Thursday 29 January 2009

Films What I Done Watched In January


Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (Non-3D Edition)

Probably would have been better in 3D. I didn't mind it, which is to say it didn't make me want to kill myself like The Mummy 3 did.


Rocket Science

Pretty decent little indie movie. At first the deliberate indieness of it made me balk, but once I relented it was alright. West from Heroes makes good.


Pineapple Express

What a weird one. Much like Tropic Thunder and Hot Fuzz it tries to badly mix action and comedy on a larger budget. Some good moments, some good lines, but overall meh.


Mamma Mia

So very, very bad that it's almost good. Tom Hanks is now a bazillionaire thanks to Exec-ing this. Which is good, cause he hasn't made a good movie as an actor since The Terminal.


Resident Evil: Degeneration

Not bad for a 90 minute FMV.


REC

I watched it in the daytime. Was that my first mistake? I was disappointed. The chick was just so irritating (if hot) and I would rather listen to Hud (Cloverfield)'s bullshit or even Heather (Blair Witch Project)'s screaming than sit through her again. I wasn't creeped out and I didn't jump. On those terms, The Orphanage must be pretty well-orchestrated in comparison.


Saw 5

I liked Saw 2, 3 and 4 was alright. This marks a really significant drop in quality for the franchise though. Maybe Costas Mandylor is cursed. I know Scott Patterson is, since none of his attempts at a career beyond Gilmore Girls seem to have paid off yet. On a side note, Gilmore Girls was the Picket Fences of the 00s. Coincidence?


Starship Troopers 3

Marking Casper Van Dien's 'triumphant' return to the franchise. They go for a more religious subtext on this one, as opposed to a political one.


American Teen

Yeah. I mean, there's a certain amount of suspect 'arranging' here, in terms of editing and circumstance. But overall it was a quite charming doc.


Tell No One

Great. Really, really good French thriller about a guy whose wife is murdered, then years later starts sending him emails. There's an awesome chase sequence bang in the middle that is so deftly put together I actually held my breath. How often can you say that? The experience of watching it reminded me of watching Nine Queens. You know that after that first time it's never going to be the same, you'll know all the twists, so the first viewing seems vital.


Speed Racer

It was really colourful and bright and shiny and fast, so I enjoyed watching it. With a better script, it could have been great.


Let The Right One In

Pretty good. I was expecting too much, probably. Liked the "what happens if you don't get invited in" scene. I had not seen that idea in a movie before. I'd probably watch it again on an evening.


Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants 2

It's as well put together as the first one, and I blubbed stupid girl tears, although the Amber Tamblyn storyline was the winner; the other three pretty much fell flat.


Shotgun Stories

Wow. Michael Shannon. Oscar Nom'd for the wrong movie? He's so good a little bit of pee comes out when I watch him.

Very basic plot: Son, Kid and Boy are three brothers whose abusive Dad left them and their mum, stopped drinking, found God and had a brand new family. When the Dad dies the brothers slowly let all their past resentment come to a head, with tragic results for them and their Dad's "real" family. The huge helpings of comedy really move it along, with a rat-faced loser character named Shampoo Douglas propelling the tension at very well-choreographed moments.

Also, I think I want to name a future pet Shampoo Douglas.


My Bloody Valentine 3D

1) Ok, so I heard there was a 3D movie coming out with Kerr Smith and Jenson Ackles and I thought "that is going to be AWESOMELY shit." And it was. The dialogue, acting and plot were terrible (in my mind everything Kerr Smith says is unintentionally hilarious). But really I was going for decapitated body parts and murder weapons and blood coming out of the screen at my face, so I wasn't disappointed. One problem was that 3D isn't as impressive when you're filming a badly-lit scene, unfortunately, so having action take place primarily down a mine is going to cause some issues.

