Vroom vroom… start your engines, rev up and other such lame motoring puns – Ross McG gets round to reviewing Drive. Find out what he thought below. Beep Beep!!

Drive (five stars)

The anger spewed by fans of Drive after it was overlooked in last week’s Oscar nominations was almost as hilarious as the blind refusal of Academy members to acknowledge the film itself. If ardent supporters of Nicolas Winding Refn’s LA slice of piston-pumping pulp noir truly deemed it to be the coolest movie of last year, did they really want it to be recognised by the dependably out-of-touch Oscars? Or, even worse, win some? The potentially awful poster tagline for any re-release in the event of success didn’t bear thinking about: ‘Drive… the greatest motoring movie to win Best Picture since Driving Miss Daisy.’ Instead, the Academy is likely to garland silent film The Artist with the major gongs, yet talking is also largely absent from Drive, which relies on revving engines and Ryan Gosling’s piercing eyes to do its communicating.

He plays a stuntman/getaway driver forced into a violent cul-de-sac after a run-in with a crime boss (Albert Brooks, chillingly channelling his best Gene Hackman). Drive’s brilliance is based on Gosling’s wonderfully still performance, although it helps that he manages to look smooth even when wearing a ridiculous scorpion-emblazoned bomber jacket and Alan Partridge’s driving gloves. While Drive has obvious touchstones – Michael Mann’s Collateral is one, as is a similarly titled film with another Ryan (O’Neal) behind the wheel, 1978 heist flick The Driver – it has a dreamy feel all of its own, largely thanks to its musical interludes and a score from Cliff Martinez which out-synths the 80s. Drive’s ultimate top trump, however, is its refreshing openness: it unashamedly tries to be cool. And succeeds marvellously.

Verdict: An instant cult classic. Accused in some quarters of being a triumph of style over substance, but when the style is this good, who cares?

This review first appeared in the Metro newspaper

To mark the release later this week of thriller Man On A Ledge with Sam Worthington, Ross McG from www.rossvross.com weaves his way through the greatest ‘Man’ films.

5. Man On Wire (2008)

The original premise of this list was to make it The Top Five ‘Man On…’ Films. In that list we would have had, you know, such great ‘Man On…’ films as Man On Wire. Or maybe even Man On The Moon. And, uh, Man On Fire. We were even going to throw in Manon des Sources – the only film in the history of French cinema not to have Gerard Depardieu (and only because his character died in the first movie) – to prove how bloody pretentious and clever we are. Truth be told, however, that rundown would have been even worse than the one you’re reading. I mean, who has a top five that features the worst Tony Scott/Denzel Washington collaboration? The one without a train. Anyway, Man On Wire is a ‘Man On…’ movie. The only good one. So it makes its way on to our list.

4. I Love You, Man (2009)

Somewhere there is an alternative universe in which I Love You, Man is rightly feted as the best comedy of its decade. It has Paul Rudd being very funny. Does cinema really need anything more than that? He slaps his bass. He does a dodgy Jamaican accent that makes him sound Irish. He makes us laugh. And to think we didn’t laugh once at him in any of his episodes of Friends. Must be the Phoebe factor. They really should release a box set: The Ones Where We’ve Cut Phoebe Out. I’d buy that.

3. Rain Man (1988)

Depending on your disposition, Princess Diana’s favourite film is either a steaming big goo pile of syrupy slop or tearjerking heaven. Hoffman. Cruise. The girl with the curly hair from Hot Shots. No, not Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. She was Maid Marian. Valeria Golino, that’s right. Who was also in French cop flick, ‘36’. With Gerard Depardieu. See, it always comes back to Gerard Depardieu. Rain Man shouldn’t really be called Rain Man at all. According to the film itself it should be called ‘Raymond’. But seriously, that’s a shit title for a film. And wouldn’t fill a hole in our list.

2. Demolition Man (1993)

Stallone’s best movie is Cliffhanger – seriously, forget Rocky and Rambo – but it doesn’t have the word ‘man’ in it. Snipes’ best film is undoubtedly Passenger 57, which potentially could have the word ‘man’ in it, although ‘Passenger Man 57’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And alienates your female audience. Luckily, these two action heroes found time to work together on a film the likes of which the world has never seen. A film in which Stallone and Sandra Bullock have sex together with their minds. But most importantly, it was a film with a ‘man’ in its title.

Ah, what the heck, why not?

