Emotional Pedant

100 Movies I Watched

2010-05-24T07:54:00.001-07:00

Coraline
Good. I watched it in 3D. The 3D didn’t really add anything to it. I find Nightmare Before Christmas overrated (the songs especially) so this was a better fit for me. In related news: Tim Burton and I are fucking done professionally, until he makes another PROPER movie and not the SAME FUCKING MOVIE OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Valkyrie
It’s fairly well made, but not a lot of it has stuck in my mind. Hitler doesn’t die. Obviously. OMGspoilarz.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Fincher and Robert Zemeckis are two of my favourite directors, but Eric Roth’s screenplays bore the shit out of me. I didn’t hate it as much as Forrest Gump, but it syrup’d along, finished and I didn’t really have any feelings one way or the other. Just: bleh.

Timecrimes
Quite good little low-budget time travel movie that never really reaches the heights of, say, Primer, but makes for an entertaining flick nonetheless.

S Darko
I just…yeah, bad. Bad. I’m sure you’re curious, but….don’t.

Drag Me To Hell
Everyone enjoyed Drag Me To Hell. That means it’s awesome. But I didn’t like it. I’d go as far as to say it pissed me off. I can’t really rant about it, because it doesn’t really matter in the big picture, but here‘s just a few things: Raimi’s always been a bit repetitive with his gross-outs, but how many forced facials and throat jobs did he need to show us before it got one-note? I was out at about 6 or 7. The “demon” effects were pretty piss poor, hence I was never really buying the severity of her ultimate fate, the twist of which was signposted so ham-fistedly I was actually shocked when it wasn’t second-guessed. The only thing I liked about it was Justin Long. I actually thought he was pretty good in it considering his role was a bit thankless. And just…everyone was like: “Raimi! He’s back to his best!” Felt like…well, back to his best? Doesn’t that mean just falling back on old ground? Going for the easy dollar? I’ve kind of grown up thinking that’s a bad thing. I got no problem with the dude making another horror/com, but at one point she was creeping around her house in the silence calling “hello?? Is anyone there??” before a loud music sting. Come on… I mean, if anything, this was nowhere near as well-presented as “his best.”

The Fall
It was great, but the last 20 minutes all I could think was: “Did they really kill that monkey? That monkey looks dead. I don’t think monkeys can play dead that well. That’s a dead monkey. That’s upsetting.” I am so retarded. It kind of ruined the whole denouement for me.

Eden Log
I can barely remember Eden Log. I had chronic morning sickness when I watched it. It had some good style, I remember that much. But plot-wise, I don’t think I was ever fully grasping what the fuck was going on.

Machine Girl
Watched on the same day as Eden Log. Just remember lots of crazy over-the-top gore.

Friday 13th (remake)
There’s nothing here, really. The original wasn’t that great. The remake isn’t any good either. Glossier, maybe. If that’s a compliment.

The Horsemen
I dunno how Jonas Akerlund came to direct this piece of shit. I dunno how Dennis Quaid got on the project. All I know is: I don’t ever want to watch another Dave Callaham-scripted movie, which means I’m not watching The Expendables I guess.

He’s Just Not That Into You
It’s not the worst of this shit I’ve seen, but it wasn’t good either.

Push
Pish.

Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince
I enjoyed it. It felt filler-y, but that didn’t bother me.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
This is SO worth a watch for Chris Klein’s performance. It’s shocking.

The Haunting In Connecticut
I heard this was well shit, but I kind of liked it. I got a soft spot for Kyle Gallner. Can’t go wrong with a bit of Beaver, I always say.

Duplicity
I guess people wanted to see Clive Owen and Julia Roberts back together again on screen? It just went round and round in circles until it finished and I didn’t care about either of them by that time.

Crank 2
If you’re the person that Crank 2 was geared towards, I’m sure you loved it. I watched it with bemusement. It was too silly to generate any ire on my part.

