Matt's Paradise Lost: So clever, so stylish...but bland stars and a lack of laughs make Damon's Elysium just another ho-hum blockbuster

By Chris Tookey

PUBLISHED: 16:07 EST, 22 August 2013 | UPDATED: 06:46 EST, 23 August 2013

Elysium (15)

Verdict: A clever disappointment

Rating:
Elysium is the new science-fiction blockbuster from Neill Blomkamp, who made the excellent District 9, not only a thinly disguised allegory about apartheid, but also a hugely entertaining action movie.

Like many of the best sci-fi offerings, Elysium is a dystopic vision of the future that exaggerates unappetising elements of the present.

In 2154, the rich have created the ultimate gated community: luxurious space station with swimming pools and mansions, an airborne Bel Air. The poor inhabit a crime-ridden, ruined Earth.

Matt Damon fails to give the film's hero much personality and the film suffers as a whole from too many ideas and not enough character

Designer Syd Mead — who did superb work on Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens — does an excellent job of imagining both words, using Mexico City as the template for a futuristic Los Angeles.

The dichotomy between rich and poor is easily the most memorable aspect of the movie. And the thing that makes us care is Blomkamp’s anger at privilege, coupled with a strong, missionary belief that healthcare should be available to all.

Matt Damon plays Max, a factory worker brought up in an orphanage. He’s committed criminal acts and has the electronic tag on his leg to prove it.

He’s dreamed of going to Elysium, but when he finds he has only five days to live the imperative to find proper health care becomes a good deal  more urgent.

He discovers a further reason to go to Elysium in the form of a little girl with leukaemia, who’s the daughter of Max’s childhood sweetheart (Alice Braga).

The trouble is that Elysium takes a bleak view of earthly visitors.

The ruthless secretary of defence (Jodie Foster) thinks nothing of blasting to oblivion any invasion of airspace, and she has at her disposal a sadistic assassin (Sharlto Copley) whose approach to immigrants is even more violent than hers.

Elysium has all the ho-hum ingredients of action blockbusters and suffers from a lack of overall fun

Elysium has passion, a strong central idea and visual flair. It’s a pity the characterisation is so thin, and the egalitarian earnestness outbalances any humour.

Damon fails to endow the hero with much personality, and not even the talented Foster and Copley can create interesting, multi-dimensional villains. 

The story suffers most of all from not being enough fun. We’re stuck on the grim Earth for an eternity.

I’d have liked more of the humour that pervades Damon’s early scene with an obnoxious robot parole officer, as well as much more detail — and criticism — of the rich people’s lifestyle.

The concept had a satirical potential that is sacrificed in pursuit of the usual ho-hum ingredients of action blockbusters: fighting and explosions.

Blomkamp has the bright idea of creating a magical machine on Elysium that cures all known human defects and illnesses.

I couldn’t help feeling he might have run his own screenplay through it and given us a better picture.

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Stars of Coronation Street face allegations of buying fake designer handbags from crew member on set

By Elle Griffiths

PUBLISHED: 11:13 EST, 25 August 2013 | UPDATED: 11:15 EST, 25 August 2013

As cast- members of a successful soap, the female stars of Coronation Street earn a good living.

And the fruits of their labour are often seen hanging off their arms in the form of designer handbags.

But the Sun on Sunday newspaper has claimed that several of the Soap's female cast-members have been involved in buying fake designer bags from a crew member.

Is it real? Michelle Keegan carries what appears to be a Chanel hand bag whilst on a night out

It is alleged that top street stars have snapped up the imitations for as little as ?40 from a female worker who brings them to the studios in Manchester.

A source told the paper: 'Its like Only Fools and Horses. Seeing top names buying them is distasteful.'

But the source did not accuse anyone in particular of indulging in the practice.

Chic or cheap? Catherine Tyldesley is a fan of designer handbags

A spokesman for ITV told the paper: 'The bags are unbranded imitations, not counterfeits, and aren't sold on work premises or during work time.'