1. The Man With Two Brains (1983)

People slag off Steve Martin for not being as funny as he used to be. Which is a bit like criticising Bobby Charlton for not making the England squad any more. Genius doesn’t last forever, and comedy genius is no different. And let’s be frank, The Man With Two Brains is undoubted comedy genius. Absolute poetry…

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE ‘MAN’ MOVIES?

Giddee up for an equine movie top five from Ross McG. With Steven Spielberg’s War Horse currently galloping through cinemas, we take a look at some other four-legged big screen wonders. No animals were harmed during the writing of this feature…

5. The horse from True Lies (1994)

Horses get a raw deal when it comes to cinema. They may be beautiful, majestic creatures, but I’ve always felt horses have been a bit lacking in the brains department. How else could you explain them letting a never-ending parade of actors ride them into certain doom in various seen-it-all-before battle sequences? But what horse wouldn’t want to have Arnold Schwarzenegger in its saddle? If you said you planned an action scene involving Arnold, Art Malik, a motorbike and a horse now you would be laughed out of the studio boardroom, but back in the innocent mid-90s this meant box office gold. This horse takes Arnie into a hotel and up an elevator. Not that surprising really, as this is a movie in which Tom Arnold avoids a hail of machine gun bullet fire by hiding behind a lamppost.

4. Bullseye from Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010)

Every cowboy needs a horse. The Lone Ranger had Silver, Roy Rogers had Trigger and Sheriff Woody has Bullesye. Giving Woody a backstory in the second instalment of Pixar’s glorious trilogy was a genius move, allowing us to meet the Round-Up gang. Yes, peppy cowgirl Jessie is the obvious scene-stealer, thanks mainly to her singing that song that makes grown men blubber like big babies (not like the scary Big Baby in TS3, mind), but the relationship between man and his horse has the real depth. When Woody behaves like a jerk – and he does, a lot (he has attempted murder of space men on his rap sheet) – Bullseye is always there to either give him a doleful look or ride to the rescue.

3. The horse from the ferry in The Ring (2002)

And now for something completely different. The scariest horse in cinema. We have established that horses have been treated badly in the movies: I’m not sure what was worse for the horse from Far And Away – being the horse that gets punched by tiny Tom Cruise or being the horse from Far And Away. At least the horse from Blazing Saddles who was punched by Mongo got to do some great stunt acting. Spare a thought then for the poor horse from The Ring, a decent if inferior remake to Japanese horror Ringu except in one vital way: Ringu didn’t have a horse hurtling itself off a ferry. They shoot horses, don’t they? Nope. They fling them off ferries.

2. Tír na nÓg from Into The West (1992)

Seabiscuit? Bite me. Black Beauty? Ugly compared to Tír na nÓg, the horse at the heart of this brilliant early 90s Irish film. It has Gabriel Byrne. It has Colm Meaney. It has Brendan Gleeson. There is an established mathematical equation that says if you have one of these actors in your film it will be good. If you have two of them it will be exceptional. If you have all three it will be amazing. If you have all three and a horse… you have one of the greatest films ever made. Great hoss.

1. Cheval from A Town Called Panic (2009)

And now we come to The Horse De La Résistance. Red Rum was good at winning horse races, but could he play the piano? Or drive a car? Those things are all in a day’s activities for Cheval, or Horse, from the utterly fantastic and indescribable A Town Called Panic, the best animated film you haven’t seen. In a neat twist in this French/Belgian/Luxembourgois production, Horse is actually the leader of a cute gang of toys that also includes Cowboy and Indian. The plot is ludicrous, but suffice to say there are 50 million bricks, a journey to the centre of the earth, alien underwater creatures who steal walls, a huge snowball-throwing robot and a giant piece of toast. And throughout it all, our hero Horse keeps a cool head. Neigh bother.

When one has an insatiable sexual appetite, it helps when you look like Michael Fassbender. With Shame hitting cinemas, Ross McD takes a look (strictly for research purposes of course) at the top five films to break sexual taboos.

5. Last Tango in Paris (1972)

'Everything, butter face,' thought Superman's da

Marlon Brando was the first major Hollywood star to play the lead in an x-rated film – who else, as the legend goes, would have requested his lines be written on co-star Maria Schneider’s rear? Many people felt the health benefits of switching from butter to margarine that year.

4. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

The Celtic and Rangers players finally decided to put their petty differences aside

But…. Heath Ledger’s a guy! And so is Jake Gyllenhaal! *gasps*! That it took until 2005 for a mainstream film to feature a love story between two guys is perhaps more shocking than anything on this list. Ledger wasn’t too fond of the in-laws though – he blows up Gyllenhaal’s sister in The Dark Knight.

3. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Sorry mate, but you look a right penis holding that

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel shocked many upon its release, probably no one more than Gene Kelly, who could never have imagined his tap-dancing ditty Singin’ In The Rain would be used as a soundtrack to rape. Malcom McDowell also achieves a first in sex crime by beating somebody to death with a giant penis sculpture.

2. 9 Songs (2004)

ET: The Extra dirty version

A film about a couple, nine songs they listen to and all the sex they have inbetween. Caused a huge stir on its release as all the sex scenes between both lead actors were real, as well as being the first mainstream film to show male ejaculation.

1. Crash (1996)

Racism is bad. Ludacris stole my car. Oh, wrong Crash

Not to be confused with the 2004 Oscar winner (especially if you settling on the sofa with your mum to watch a film). Depicts a group of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes, and features among its many notable scenes the improvised use of a gaping car crash wound as… well, you know.

Last year we had Valentine’s Day, this year it’s New Year’s Eve, which is released this week. A dozens-strong all-star cast turn up, shoot a couple of scenes, get paid, movie execs make millions, audiences have one potentially crap film broken down into lots of nice, easy-to-manage little pieces – everybody wins. Be warned though: Christmas Day, All Hallow’s Eve, St Patrick’s Day, St Swithin’s Day, A Random Person’s Birthday will all follow. Here, Ross McD and Ross McG from pit the cast against each other.

ROSS MCG:

Robert De Niro

New Year’s Eve wish: that he would quit propping up crummy festive flicks and get back to some acting.
Happy new year: Raging Bull. No one punches a wall or accuses his brother of doing something nasty with his wife like Bobby.
Crappy new year: Righteous Kill. A bit like Heat in that it stars De Niro and Pacino. Also a bit like Heated dog poo. It stinks.

Michelle Pfeiffer

New year’s Eve wish: that she would return to the role of Catwoman instead of Anne Hathaway for The Dark Knight Rises
Happy new year: Wolf. Anyone who can convincingly pretend to be attracted to a hairy Jack Nicholson deserves some respect. See also The Witches Of Eastwick.
Crappy new year: Dangerous Minds. So unCoolio it’s bloody freezing.

Zac Efron

New Year’s Eve wish: that I could have his startlingly brilliant hair
Happy new year: 17 Again. Matthew Perry wishes he looked like Zac Efron when he was 17.
Crappy new year: High School Musical. In my school, singing and dancing would have landed you in detention.

Carla Gugino

New Year’s Eve wish: that she won’t be in any more Spy Kids movies. That there won’t be any more Spy Kids movies.
Happy new year: Sin City. Hard to get distracted from a CGI-ed Mickey Rourke. Except by a CGI-ed almost naked lady.
Crappy new year: Sucker Punch. About as much fun as being punched in the crotch for two hours.

Ludacris

New Year’s Eve wish: that he will be the lead man in Fast And The Furious 6
Happy new year: Fast And The Furious 5. The Godfather: Part II of Paul Walker car flicks.
Crappy new year: Crash. He does steal a car, but there’s no Paul Walker.

Alyssa Milano

New Year’s Eve wish: that she would play the lead in a Commando reboot.
Happy new year: Commando. She’s John Matrix’s daughter. Which makes her infinitely cooler than Neo from The Matrix. Or The Matrix that Optimus Prime hides in his belly.
Crappy new year: She gets a free pass. She was in frickin’ Commando, man!

Abigail Breslin

New Year’s Eve wish: that she doesn’t go off the rails like every other child actress.
Happy new year: She’ll always be Little Miss Sunshine. Although Zombieland runs it a close second.
Crappy new year: No Reservations. Catherine Zeta-Jones is a chef who tried to hook up with Harvey Dent. As awful as it sounds.

Hilary Swank

New Year’s Eve wish: that she burns every copy of PS I Love You. DVD and the book.
Happy new year: The Next Karate Kid. Probably the third best Karate Kid film ever.
Crappy new year: PS I Haven’t Forgotten How Shite That Film Was

ROSS MCD:

Josh Duhamel

New Year’s Eve wish: that people would stop confusing him with Johnny Knoxville
Happy new year: Transformers. More than meets the eye
Crappy new year: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A big steaming pile of crap in disguise.

Jessica Biel

New Year’s Eve wish: to regain the number one spot on the ‘Hottest Jessicas’ list, ahead of Alba and Rabbit
Happy new year: Blade Trinity. Manages to make a ‘music to kill vampires by’ iPod playlist without cringing once. Bravo.
Crappy new year: I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry. An abusive relationship for anyone that watched it.