Sunshine Cleaning
Decent enough, but didn’t leave a lasting impression.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Jon Foster is such a fucking charisma vacuum. I just want him to go away.

The Cell 2
Rubbish. I actually liked the first one. I don’t know why. Maybe it was Tarsem’s direction that interested me. The vision. This one actually has the nerve to start out with some of the footage from the original, before falling into its own straight-to-video shitness.

Wolverine
The problem with most of these prequels is the sense of the inevitable. The main character isn’t going to die. You’ve seen them alive 10 years later. There’s no peril. Bit boring to watch an action movie with no excitement in it, innit? Plus: CGI Patrick Stewart head floating there like a weird fleshy fried egg at the end frightened me.

The Substitute
Pretty decent Danish kids (?) film. Proper mental. The IMDB keywords are “Alien, Talking to Dead Mother” and “Punched In The Face.” If you didn’t just add it to your rental queue, we’re probably not *close* friends.

State of Play
Not really a patch on the series, which was ace. It’s not bad, it’s just a bit dull and fairly unmemorable.

District 9
Ace.

17 Again
I didn’t think I would like it. It’s been done before like a million times. I grew up in the 80s, the zenith of crap teen body-swap comedies (‘Like Father, Like Son’ with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron is a personal guilty pleasure) so I don’t think the genre has much to offer me, but this was actually quite entertaining. That had a lot to do with Thomas Lennon, I’m sure.

Trick ‘r Treat
Great little horror movie that got totally overlooked and went straight to video. Gory, fantastical and genuinely surprising.

Orphan
A horror flick from the Dark Castle stable. They churn them out. Very silly.

G.I. Joe
It’s like live action Team America. I got some perverse enjoyment out of it. I’m a Stephen Sommers apologist.

Transformers 2
An endurance test of awfulness. I had to warm up and down to watch it.

Moon
I don’t know what I was expecting. Something…more, I think, than there was. Maybe I need to watch it again.

The Thaw
Rubbish environmental Cabin Fever-esque low budget horror with Val Kilmer slumming for a quick pay cheque. He barely makes a facial expression.

Terminator: Salvation
This movie makes no sense and is crap. I enjoyed it, however. Christian Bale should have spent less time worrying about the lighting though, and more time worrying about the fact that the star of the movie ended up being Sam Worthington who, despite being a bit of a crap actor, manages to make Bale’s silly performance look EVEN WORSE.

I Love You Beth Cooper
Shit. Piss off, Chris Columbus.

Year One
I’d heard so many bad reviews about Year One, I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. Probably due to low expectations.

Taking of Pelham 123
I haven’t watched the original. I’ve heard it’s good. This isn’t. I like Tony Scott movies and I didn’t like this, so it must be REALLY bad. Cause that’s like saying “I enjoy eating shit, but this turd just isn’t making the grade.”

The Proposal
Rubbish.

Race To Witch Mountain
I can’t really remember it.

Pandorum
Starts off quite good, slumps terribly, then picks up a bit toward the end. It’s just kind of a mash-up of other, better, movies.

Surrogates
Rubbish. I’ll probably end up watching it repeatedly on TV at 3 in the morning because there’s nothing else on. That’s what kind of movie it is.

The Box
I liked it a lot. I could have done without the CGI water imagery, frankly. I feel like we’ve seen that before from Kelly and he could have come up with something a little more interesting.

Final Destination 4
I love the Final Destination movies, but this just made me sad. I think the franchise may have run out of gas. I don’t think I can hear the “I think DEATH is FINISHING what it STARTED!” exposition speech again.

Jennifer’s Body
I enjoyed the shit out of it. Most people hated it, from what I can gather. Maybe it’s because lines like “You’re just jello. You're lime green jello and you can't even admit it to yourself.” actually made me laugh, whereas most people have a proper sense of humour and watch proper comedy like Curb Your Enthusiasm. I mean sure, everyone sounds like Diablo Cody, but that didn’t bother me as much in this as it did in Juno and United States of Tara. Also, Kyle Gallner is in it, and it’s now common knowledge that I can’t resist a bit of Beaver.