The allegations come as the soap is dealing with a seemingly never ending string of controversy, including the suspension of several high profile stars on allegations of sex offences and the sacking of Chris Fountain for his distasteful 'rape-raps.'

Arm candy: Michelle Keegan carries another fancy bag. The allegations have not been made in connection with any star in particular

Many of the cast of Coronation Street enjoy showing off their fashion credentials, including Michelle Keegan who is often seen with her classic Chanel quilted handbag.

She has also been seen with several expensive looking totes.

Kym Marsh has also been seen with the classic Chanel bag which is believed to be one of the most imitated and counterfeited in the world.

Chanel lover: Kym also is a fan of the classic bag

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Matt's Paradise Lost: So clever, so stylish...but bland stars and a lack of laughs make Damon's Elysium just another ho-hum blockbuster

By Chris Tookey

PUBLISHED: 16:07 EST, 22 August 2013 | UPDATED: 06:46 EST, 23 August 2013

Elysium (15)

Verdict: A clever disappointment

Rating:
Elysium is the new science-fiction blockbuster from Neill Blomkamp, who made the excellent District 9, not only a thinly disguised allegory about apartheid, but also a hugely entertaining action movie.

Like many of the best sci-fi offerings, Elysium is a dystopic vision of the future that exaggerates unappetising elements of the present.

In 2154, the rich have created the ultimate gated community: luxurious space station with swimming pools and mansions, an airborne Bel Air. The poor inhabit a crime-ridden, ruined Earth.

Matt Damon fails to give the film's hero much personality and the film suffers as a whole from too many ideas and not enough character

Designer Syd Mead — who did superb work on Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens — does an excellent job of imagining both words, using Mexico City as the template for a futuristic Los Angeles.

The dichotomy between rich and poor is easily the most memorable aspect of the movie. And the thing that makes us care is Blomkamp’s anger at privilege, coupled with a strong, missionary belief that healthcare should be available to all.

Matt Damon plays Max, a factory worker brought up in an orphanage. He’s committed criminal acts and has the electronic tag on his leg to prove it.

He’s dreamed of going to Elysium, but when he finds he has only five days to live the imperative to find proper health care becomes a good deal  more urgent.

He discovers a further reason to go to Elysium in the form of a little girl with leukaemia, who’s the daughter of Max’s childhood sweetheart (Alice Braga).

The trouble is that Elysium takes a bleak view of earthly visitors.

The ruthless secretary of defence (Jodie Foster) thinks nothing of blasting to oblivion any invasion of airspace, and she has at her disposal a sadistic assassin (Sharlto Copley) whose approach to immigrants is even more violent than hers.

Elysium has all the ho-hum ingredients of action blockbusters and suffers from a lack of overall fun

Elysium has passion, a strong central idea and visual flair. It’s a pity the characterisation is so thin, and the egalitarian earnestness outbalances any humour.

Damon fails to endow the hero with much personality, and not even the talented Foster and Copley can create interesting, multi-dimensional villains. 

The story suffers most of all from not being enough fun. We’re stuck on the grim Earth for an eternity.

I’d have liked more of the humour that pervades Damon’s early scene with an obnoxious robot parole officer, as well as much more detail — and criticism — of the rich people’s lifestyle.

The concept had a satirical potential that is sacrificed in pursuit of the usual ho-hum ingredients of action blockbusters: fighting and explosions.

Blomkamp has the bright idea of creating a magical machine on Elysium that cures all known human defects and illnesses.

I couldn’t help feeling he might have run his own screenplay through it and given us a better picture.

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Stars of Coronation Street face allegations of buying fake designer handbags from crew member on set

By Elle Griffiths

PUBLISHED: 11:13 EST, 25 August 2013 | UPDATED: 11:15 EST, 25 August 2013

As cast- members of a successful soap, the female stars of Coronation Street earn a good living.