Jon Bon Jovi

New Year’s Eve wish: to still look 30 when he’s 50. Only three months to go…
Happy new year: Livin on a Prayer. Everyone thinks they can sing it, no-one can
Crappy new year: Have a Nice Day. Try singing in you head without giving up and going back to Livin On A Prayer

Lea Michele

New Year’s Eve wish: to make a successful leap to film. Will this be it?
Happy new year: Glee Season 1. Showtunes! Silly Storylines! Slushis! Sue Sylvester!
Crappy new year: Glee Season 3. Showtunes… silly storylines…slushies… Sue Sylvester…

Katherine Heigl

New Year’s Eve wish: to play the lead in the Under Siege reboot, reprising her role as Casey Ryback’s daughter. Maybe she could team up with John Matrix’s daughter?
Happy new year: Knocked Up. Made us believe she could sleep with Seth Rogan – now that is acting.
Crappy new year: The Ugly Truth. Couldn’t even upstage co-star Gerard Butler – now that is an ugly truth

Ashton Kutcher

New Year’s Eve wish: not to become Charlie Sheen II
Happy new year: The Butterfly Effect. It’s actually quite good! No, seriously!
Crappy new year: What Happens In Vegas. It didn’t stay there unfortunately

Sarah Jessica Parker

New Year’s Eve wish: to star in the inbetween series linking Sex and the City to The Golden Girls.
Happy new year: Hocus Pocus. Saved the production team a bomb in make-up by playing a witch
Crappy new year: Failure to Launch. If only there had been

Halle Berry

New Year’s Eve wish: that she would return to the role of Catwoman instead of Anne Hathaway for The Dark Knight Rises
Happy new year: Monster’s Ball. Not to be confused with Pokéballs, which are used for catching Pokémon in Japanese
Crappy new year: Catwoman. Not to be confused with a DVD you should actually insert into a DVD player

Four lads go off on holiday. No, it’s not The Hangover Part II again.

The Inbetweeners Movie (four stars)

There were quite a few cinematic surprises in 2011 – Michael Bay dumbfounded us all by making a film worse than Transformers 2 in the shape of, uh, Transformers 3, while the fifth Fast And The Furious movie also astonished audiences by turning out to be… really rather brilliant, actually. The biggest shock, however, came from a gang of unlikely English lads who went off to Malia on holiday and straight into our hearts. When it was released at the tail end of the summer, The Inbetweeners Movie was lapped up by a thirsty audience tired of big robots clunking into other big robots. It took a massive £13m in the UK on its opening weekend, eventually ending up with £45m and becoming the third biggest movie of the year behind Harry Potter and The King’s Speech. The reason? Perhaps it appealed to thousands of kids living in ‘the very definition of suburbia’ which it depicts. Or perhaps it’s just terribly flipping funny. Like most Brit flickcoms, it merely transports its protagonists to a foreign location – in this case, our four teenage heroes (pink suitcase-carrying Will, robotic dancer extraordinaire Neil, hair gel guru Simon and pervert Jay) head off to Greece for sun, sea and sexual encounters of the embarrassing kind. As Simon ruefully notes after another escapade gone wrong: ‘Probably a bit far for my dad to come pick us up.’ The film version of the E4 TV show doesn’t shy away from adolescent crudeness but like Jay, behind its macho bluster it really is quite sweet, capturing the silly yet poignant love/hate relationships you have with your mates. If it weren’t for the penis and vagina jokes, it would almost bring a tear to the eye…

Verdict: As British as a Carry On film with enough fleeting nudity to match, The Inbetweeners Movie is as raucous as a lads’ holiday should be but has real heart.

This review first appeared in the Metro newspaper

It’s the first one. Again. But it’s in a totally different country. So that’s okay.

The Hangover Part II (four stars)

‘Why can’t you just get married in Vegas like you did last time,’ asks Phil (Bradley Cooper) at the beginning of The Hangover Part II. Clearly, he doesn’t know the rules to making a sequel to a hit comedy. And so, along with the rest of the wolf pack – groom-to-be Stu (Ed Helms) and ‘stay-at-home son’ Alan (Zach Galifianakis) – he finds himself in Bangkok in the follow-up to Todd Phillips’s original. Apart from the obligatory location change, however, the second Hangover replicates the first: our boys get mashed up, wake up in a strange place and have to find someone who has gone missing. Despite being torn apart by critics on its release, when taken on its own merits Hangover 2 is a lot of fun – there’s a genius James Taylor-esque musical interlude and a funky trip inside Alan’s head is simply hilarious. The movie probably could have done with that Mel Gibson cameo though.