2012
I mean, no one gets chased by frost or punches a wolf, but it’s still some fairly entertaining nonsense. It does, however, contain the worst last line in a movie ever. So is that a pro or con? Mmmm…falling on pro. Just for bizarreness.

The Hangover
I didn’t really laugh. It was quite well made, though. Kind of a strange one. It made shit-loads of money, so I guess I was trying to find something outstanding or some hilarious scene that pushed it into the stratosphere, but I couldn’t.

The Other Man
I just watched this for Laura Linney. It wouldn’t be out of place as an ITV drama.

Where The Wild Things Are
I get that this is some massive achievement (at least, that’s what the cool people tell me) and maybe kids are into it? I don’t know. Spike Jonze has, in the past, managed to avoid making his films look like indie music videos. This looks exactly like an indie music video and so the atmosphere, while well-established, tends to affect the tone of the piece. There’s often a sense of dread hanging over it. I wonder whether kids would pick up on that.

Avatar
Loved it in the cinema. I watched it again recently at home in 2D and it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable.

Angels & Demons
Terrible.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
So, so good.

Pontypool
Pretty decent, considering its small budget and tiny collection of characters. Almost the whole thing takes place in a few rooms, yet maintains your interest. The wheels come off a bit in the third act, as is usually the case with these things.

Whiteout
Shiteout. It’s really, really boring.

Gran Torino
Pretty good. Clint’s now made 2 movies I’ve liked. It feels nice to change my opinion. I’d like it to happen more often.

Sorority Row
I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I wasn’t like “WOW!” or anything, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

Monsters vs. Aliens
Dull and predictable.

Franklyn
Ok. An interesting experiment. It’s a bit all over the place, and deliberately so. Eva Green’s character is really fucking annoying in it.

Frozen River
Quite the depressing flick. It stuck with me, though, and Melissa Leo is really good in it. Looking forward to seeing what Courtney Hunt has for us next. It’s nice to see a lot of up-and-coming female directors doing good work. In fact, this reminded me a lot of Sarah Polley’s flick Away From Her. Probably just the winter-y atmosphere.

The Brothers Bloom
Neh. Rian Johnson has yet to prove himself as a decent film maker for me. I didn’t think Brick was more than the sum of its overly self-aware parts either. I think he might be a director that, in the future, people will diss, but right now they’re too blind to see what a pretender he is.

44 Inch Chest
Lot of swearing. This was more like a play, though I doubt it would have succeeded as one. Goes to show how much Jonathan Glazer had to do with the brilliance of Sexy Beast. He’s done nothing since Birth. That’s depressing. I want more Glazer movies in my life.

The Informers
Crap. Good soundtrack, though.

The Last House on The Left (remake)
I thought it was pretty good. I’ve not seen the original. It’s weird to see Tony Goldwyn as the good guy, heh.

Case 39
Shit. A few good visual effects though.

A Serious Man
I thought it was a serious return to form for the Coens, who haven’t done anything that’s impressed me since The Man Who Wasn’t There. I really enjoyed it.

Whip It
Alright. Fairly predictable. Can’t see it becoming the cult classic it clearly hopes it’s going to be.

Triangle
It’s kind of a rip-off of a bunch of other movies, and where something like Sunshine never really manages to pull that off, Triangle does it really fucking well and ends up being kind of awesome.

Couples Retreat
How does a movie have so many funny people in it and not contain a single humorous moment? That’s quite the achievement, isn’t it?

Up In The Air
This had nothing new to offer. I’ve seen this all before and I didn’t even buy Clooney’s character arc. After all that time playing the same game, he wasn’t going to turn on a dime. Also, Clooney’s performance here was nowhere near as good as I’ve seen him before. If anything, it seemed phoned in. Jason Reitman is a hack and the award nods just make me groan.

