On the couch

MEGAN Fox doesn’t exist. She’s just a figment of the fevered imaginations of a team of special effects artists that worked on Michael Bay’s motor derby gone mad Transformers movies.
At least that was the rumour doing the rounds of internet chatrooms and other places just following the release of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. And, while most people saw the story for the joke it was, it’s truth would have gone a long way to explaining why feted Ms Fox seems to posess all the onscreen charm and talent of a table tennis ball being batted up against a wall by a cat. Kind of like that ancient computer game Pong. Only with, you know, a kitty instead of a paddle.
Of course, if nuanced acting and spellbinding story is what you’re looking for than you’re knocking on the wrong giant robotic door when it comes to Transformers.
And not to be seen as the sort of bully who victimises poor defenceless international sex symbols, it must be pointed out that not one of the cast of the film bears more than a passing resemblance to a “human”, such is the mugging, roaring, and gurning that passes for acting in Bay-world.
Of course, when your heroes are towering, tooled up robots from another planet, any semblance of a story is simply a vehicle (ahem) for getting them into situation where the current king of ridiculous on-screen combat can have them beat the hell out of each other and whatever city/antiquity they happen to be adjacent to.
The story is irelevant. The robo-battle and new, bigger, meaner machines are impressive.
This film will make you dumber but you will be thrilled as  it zaps your brain cells.
Proving that stylised violence and carnage can co-exist with a good plot and a great script, however, Quentin Tarantino returns from his self-indulgent holiday in Kill Bill-land with his long awaited war flick, Inglorious Basterds.
Brad Pitt’s good ol’ boy, Lt Aldo Raine, leads a team of Jewish American soldiers into German-occupied France with the intention of collecting beaucoup de Nazi scalps and striking fear into the hearts of their enemies.
Along the way there are plots, side-plots and plots within plots all leading to a chance to kill Hitler in a cinema.
Unlike his usual pop-culture riddled work, however, the WW2 setting has stripped the dialogue of its usual comic book disections and Biblical monologues and left a tense and riveting animal exposed for our enjoyment.
Tension is the name of the game in Basterds with the action coming in short, sharp jolts. For such an expansive film – it covers quite a bit of ground geographically and a multitude of speaking parts – it has more in common with Jackie Brown’s closeness and eye for character than any of his other work.
Needless to say the casting and soundtrack are all excellent, especially Christoph Waltz as the loathsome but beguiling SS officer, Col Landa.
A excellent flick let down slightly by a scattershot ending.