1983, The A-Team told in 48 minutes + commercials and credits, the story of some impossible situation which is solved with an overly complicated rescue performed by the four former US Army Rangers. They are of course super tough, geared up with the latest hi-spec gadgets and have plenty of covert experience. The feature is much the same. except the bad guys are a rouge Ranger General and friend of Col Hanibal Smith (Liam Neeson), a CIA black ops commander and a CIA handler.

The movies starts out before The A-Team (the A stands for Alpha) even exists. Liam Neeson is rescuing Bradley Cooper and on his way brings in Quentin ‘Rampage’ Jackson (No, that’s his real name – the character name is B.A Baracus). Later they invite Sharlto Copley to join their merry band. Let the fun begin. Old friend/mentor betrays younger leader with the aid of a hostile contemporary on the same side. Add the CIA and it’s clear that no one in Hollywood has any idea what constitutes an authentic enemy anymore. Russia is now a friend, South Africa held free elections, North Korea was held up to ridicule so spectacularly in Team America that no one has the balls to use them anymore as the bad guys and the ‘A-rabs’ just don’t hit the mark anymore while the body count in Afghanistan continues to mount. The opening scene depicts a confrontation between Neeson and Cooper, and a Mexican drug cartel boss but again they are easy targets. You will however need to know the phrase Alpha Mike Foxtrot for the conclusion to this scene to make the maximum impact.

Neeson does a very good job of hiding his Irish accent as does Copley in trading his South African accent for a Southerner.

Special effects are amazing and the director uses a nice method of explaining the plan while showing the action.

Big budget, lots of explosions, over the top finale and of course as this is the introduction of The A-Team the Hollywood ending you might expect isn’t forthcoming.

Glad I saw it, wouldn’t see it again. 6/10

Best of Green: Culture & Celebrity : TreeHugger.

The world’s largest and probably most prestigious short film festival, Tropfest is on Sunday 21st February.

As the end of summer approaches The Domain in Sydney is overtaken by thousands and thousands of short film makers, their friends, family and fans for this amazing annual event.

I was lucky enough to be asked to shoot stills for one of this years entries which has already been accepted into the Top 60. The director and producer are now waiting to hear if they made the Top 16 – these are the ones screened on the night.

It’s a spectacular event and typically very, very funny. If you haven’t been before, or haven’t been for a while, this is the year to go!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zp-LR7kz5U]

Up sees Pixar return to the former glory of Toy Story. I saw this version in the 3D format which was fun and well worth the extra $5 but by no way added anything to the story at all. It would be just as good in regular everyday normal format and on the small screen too.

Like all animation, the voices are a vital part of the movie. And perhaps for me this was the only slight downfall to Up. Ed Asner, a perennial TV actor, leads the cast as Carl. I haven’t seen Mr Asner in anything since he did a few episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the cult behind the scenes series that tried to take The West Wing plot and put it in the context of Saturday Night Live. Even here that sounds ridiculous but it worked very well for anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Network heads being network heads proved they don’t have this level of intelligence and the show was axed after one season. It was actually almost cancelled half way through but enough fans got behind the show and were able to get the network to at least wrap up all the story lines with a full season of 24 eps. (FYI The West Wing and Studio 60 were both created and in the main written by Aaron Sorkin – one of my favourite writers.)

The voice actor adds a multitude of layers to the character and a lot of those layers come from their real life persona. Up was not promoted with the usual fanfare of other animated features where the voice actors lead the way. This is typical too of most live action features as well. And for the first time it hit my that I wasn’t able to have any connection with the animated character because I didn’t know the human behind the character. Christopher Plummer lends his voice to the bad guy in a stellar performance.

I have the upmost (that’s deliberate) respect for Mr Asner and Mr Plummer and firmly believe that their and the other voice actors should have been  better utilised in the marketing of this film. For the benefit of the adult patrons – kids couldn’t care less.

Also interestingly Up features a short animated film about a stork and the clouds who create babies. For parents who have ever been faced with the question from their child, “where do babies comes from?” this excellent short answers the question beautifully.

(500) Days of Summer ain’t that great. Boy meets girl. Girl says she’s only looking for fun. Boy doesn’t listen to her so when he falls in love with her and she breaks it off he is devastated for the next 90 minutes/6months until he meets the next girl.

The movie is however shot nicely with the (500) becoming a graphic for where in the timeline the story was being presented.

Typical Hollywood focus group ending.