Black Devil Doll
Well, there’s a black doll possessed by a serial killer fucking and killing “white bitches.” The first half an hour of that is funny, then it kind of runs out of good will and becomes a bit dull.

The Wrestler
Ok.

Up
Blubbed most of the way through. Another Pixar classic.

Blood Creek
Oh, Joel…..no.

Daybreakers
Yeah, I enjoyed it. The bits with Willem Dafoe kind of slowed it down a little, but other than that it was good. I get why people wouldn’t like it. I think I’m prone to enjoy most movies that have an ‘exploding head’ scene.

The Stepfather
Not seen the original, but I’ve got to imagine it’s better than this, which made Disturbia look really good in comparison. Terry O’Quinn can be properly scary too, which the guy from Nip/Tuck fails to achieve.

The Hurt Locker
Ok. Bit “meh” after watching a few really good Iraq projects like Generation Kill and Three Kings. Didn’t feel like it really achieved as much as those in terms of bringing something new to the war genre.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Awesome.

Legion
All the best bits are in the trailer. It’s actually kind of a mess. I still find it baffling that Lucas Black keeps getting work.

Tell Tale
This is another Dave Callaham script and it’s Michael Cuesta of L.I.E/Dexter at the helm. I expect he tried his best to give it some oomph, but everything about it ends up falling flat.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
I was surprised. The reviews were awful, but I was actually pretty surprised by how entertaining I found it.

The House of The Devil
One of, if not *the*, best horror movie I’ve seen in years.

Zombieland
Great.

Funny People
It’s too long. I mean, it’s way too fucking long. But it’s not bad. It’s got some funny. And it’s nice to see Adam Sandler acting properly again.

Gigantic
Paul Dano is exactly the same in every movie. So is Zooey Deschanel. John Goodman is well good in this though, so worth a look for his turn.

The Visitor
Richard Jenkins rules in this nice little flick about an old white guy learning to play the bongos and getting a bit depressed about how deportation works. Yup, that’s it.

Ninja Assassin
There’s at least one ninja assassin in it. Bit boring then, considering.

The Fourth Kind
I was well scared by the floaty alien big mouth bits. I’m an idiot. This is proper rubbish. I’ve seen it like five times now. There’s something wrong with me.

Sherlock Holmes
SEXY HOLMES!!! YEAARHGHH!!!! HE BARE KNUCKLE BOXES AND THAT!!!! YEAHH???!!! The stuff in this movie that isn’t overly Ritchie-ised is entertaining enough. Mark Strong was good. Couldn’t understand a word Robert Downey Jr was saying, even after a second viewing.

Antichrist
There’s a lot of Don’t Look Now in this. I love Lars von Trier. I think the world of movies is lucky to have people like him kicking around. I’ve decided I never want to cut my clitoris off with a pair of scissors thanks to this movie. Wow, lucky I watched it before I got to that on my Things To Do list.

Revolutionary Road
Not read the book. I still find it hard to watch Leo play Man roles. He still looks about 12. I didn’t buy them as a couple at all.

Shutter Island
The music is insanely OTT. The music is so incredibly loud and pointlessly dramatic that it almost ruins a fresh Scorsese film, which we haven’t had for ages. It’s been all biopics and remakes and Gangs of New York (urk). I hope he makes more like this.

Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Terrible.

Brothers
I haven’t seen the original, but it’s clear this didn’t need a remake, especially with the three actors chosen here, who suspended my disbelief not a jot.

An Education
An ok movie to watch on an afternoon, but it’s not going to change your life. Alfred Molina is good.

500 Days of Summer
Maybe if I was a lot younger I’d have liked this movie, but I’m old and found it all too…wanky. Plus, Christ, I am so sick of Zooey Deschanel and her blinky-blinky-eyed murmuring.

The Fantastic Mr Fox
Would you like some whimsy? Would you? Hm? WHIMSY? Here, have some fucking whimsy.

Paranormal Activity
I didn‘t find it scary at all, which one imagines is the aim of a scary movie. After seeing so much of this stuff, like The Blair Witch Project, The Last Broadcast and REC….I was kinda bored.