And the fruits of their labour are often seen hanging off their arms in the form of designer handbags.

But the Sun on Sunday newspaper has claimed that several of the Soap's female cast-members have been involved in buying fake designer bags from a crew member.

Is it real? Michelle Keegan carries what appears to be a Chanel hand bag whilst on a night out

It is alleged that top street stars have snapped up the imitations for as little as ?40 from a female worker who brings them to the studios in Manchester.

A source told the paper: 'Its like Only Fools and Horses. Seeing top names buying them is distasteful.'

But the source did not accuse anyone in particular of indulging in the practice.

Chic or cheap? Catherine Tyldesley is a fan of designer handbags

A spokesman for ITV told the paper: 'The bags are unbranded imitations, not counterfeits, and aren't sold on work premises or during work time.'

The allegations come as the soap is dealing with a seemingly never ending string of controversy, including the suspension of several high profile stars on allegations of sex offences and the sacking of Chris Fountain for his distasteful 'rape-raps.'

Arm candy: Michelle Keegan carries another fancy bag. The allegations have not been made in connection with any star in particular

Many of the cast of Coronation Street enjoy showing off their fashion credentials, including Michelle Keegan who is often seen with her classic Chanel quilted handbag.

She has also been seen with several expensive looking totes.

Kym Marsh has also been seen with the classic Chanel bag which is believed to be one of the most imitated and counterfeited in the world.

Chanel lover: Kym also is a fan of the classic bag

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Olivia Newton-John: Death At Star's Home

A workman has been found dead from a gunshot wound inside a South Florida home owned by Olivia Newton-John and her husband, authorities say.

Jupiter police Sergeant Scott Pascarella confirmed the victim was a 42-year-old man who did not live at the home and was not related to its residents.

Sergeant Pascarella said the victim had permission to be at the home, but was not staying there.

Initial media reports listed the death as a suicide, but Sergeant Pascarella said an investigation is under way.

He did not say whether foul play was involved in the death.

Calls to the singer's agent and manager were not immediately returned.

Newton-John's hits include You're The One That I Want, performed with John Travolta in the 1978 movie Grease, and 1981's Physical.

She starred as Sandy Olsen in Grease and as Kira in the romantic musical fantasy Xanadu two years later.

The death is the latest tragedy to affect the 64-year-old singer and actress

Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. She underwent a partial mastectomy and has been free of the disease for more than a decade.

In 1995, her then-boyfriend Patrick McDermott vanished apparently after going on a fishing trip.

Five years later, she said there would "always be a question mark" over his disappearance, even though the US Coast Guard considers him missing at sea.

Earlier this year, Newton-John postponed a series of concerts in Las Vegas to spend time with her sister Rona, who later died from brain cancer.

:: Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal in the UK can call Samaritans for help on 08457 90 90 90 or email jo@samaritans.org

:: Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal in the US can call 1-800-784-2433 or 1-800-273-8255 for confidential help.

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2 Guns review: Big guns fire blanks: Not even stars Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington can save this dumbed-down remake of a Walter Matthau comedy classic

By Chris Tookey

PUBLISHED: 21:13 GMT, 15 August 2013 | UPDATED: 21:40 GMT, 15 August 2013

2 Guns (15)

Verdict: 2 violent, 2 unoriginal

Rating:

Going to the movies this summer has been like turning up at a series of much-loved restaurants and discovering that they have been taken over by junk-food chains.

If you want to watch stories with coherent plotting, intelligent dialogue and something to say, you’d be better off renting box sets of high-class TV shows, such as Borgen, Breaking Bad and Justified.

Roll on the autumn, when studios may begin to show us a few films that weren’t thought up by accountants.

Too bad: Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg waste their talents in this second-rate remake

With a ridiculous premise and incoherent dialogue, viewers looking for an intelligent thriller should stay at home

2 Guns is a knock-off of a good little comedy thriller from 1973 called Charlie Varrick, in which small-time criminal Walter Matthau robs a tiny bank and discovers he has stolen ten times the money he expected to. It belongs to the Mafia, who he proceeds to outwit.

