THE PODCASTING COUCH EPISODE THREE

We're back! In this third episode of the podcasting couch, the team:

- reviews the Dwayne Johnson revenge thriller Faster

- talks about the best directors working in Hollywood today and the most expensive films ever made

- admits their Top Four Guilty Pleasure Films

Featuring Shannon Harvey from the West Australian, Simon Miraudo from quickflix.com.au, Laura Hewison and myself.

To listen, simply go to http://boxseattv.podbean.com/ or search 'the podcasting couch' in the itunes store!

FILM REVIEW - FASTER

Sorry, son. It's a starring role in the Tooth Fairy for you.

You know how people have guilty-pleasure songs, or guilty pleasure movies? I have a guilty pleasure actor – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Part of it stems from me being a wrestling fan when I was younger but mostly I just find him an incredibly appealing screen presence. He’s not quite in the Patrick Swayze guilty-pleasure actor pantheon, but he’s getting there.

Wherein lies the appeal? In Johnson, you have a gregarious, cocky presence who owns the screen when given the chance to explore that side of him. (See The Other Guys, Get Smart, Welcome to the Jungle, Be Cool, Saturday Night Live). If you don’t allow that side to come out, you’re playing to his weaknesses – dramatic heft, introspection and so on. What you really need for a role like that is someone with far greater dramatic chops than muscles.

As such, in casting the sedimentary action star as a hard man on a mission who rarely speaks and has no sense of humour, the film completely wastes Dwayne Johnson. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.