A Christmas Carol
This did not need to be animated, nor did we really need another Christmas Carol. There’s already about a million versions.

Perfect Getaway
Perfect Saturday evening trash. Olyphantastic.

Surveillance
Saw the twist coming from the beginning. Still managed to keep me fairly engaged. I like to see Bill Pullman at work.

The Lovely Bones
Not as bad as I thought it would be. I’ll never be a Peter Jackson fan, but at least he tries to change up his visual style from movie to movie. He’s not a hack.

Kick Ass
There’s something awesome about the fact that this is #100 on the list. It’s nothing more than the fact that the title of the movie is Kick Ass and I’m fucking relieved to have finished typing out this fucking cunting shitting pissing list. Oh, and the movie’s not half bad either.

Star Trek: Emotional Pedantry

2009-05-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

What I Loved About It

It’s Just Fun

It is. It has the kind of balls-out sense of fun the Star Wars prequels were grimly lacking and, while it doesn’t have the overall cleanness of Galaxy Quest or Serenity, it’s certainly packing their moxie.

Cast

Everyone’s having a good time and putting in a fabulous ensemble performance. And while Yelchin has the least to work with (I’ve no doubt there’s a deleted scene explaining his baby genius back-story somewhere) and Bana is a very simple villain (he’s just a dude who’s gone a bit sideways after seeing his entire planet annihilated) there’s no one in particular standing out of place. Although at one point, Quinto does go Full Sylar. It’s less ‘Angry Tears Emotional Outburst’ and more ‘I’m Enjoying Hurting You.’ Reign it in, Zach. Also Simon Pegg’s accent, rather predictably, wildly vacillates.

Script

The script does as best as it can while it shoehorns in “first meetings”. It has very funny moments, some great action and everything zips along at a cracking pace, never slowing down enough for you to revel in its flaws. They’ve also done a great job at wiping the slate clean with the “well, we’re in an alternate reality now, none of that other shit from the other movies/series’ is relevant to this or any future plot” storyline. That means there can be genuine peril; they can even kill Kirk off if the mood strikes. Vulcan is completely destroyed, FFS. That’s just a glimpse of how far they can fuck with us in the future.

What I Hated About It

Constant Lens Flare (a.k.a. J.J Abrams’ “Ow, My Retinas”)

Seriously, it’s insane. I read afterwards it was all done organically on set, a bunch of people shining flashlights into mirrors. In the words of Mr Christian Bale: “IT’S FUCKING DISTRACTING!” Also, I feel I may be semi-permanently blinded. Since, Abrams has admitted “I know there are certain shots where even I watch and think, ‘Oh, that's ridiculous. That was too many [lens flares].’” Put simply, it creates a glass wall between you and the film. Which I don’t think is a Good Thing.

Rambaldi’s Endgame

The ‘Red Matter’, which is a big red liquid ball, is a MacGuffin straight out of Abrams’ TV show Alias. I groaned when I saw it. There’s a knowing wink to ‘what has come before’ in a person’s career, and then there’s the Red Matter. We’ve seen Rachel Nichols in her underwear covered in green paint; do we really need Rambaldi’s Engame as well? No. Also, one drop of that shit destroyed a planet. You’re telling me 20 gallons of it wouldn’t probably swallow the entire universe?

Uhura

I have to say, as a chick, this bothered me the most. What, you couldn’t create a strong, intelligent female character without her being the third point in a love triangle between Kirk and Spock? Give me a break. Why couldn’t Sulu be the love interest? Maybe Scotty is into Asians, I don’t know. Surprise me!

Battle Scenes

Because of the glinty-glinty lens flares, fast editing and generally cluttered CGI, it was pretty fucking hard to tell what was going on during the ship battles in space. Is the ship in the black hole? Is it? What just happened? No clue.

Intrusive Music

The score was a little intrusive, especially at the beginning.

