Weekend Round-Up – Rediscovering the XBOX 360 and Flypaper review

It is becoming apparent that winter is settling in, The TV is getting worse, which has forced me to seek other outlets of movie enjoyment.

I have mentioned this before, but X-Factor is now on ALL weekend, well it seems like it. Saturday night it takes over, but it is too late for the girls, so they watch it during the day on Sunday. But that isn’t it, we have the result show on Sunday night. Add to that ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘I am a celebrity GET ME OUT OF HERE!’ and this leave very little film viewing time for Scott at home during the weekend.

Drastic measures needed to be taken, and alternative needed to be found.

The answer it would seem was to buy a new TV. And as we all know I am a geek so I relished at the chance to buy a new bit of tech. The problem I had was the budget. It wasn’t the most flush I have seen. I wasn’t going to be able to get the 40” SMART TV that I wanted for the room that we sleep in. No, I had to be sensible. Curses!!

We ended up with a 24” LED 1080p TV, which was in sale with over £100 off!!! Nice. And Actually I am pretty pleased.

But what can we watch on it? I have no aerial in the bedroom. Do I need to buy another blu ray player? Or try to run a new cable from the sky dish?

Actually NO. I just moved the xbox 360. I wanted to do this anyway, as I have been neglecting (meaning not turned it on for 6 months) the gaming side of my nerditis, BRING ON BATTLEFIELD 3!!. But i didn’t even realize the amount of films that can be watched through XBOX LIVE!

Firstly we have Zune which gives a very wide range of HD and SD films to rent, all at a reasonable price, and very good quality. Not streamed, but downloaded. Then and more impressively we have SKY on there. Now I had seen this when the 360 was in the front room, but had never really explored it. I mean why would I when I have SKY HD with Anytime + looking after all my film needs.

But, now the egg box (this is what the girls call the xbox) is up stairs we can now watch LIVE TV, sports, movies, and catch up on our favourite shows, all through the xbox. Which has been a life saver.

In fact last night we went to bed and watched a film. First time I have done that in ages. OK it didn’t have the same effect as watching it downstairs on the 92” screen with the loud surround sound. But we were in BED!! HAHA. Shame the film wasn’t quite up to the experience.

So my point?

Well I am just amazed that I had this little media streamer under my nose but had never really explored it before. Add the fact that LOVEFiLM is coming in a few weeks, and NETFLIX is hitting UK shores in the new year, and I may need to change the name of the site to BedroomCinema!! (Obviously this won’t happen)

So below is my review of Flypaper. The first film we watched on the xbox.

Flypaper

One of the reasons that we rented this from Zune on the xbox was the fact that it stated it was written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. This pair was behind The Hangover and I loved that film. It is only today when researching this review I find out that the script for FLYPAPER was written by them over 12 years ago. And this rang a little bell in my brain, I can now see why this film felt SO 90s. Although this Heist movie tries to update itself with references to twitter and mentions of the recession, it just didn’t seem to be able to shift it’s dated feel. There is potential here, in the mindless fun sense, but it is weighed down by heavy clichés and clunky characters. The scenario is predictable and it all seems far too familiar.

Dempsey plays Trip, a neurotic chap with an unspecified mental illness, OCD? Autism? Tourette’s? Well he seems to have them all. Trip walks into a bank and begins to flirt with the teller, Kaitlin played by Ashley Judd, when all at once two sets of bank robbers enter to take up on the 2 minute window of a lapse in security and proceed to hold up the bank. One set is a trio of high-tech bank robbers, complete with gadgets and top of the line weapons, they are after the contents of the vault. The other set is a hapless duo of rednecks, named Peanut Butter and Jelly, and they are after the contents of the ATMs. At first this complex set up works quite well, with one liner hostages complaining and the two quarreling crews of criminals working out their responsibilities.

But then, someone starts killing off both the hostages and the bank robbers, which turns the film into a whodunnit. Trip takes up the Miss Marple role of investigator and uses his over active mind to pick up on clues. He is socially awkward and finds it hard to talk to people, which looks a bit weird with Dempsey and his perfect hair. I would imagine this would be better suited to someone who had a quirkier look. Anyway, Trip discovers the robbery may not be the only crime that is afoot.

The best part for me, was the beautifully animated title sequence, looking like it was straight off of a Pink Panther movie. Unfortunately that was the peak of my enjoyment, the spiral from heist to Murder She Wrote and the impossible resolution in the final act just lost all of my interest. Dempsey’s performance ranged from over weight to stupid, and the rest of the cast didn’t seem to get enough of a look in. The comedic weight of the film fell squarely on the shoulders of Tim Blake Nelson and Pruitt Taylor Vince as the hillbilly ATM thieves. But come on who doesn’t love a redneck?

Although it wasn’t as good as I hoped, I can see it gaining some cash in the rental market with use of the ‘FROM THE WRITERS OF THE HANGOVER’ tagline all over the DVD box/ poster. I know it worked for me

In conclusion, Flypaper is a film of two halves with little to get your teeth into. Even mindless fun needs to be a bit more intelligent than this.

FRC Rating

[starreview tpl=16 size='30']

Have you got an xbox? Do you use it for Media? Have you seen this film? Comment below…