In the dumbed-down, bigger-budget 2013 equivalent, the bank-robbers are Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, who — unknown to each other — are both working undercover for government departments. 

The money they’ve stolen belongs to the CIA (portrayed as a uniquely sinister institution, accountable to no one), and our heroes find that the whole panoply of the American state is out to kill them.

You’d think this might be a shocking, even paranoid scenario, but instead it comes across as too ridiculous to be even slightly believable.

A facetious script and stock direction by Icelander Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband) reduce this to the level of all those second-rate gorefests made in the years after Pulp Fiction by minor talents who lacked Tarantino’s wit and invention but thought people being killed and blown up was ‘kinda cool’.

Washington and Wahlberg are both fine actors in the right film — but this isn’t it.

It’s Mr And Mrs Smith without the sexual conflict; a Lethal Weapon without the lively backchat. 

And it paints by numbers where just a hint of artistic integrity could have worked wonders.

The movie ends with a lot of money being set on fire for no particular reason. 

It’s an image that sums up this  summer’s artistically challenged, commercially suicidal array of Hollywood movies as a whole.

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Investment Scam Hits NFL, NBA Stars

Morning Business Memo…

Dozens of current and former NFL and NBA players may have been the victims of an investment scam. FINRA – the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority – filed a cease-and-desist order against Success Trade Securities, alleging the online investment firm ripped off 58 investors, most of them pro athletes. The private industry watchdog issued a complaint against the firm and its CEO Fuad Ahmed accusing it of fraud in the sales of $18 million in promissory notes to investors without telling them how he was spending it. The company and its officials claimed they were raising just $5 million even after sales significantly exceeded the original offering, FINRA said. The firm and Ahmed failed to disclose the company’s existing debt and the fact that it would be unable to make future interest payments without raising money from new investors, FINRA said.

Twitter is about to launch a brand new music app. The social media site confirmed it had bought We Are Hunted, a start-up firm that tracks the most popular songs people are talking about on Twitter. According to the tech news AllThingsD, We Are Hunted said its developers would “continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team” but declined to go into any more detail. “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest randomly tweeted about the new Twitter site yesterday, telling his followers that he’s “lovin the app” and that it “shows what artists are trending, also has up and coming artists.” Twitter Music re-tweeted Seacrest’s comment, apparently confirming the site’s existence.

Dow 15,000 is in sight after the best four-day run for the stock market since last September. If the averages don’t drop today the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq will have their best week of the year. The Dow Jones Index rose nearly 63 points yesterday to 14,865. Futures are down so far this morning. Economic reports today could be market movers. Retail sales for March is the most important. JPMorgan Chase, the country’s biggest bank by assets, says its first-quarter earnings soared, even as revenue fell slightly. Profits rose 34 percent compared with the year before.

Two major commodities-trading firms are hoarding huge supplies of copper. The Wall Street Journal says “this concentration of copper supplies has sparked concerns among industrial consumers of the metal.” Copper prices have fallen since February, but some manufactures and builders are said to be worried about a possible shortage if demand for copper rises. Excess supplies are said to be stacking up in warehouses owned by Glencore International and Trafigura Beheer, according to global traders.

Finance ministers from the 27 countries of the European Union are pushing for progress on creating a single supervisor to watch over Europe’s banks. It’s a task officials say has assumed greater urgency since a banking crisis in Cyprus pushed it to seek an international bailout. The ministers, meeting today in Dublin, will also consider extending the repayment schedules on bailout loans previously given to Ireland and Portugal. That would ease the burden of repayment, reducing the squeeze on government spending and allowing the countries’ economies to grow more quickly.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC News Radio abcnews.com Twitter: daviesabc

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2013 Telegraph Boys Volleyball All Stars

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2013 Telegraph Boys Tennis All Stars

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