Overall

It was a really good Movie, but a dodgy Film. It was good popcorn-y fun and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Hollywood's Unsung Heroes: Justin Theroux Edition

2009-05-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

For Why?
On TV and in film, Justin's been busting his ass, only to be relied upon as the go-to bit-part guy. Also, despite being related to The Louis Theroux, he is completely unable to do an English or Irish accent. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, for example. What is that? It sounds like a leprechaun forced into blender with a morose seagull.
Prove It!
Justin knows he's never going to be the lead guy in anything worthwhile. He's not even that good an actor. So last year he moved sidewards and up by co-writing the screenplay for Tropic Thunder.
Hmm, Not Sold. I Can Look Out For Further Proof?
He's only gawn and written the screenplay for Iron Man 2 by gum! BEH-JAYZIS!

Hollywood's Unsung Heroes: Peter Deming Edition

2009-05-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

For Why?
Since breaking out in the world of cinematography with Evil Dead II, this guy has worked his ass off to try and make any movie you shove at him look rich as hell.
Prove It!
From House Party to My Cousin Vinny to Mulholland Drive to Joe's fuckin Apartment. There is literally no project too weak-ass or awesome he won't beef up to MAXIMUM WIN POTENTIAL. If that shit flops don't blame this guy, he did all he could.
Hmm, Not Sold. I Can Look Out For Further Proof?

Yeah, there's a little movie called Drag Me To Hell once again reuniting Deming and Raimi that's probably going to blow your balls out through your ass. Maybe even enough to make us forget ALL THREE Spiderman movies. With any luck.

Hollywood's Unsung Heroes: Anton Yelchin Edition

2009-05-06T05:12:00.000-07:00

For Why?

The poor bastard has already paid his dues, starring in great-but-cancelled TV show Huff as Hank Azaria's son, and virtually carrying Alpha Dog by himself. He's the next Leonardo DiCaprio. But, y'know, not crap.

Prove It!

Despite blowing his wad a bit on the tonal clusterfuck that was Charlie Bartlett, all he needs is the right break, right? His parents are the infamous russian figure skaters Viktor and Irina Yelchin, which means he is genetically built from the 'WORK NOW, GRUEL LATER' ethic. This kid is in it for the long haul.

Hmm, Not Sold. I Can Look Out For Further Proof?

You wait for one big break and then two come along at once. He's playing two key younger versions of classic movie characters this summer: Chekov in Star Trek and Kyle Reese in Terminator:Salvation. Holy SHIT dude.

Hollywood's Unsung Heroes: Tom Hollander Edition

2009-05-06T00:43:00.000-07:00

For Why?
Looking like the bastard son of Tom Hulce and Timothy Hutton, Tom Hollander cuts an underwhelming 5’5 swathe through the Pirates of The Caribbean movies, playing “weasely British guy”...a role he must be somewhat used to. He also played “weasely guy” in lauded HBO mini-series 'John Adams' and Valkyrie. This will inevitably continue for some time, until he gets a lucky break in some Lottery-funded indie flick playing someone disabled, retarded or dying of a flesh-eating bug, which he will inevitably pick up a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for.
Prove It!
He’s actually a really good actor, having forged a decent career despite being earlier rejected from every drama school known to man. Plus, he said this:

"I have a theory that in the US if there's an arsehole in a film doing something stupid they say, 'Make them British, now it makes sense.' If they want a daft idiot nowadays, they just get a British actor in."
Hmm, Not Sold. I Can Look Out For Further Proof?
You can. In The Loop is already out, and The Soloist follows it. Will he be playing “weasely guy”? Probably.

Hollywood's Unsung Heroes: Alexandre Desplat Edition

2009-05-05T04:54:00.001-07:00

For Why?

He's the guy responsible for making lame movies almost good by creating a great atmosphere. By 2020, he'll be up there with John Williams, Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer and Ennio Morricone. As close as a Composer can get to a "household name."

Prove It!