2) The absolute worst circumstance to view My Bloody Valentine 3D in is sitting in front of the two people we were sitting in front of at the cinema. A squirrely white guy wearing a light grey hooded sweatshirt/matching light grey sweatpants pulled up to half-calf/white tube socks/white hightop trainers/massive gold chain combination....and his 18 year old girlfriend, who committed the following acts throughout:

  • Screaming very loudly at 'scary' moments during the trailer for The Univited, before the main movie. After being shushed, yelling "OH I'M SORRY I DONT LIKE SCARY MOVIES, I'M NOT A DICKHEAD, OK?????" sarcastically. You're just about to watch a scary movie that will last a lot longer than this trailer.
  • Screaming very loudly during every 'jump' moment, i.e. any loud noise at all. I had no idea people actually screamed like this, in genuine shock, at such run-of-the-mill movies like My Bloody Valentine 3D. Is this the first and last horror movie she will ever watch? Part of me really hopes so.
  • Being completely unaware of all horror movie conventions by shouting things like "WELL, THAT'S UNREALISTIC!" and getting very upset when a "good character" is about to die, moaning "OH NO! NOT HIM! NOOOOOOO!" and shouting "OH NO! NOT HER! NOT THE LOVELY LITTLE PERSON!" when a dwarf is about to kick it.

Saturday 3 January 2009

I Continue To Watch Movies, These Are Them

Charlie Bartlett

Yeah, there's not a whole lot going on here. It never really finds the right tone. Which is a shame. I presume at some point they'll find the right older actor to pair up Anton Yelchin with. In this case, Robert Downey Jr wasn't right. Let's see what happens when he backs up Christian Bale next in the new Terminator movies.


Doomsday

I really like Neil Marshall. I love Dog Soliders and worship The Descent but this just ain't up to much. It seems like, well he's admitted as much, that he just ripped off a lot of other movies about this stuff and glued them together as a kind of tribute. It was worth it for Rhona Mitra. I don't know whether anyone else noticed this or not...how bad the editing was in the first half an hour? It was way too fast and choppy. I got a bit of a head on.


Hancock

In the first hour it seemed kind of fun, then it fell apart pretty quickly. Peter Berg is not a great director, but it was probably more on account of the story itself that this didn't work out.


What Happens In Vegas

It's bad. The amount of spray tan...will just blow you away. At first I thought they had some kind of filter on but...no, I don't think so. Orange. Really orange. So orange.


The Spiderwick Chronicles

Pretty decent, actually. For a kids movie. It was dark and there was genuine peril (suck it, Lucas).


In Bruges

It was pretty good. Funny and dark. I think I need to watch it again, cause it was railing me first off.


Prom Night (Remake)

It's a Wire reunion with Ziggy and Stringer but they can't stop it being crap.


Street Kings

If you've seen a James Ellroy movie before you've got no surprises coming, really. Plus, y'know, Keanu Reeves as a COP on the EDGE.


Wall-E

Great. I loved it.


The Mummy 3

Rob Cohen. Why? Now people miss Stephen Sommers. They're like, "what's Stephen Sommers up to?" He should be forgiven for Van Helsing, already. Oh and yes, Rob Cohen's Mummy 3 is awful.


The Dark Knight

Saw it twice in the cinema. Loved it. Not much more I can write that hasn't already been said. Hope Heath in the nurse's uniform blowing up the hospital will become as classic a moment as Jack Nicholson throwing the axe at the door in The Shining.


The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford

Hm. Well, it looked good, and Casey Affleck was good, but I wasn't blown away.


You Don't Mess With The Zohan

Yeah....no.


Sex & The City

Awful. I'm not a huge fan of the series, but I won't throw a shit fit if it's on. I can watch it and see it for what it is, the same as with Entourage (which is just a male version of SATC) but this is virtually unwatchable. There aren't any genuine laughs and it doesn't even try and use generic techniques to pull at the female heartstrings. Plus it's really long.


100 Feet

Famke Janssen kills her abusive husband and gets off a murder rap light, except she's under house arrest for the rest of her sentence. And it's the house she killed her husband in. And he's haunting it. And he's angry. Surprisingly watchable and gory, if lame.


