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Matt Bochenski rounds up the best films, music and books heading your way this month

The A-Team

Director Joe Carnahan
Starring Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel, Quinton Jackson, Bradley Cooper

Prefer CG effects and big-budget mayhem over simple things like plot and character? Just like cigar-chomping Hannibal Smith, you’ll love it now this plan – a big-screen update of the 1980s TV show – has come together.

The film is certainly well-cast. Liam Neeson is the aforementioned colonel, leader of a band of ex-Special Forces soldiers who, having been framed in Iraq during a covert mission, make an audacious prison break.

Smith, suave sidekick Faceman (Bradley Cooper), beefcake B.A. Baracus (Quinton Jackson) and ‘Howling Mad’ Murdoch (Sharlto Copley) must now track down a mercenary operative and stolen money printing presses before the security of the United States is compromised. Quite how the security of the United States may be compromised is, like much else in the film, never made entirely clear. But that’s hardly the point: the point is to blow lots of stuff up, and here the film generally delivers.

Despite absurd theatrics that stretch suspension of disbelief to breaking point (at one point, the boys crash land a tank), The A-Team is bound to keep teenage audiences happy. It’s just a shame that the film’s writers couldn’t make the most of Copley’s infectious energy as Murdoch.

The Runaways

Director Floria Sigismondi
Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon

Back in 1975, girls weren’t allowed to rock. As a young Joan Jett discovers at the hands of a snooty tutor, they weren’t even allowed to play guitar. But Joan Jett wasn’t about to listen to some middle-aged misogynist.

As played by Twilight star Kristen Stewart, it’s Jett’s rootless antagonism to all things mainstream that fuels The Runaways, the story of the all-girl rock band Jett formed under the wing of sleazy producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon).

But it’s also a disaffected love story between the guitarist and lead singer Cherie Currie (played by former child star Dakota Fanning), whose transformation from shy girl-next-door to pill-popping drug burnout was conducted with a single-minded enthusiasm that makes the Sex Pistols look like amateurs. Yes, it all ends badly, but this is a multi-layered narrative that captures the fear and danger of girls in the bloom of youth. Stewart and Fanning are both very good, even if the former’s surliness is starting to look over-familiar. But with its shots of young girls in knickers and vest tops sharing a quick snog and drunken fumble, is director Floria Sigismondi satirising Fowley’s exploitation of the band, or merely echoing it?

Ray LaMontagne

God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise

Ray LaMontagne has one of those biographies you suspect might have been invented by a publicist. Apparently, dad was an abusive musician who left early, leaving LaMontagne to struggle through school. He rejected the life of a musician to find employment in a shoe factory, but had a Damascene conversion after hearing Stephen Stills on the radio. With his heart now set on music, he took his place alongside the likes of The Band and Van Morrison as a ballsy, bluesy wailer of powerful ballads and mournful poetry.

True or not, LaMontagne has an astonishing sound – a broken croak that can muster violent extremes of feeling. His new album, God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise, is an old southern phrase that basically means ‘unless it all suddenly goes to hell’ – which thankfully it hasn’t. Lead single ‘Beg, Steal or Borrow’ is instantly evocative of country highways and Huckleberry Finn, appealing to America’s youth to find their feet. It’s the signature tune of an album that lifts a little of LaMontagne’s emotional darkness, offering an open expression of brighter tomorrows.

Arcade Fire

The Suburbs

It’s been a riotous ride for Quebec’s Arcade Fire. By 2008, rock’s cognoscenti had them labelled as ‘the best band in the world’ – which is basically like painting a giant target on a group’s behind. The pot shots duly arrived, with the band written off as stadium-filling poseurs.

Now, with an army of new fans attracted by ‘Wake Up’, the reworked single for the film Where The Wild Things Are, this new album finds itself caught somewhere between trying to prove Arcade Fire are as good as people say they are while simultaneously trying to look like they couldn’t care either way. This confusion is summed up in the title track and its counterpart, ‘The Month of May’. ‘The Suburbs’ opens with such a jaunty, Beatles-like rhythm that it puts you on your guard waiting for the big idea or smart turnaround. Four minutes later, you start worrying that this middle-of-the-road pop might actually be sincere – only for ‘The Month of May’ to open with an explosive blast of speed and noise, reaffirming that when Arcade Fire are good, they’re very good indeed.

Book club

This month’s must-reads

The Red Queen
Philippa Gregory  

The author of The Other Boleyn Girl is cornering the market in historical fiction of England’s Tudor period. Perhaps it’s her knack for taking the labyrinthine politics of the era and creating something that’s not only intelligible, but also sympathetic and resonant with the dramas of today.The Red Queen is the second book of a projected trilogy called ‘The Cousins War’, set around the era of Edward IV, Richard III and the War of the Roses. In the first novel, The White Queen, Lady Elizabeth Grey plotted her way to power as the paramour of the young Edward, but here she takes a back seat to Margaret Beaufort, a young royal widow who becomes an integral player in the powerful factions contesting the throne.Gregory’s novels navigate the great currents of English politics with singular dexterity, bringing history to life with a keen eye for the small, emotional moments that were every bit as decisive as the battles we learn about at school.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate
Stewart Lee

There’s a school of thought that any time you explain a joke, you automatically stop it from being funny.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate could be seen as a 384-page rejoinder.

This unique book is written by English comedian Stewart Lee. After having his own TV show and a successful stand-up career in the 1990s, he quit in 2001, ‘disillusioned’, turning his hand to co-writing and directing controversial musical Jerry Springer: The Opera.

But his experiences – specifically a run-in with the forces of Christian conservatism – gave him the will, and the material, for a return to stand-up.

This is not a book of jokes or sketches, nor is it out to settle the score against those who tried to prosecute Lee for blasphemy. Rather, it’s a compelling insight into the creative process: how stand-up works, how a joke is constructed, and how you write and tour your way back into the mainstream. It’s an unusual but wholly rewarding glimpse into an intelligent mind.

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