Birth, Hostage, Lust Caution, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well as a billion solid French movies like Nid de guepes (The Nest). They weren't great movies, were they? But there was maybe something about them that drew you in and kept you watching? Yeah, that's a good way to recognize a Desplat score.

Also, his name has the word "splat" in it. Thus, he is already in Epic Win territory by default.

Hmm, Not Sold. I Can Look Out For Further Proof?

You can. Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox' and 'Twilight: New Moon' are on the horizon.

When You Were Having A Career & Making Your Parents Proud In April, I Sat On My Ass & Watched These Movies

2009-05-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Yes Man
Not funny. Off topic, that's my problem with Jody Hill. THE AUDIENCE ISN'T LAUGHING. Thus, it is not comedy.

The Wackness
Quite an accurate portrayal of how lonely it is to be a young drug-dealer with a heart (o, my mis-spent youth). Good Stuff all round.

Doubt
One of those play-on-screen situations where you'd rather have seen it in the theatre than had to deal with some dull direction. Y'know, ok. Pretty much what you think it's going to be.

Dead Snow
It starts off a bit rubbish, but then gets pretty fun. I liked it. More Nazi zombie movies please!

Quantum of Solace
The parts of the movie with no action in tend to flatline completely, and even the action isn't that exciting. The plot seems non-existent. It's all a shame, cause I like Marc Forster as a director. I think he's unfairly lambasted on a regular basis.

The Reader
Easier to swallow than The Hours. Pretty watchable, if not blow-your-mind fantastic.

Hunger
Truly excellent.

The Uninvited
Compared to the original? Crap. Compared to The Unborn? Almost good.

The Children
Terrifying. Children are scary anyway. Let's face it, most of them are Adult Assholes waiting to happen, let alone when they're sneezing homicidal germs all over each other's faces.

I Love You, Man
Better than Role Models, but not as good as Forgetting Sarah Marshall. There it stands, in the ouvre.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People
Christ. The best thing I can say about it is Kirsten Dunst is less annoying than she usually is.

Sex Drive
Now, I watched the "unrated" edition. This edition begins with a warning from the director that this version is, basically, shit. Well, I don't know what the theatrical version was like, but I can't imagine it was any better than shit.

Inkheart
I've seen worse. Some nice touches and generally ok, for a kiddy movie.

Underworld 3
Much like the second one, I found this third installment to be quite enjoyable, although some of the CGI was proper ropey.

Fast & Furious
Not as good as Tokyo Drift, but mercifully better than the second.

Taken
I really liked it! Fast-paced and a nice guilty Payback-ian Friday night pleasure. Reminded me a bit of Frantic but, yknow, not fucking terrible. A lot of these type of movies have suffered from being way too long, but this has the intelligence not to linger.

While You Were Out Nailing Hot Chicks In March, I Watched These Instead

2009-03-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

The Changeling
Just a great piece of work and easily Clint’s best to date. Shamefully ignored in awards season, save a few nods for Jolie. Really good stuff. Also found myself getting really wound up by it about half-way through. The brain, it resists implausible plot points, even true-to-life ones. Try and check it out though, it’s proper heartgutting.

Blindness
Y’know, it’s a bit crap. I get what they were going for, but it’s not far off being a complete and utter turkey. All the dancing, bleached-out camerawork just distances you from the characters, and as the genre bends towards science-fiction and asks you to care about all the rapins, betrayins and murderins...that just won’t do, baby.

Watchmen
“He’s so faithful to the comic” and whatever. Yeah, too faithful. You might as well read the bloody comic. It doesn’t connect in the way that Sin City does. You’ve got to know the difference between being faithful to a 2D material and rounding-out the characters and story into an actual film and Snyder just doesn’t seem to know how.

Australia
It’s not nearly as bad as I’d heard. I wouldn’t watch it again, but it was alright. I don’t know what people were expecting, but personally I was expecting exactly this, so was neither thrilled nor disappointed.