Stir of Echoes 2: Homecoming

Rob Lowe is back from Iraq (or Afghanistan) and he saw some harsh shit and now he's blah blah whatever. This really has nothing to do with the first movie and clearly they had another TV movie or straight-to-dvd script and wrote 'Stir of Echoes 2' on the front. Because nob-ends like me will be mildly intrigued and watch it.


The Strangers

Effective horror movie that only loses points for the stupidity of the main characters and the lack of cohesion in the chase pieces.


Midnight Meat Train

You know, fuck you. Because this movie has many, many problems. The special effects are quite cheap and shoddy. You never, at any point, stop thinking 'ITSVINNIEJONESITSVINNIEJONESITSVINNIEJONES'. Bradley Cooper is an extremely limited actor. They properly grab onto the Clive Barker story til it has you wondering whether it's 1990 and you're at a Night Breed matinee double bill. But you know what? This has more balls and simple ideas, just in terms of basic execution, than 95% of all horror movies i've watched in the last 5 years. Yeah, it's shit. But I dug it. Of course, I will admit that it might be partially due to the Kitamura Love.


Wanted

The Loom of Fate. No. Skinny Arms Jolie is all sorts of visually disturbing.


Get Smart

Slowly and painfully drags you kicking and screaming into admitting it's "actually not that bad."


Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

It looks good, but is ultimately fluff. Frances McDormand's accent is also really wobbly.


Hellboy 2

Again, it's got so much to look at and many great ideas, but there's too much going on on screen to really feel attached to the heart of the story.


Hamlet 2

Uh, yeah. Don't know whether you're familiar with Hamlet 2. Steve Coogan is playing a high school drama teacher in Arizona (I think) and he basically wants to prove he is a talented actor/writer, so when they cancel drama at his school he writes a sequel to Hamlet for the kids to play out, which is a musical. It's pretty bad, but by the end you're almost won over. Which is quite the acheivement, to be fair.


Burn After Reading

A few good moments, but disappointing overall.


Prince Caspian

Too. Fucking. Long. By far. After the first hour you don't care. By the second hour, you're about ready to choke an Aslan. Coming on three hours you're weeping and begging for it to end.


The House Bunny

Despite the great Anna Faris, who has botoxed the shit out of her upper lip and now looks very odd indeed, this is really fucking awful.


Twilight

The best thing I can say about it is that the colour scheme is right. Kristen Stewart isn't bad as Bella, but that Robert Pattinson kid is an awful actor. I love all that vampire forbidden love sexy time crap and whatnot, but it's so badly directed and scripted to the point where even I was cringing. Some of the lines in it (I'm thinking of the off-handed "It's Debussey..." shit and the entire Vampire Baseball sequence, particularly) clanged out so badly I started inwardly screaming.


Ghost Town

David Koepp manages to crank out a fairly harmless little romcom here. Although, if you've ever seen Heart & Souls with Robert Downey Jr (1993) don't even bother. It's pretty much the exact same movie.


Step Brothers

Complete lack of laughs from beginning to end. Pish.


Mirrors (Remake)

Alexandre Aja manages to get another piece of shit made, with Kiefer Sutherland woefully miscast and an end product which makes Silent Hill look like Don't Look Now. Look out for the twist ending, which is so unbelievably lame it will make you physically revolt.


The Alphabet Killer

Eliza Dushku is the wrong choice here and flashing her baps doesn't force any kind of up-tick. Her schizo moments are laughable and the general Zodiac-wannabe-ing leaves you cold.


Babylon A.D.

Vin plays this like it's his Children of Men. It isn't. It is, however, shite.


Death Race (Remake)

Fairly watchable Paul WS Anderson actioner. Instantly forgettable. Isn't that what you paid for?


Dance of the Dead

Surprisingly fun low-budget horror movie that shouldn't be missed. Really well put together.


Passengers

Came out this year apparently. The director's got a couple more projects in the works, one with Naomi Watts and Annette Bening called Mother & Child. I'd never heard of Passengers. But it's an Anne Hathaway vehicle with a story you've seen a billion times before. Nothing new here. Nothing to see. Move along.