This review first appeared in the Metro newspaper

Christmas. A time for giving. A time for receiving. A time for escaping from the evil clutches of Santa Claus.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (five stars)

If John Carpenter ever goes festive and makes a holiday special of The Thing, it might end up looking something like Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Don’t let the terrible title put you off – this is a seasonal gem well worth ripping open someone else’s stocking for. This dark Finnish reworking of the usual pre-packaged schmaltzy Christmas story – instead of dropping sacks of toys off to children, not-so-jolly old Saint Nick drops children into sacks (and, uh, cauldrons of boiling water) – brilliantly straddles the fine line between frightening and farcical. ‘The Coca-Cola Santa Claus was just a hoax,’ the film tells us early on, setting the tone for an alternative winter’s tale in which a shotgun-toting young boy tries to save Christmas from the nastiest Père Noël since Billy Bob Thornton. If you ever want a kid to be nice not naughty, show them this.

This review first appeared in the Metro newspaper

Yeah, we know, we’ve been lazy lately at Ross v Ross Towers, but here’s the first of a few DVD review we have done. Ross McG finds out if Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell are as horrible bosses as Ross McD…

Horrible Bosses (three stars)

In the cinematic pantheon of terrible employers, there are a few unforgettable slave-drivers who leap right out of the boardroom and stay in the sub-conscious. Poor Keanu Reeves had to work for Satan in The Devil’s Advocate, though even Beelzebub lets you have Saturday off, unlike say, Bill Lumbergh in Office Space. That movie is a bit of a touchstone for Horrible Bosses, and not just because they both star Jennifer Aniston. Here, three working stooges (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) decide they have had enough of their torturing superiors. Enter Kevin Spacey’s ball-breaking financial executive, Colin Farrell’s foul-mouthed, drugged-up daddy’s boy and Aniston’s coitus-crazed dentist. Before you can say ‘Strangers On A Train’ (or ‘Throw Momma From The Train’, as the film’s best gag illustrates), our three put-upon heroes hatch a plot to off each other’s bosses, with the help – or hindrance – of self-styled ‘murder consultant’ Jamie Foxx. There isn’t much to Horrible Bosses but what it lacks in cohesion it invariably makes up for with a killer giggle – highlights include a scarily accurate re-enactment of the key scene from pretty much every episode of Law & Order. Director Seth Gordon – who was behind The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, one of the best documentaries ever made – doesn’t exactly strain himself but the three leads are likeable even if their pratfalls are slightly Hangover-lite. The problem with Horrible Bosses is its misleading title – there just isn’t enough of Spacey (who played much meaner bosses in Swimming With Sharks and Glengarry Glen Ross), Farrell and Aniston, although in the latter’s case that’s probably for the best: sexual assault in the workplace is never funny.

Verdict:

Crude, rude and often a bit lewd for its own good, these Horrible Bosses just about earn a shot at promotion thanks to some big laughs.

This review first appeared in the Metro newspaper

Warning: Brendan Gleeson likes to swear

5. ‘Tonight, I’ll drink to your bones!’ – Troy

If there was one actor you could pick to beat the crap out of Orlando Bloom it would be Gleeson. This clip gets extra points because Brian Cox is in it.

4. ‘Technically, it’s a ferret’ – Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

A lot of the adult performers in the Harry Potter movies just go through the motions, but not The Gleester. He was a teacher before he became an actor and it shows here, as he makes a lesson out of Malfoy by turning him into an animal. If only all teachers were this fun.

3. ‘What if he knew karate, say?’ – In Bruges

Gleeson’s hitman Ken is a wonderful creation – a scary killer made human by a great performance. It’s also an unselfish one: watch how he allows Colin Farrell to shine here:

Gleeson’s great In Bruges clip

2. ‘This is showbiz, kid’ – Breakfast On Pluto

Neil Jordan’s film is a hit-and-miss affair, but it gives the world the chance to see Gleeson dressed up as Uncle Bulgaria from The Wombles. Priceless.

1. ‘You tubby little no-dick lying little ****er!’ – I Went Down

This is just pure joy. Gleeson is fantastic as a hardman in Paddy Breathnach’s hidden gem of an Irish road movie. Certainly the coolest character called Bunny ever. Yes, even cooler than Bugs.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE GLEESON MOMENTS?