The Duchess
Hmm, yeah. Ok. Decent enough, for what it is. The sex scenes between Ralph “s’RAYF, actually” Fiennes and Keira “cum” Knightley were like watching a pale toad apathetically prod at a spatula. In that way, this movie was a complete success.

The Unborn
Pretty darn bad. And not even good-bad. Just averagely nothing. Also has a tacked-on ending you can see coming a mile off.

Knowing
KNOWING. Heh. I was excited and filled with dread about the whole thing. ‘Cause I hate The Crow, love Dark City and found I, Robot alright.

I kind of love Alex Proyas. He’s dear to me. So when I heard the plot I could kind of see what was going to happen. You were going to get a mental, old-school sci-fi story and jam Nicholas Cage’s hair plugs right in the middle of it.

That’s exactly what you get here. Fleeting, great moments ruined by epic retardedness. You can’t build up a terrifying moment and then throw a cartoony CGI moose on fire at the screen. It creates guffaws where there shouldn’t be any. Say what you want about the hilariously fucking inept 70s prog-rock vinyl front cover ending, but at least Proyas followed through on the basic idea.

Cage? Jesus, he under-acts here to the point of boredom. I dunno whether he had Botox or what. Christ. I’ve seen a lot of bad Cage acting but this was the worst he’s ever been. Laughably bad. And because Proyas seems to care so much about the (admittedly awful) material I found myself a bit angry at Cage for being so goddamn terrible, which is a trait of his I usually enjoy.

Role Models
A few amusing moments, but not nearly as good as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was about average. So, pretty bad.

I Hit This Shit In February, While You Were Out Having A Life

2009-03-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

In defense of my blog that only a few poor souls read, I would like to say that during last week my boyfriend was looking to see whether a film he wanted to see was any good. As we were flipping through reviews on the internet, I was reading them aloud and he snapped "just skip to the last paragraph" because that's where the crux is. People don't really want the plot synopsis or any of that crap. So. Here, then:

Zack & Miri Make a Porno
I thought it was a lot better than Jersey Girl and Clerks 2, which had tone problems and were generally a bit wank. Quite sweet, really.

Frost/Nixon
Y'know, it’s Ron Howard. What are you expecting? Are you expecting a competently-directed film that occasionally lapses into dull moments, with a cavalier attitude to riding the line between actual events and more dramatic, entirely fictional moments? Well, that’s what you’ll get. Have at it.

Slumdog Millionaire
It’s crap. I’m not hating on it for racial reasons (piss off) but purely performance reasons on all fronts (except acting, which is ok). A while ago Danny Boyle directed a movie called Millions, which was critically and financially shat on from a great height. Slumdog is basically a remake of Millions with a bit of City of God thrown in. And the direction itself is chock-full of genuinely poor decisions, whether it be the Battlefield Earth-level of Dutch angles on show or by the criminal comparison of first and second unit shooting. Its massive scoop of awards is just shameful.

Good Dick
Jason Ritter is gently slipping into indie movie territory after the cancellation of Joan of Arcadia (terribly saccharine TV show of yore with Amber ‘inappropriately young girlfriend of David Cross’ Tamblyn). Good Dick is all over the place, but it stayed with me afterward inexplicably.

Defiance
Oh Liev. So hot. Edward Zwick does better here than with Blood Diamond. He’s still doing that thing he does. Taking a true story and mashing an action movie in there. Whatever makes you happy, Zwick.

Choke
Not a bad first effort from Clark Gregg (he of ‘I know him. Where do I know him from?’ TV bit-part fame) and Sam Rockwell looks like a great kisser, but overall it’s not outstanding and Kelly Macdonald is badly miscast.

Rachel Getting Married
I was really impressed with it. The horrible characters really reflected the grief process well. Great acting throughout. Bit overlong, but fuck it. The scene where Hathaway goes to see Winger before the wedding is AMAZING.

W
Just, no. Bad.

The Escapist
Rupert Wyatt (directed Ticks. No, seriously) does good here. Decent little prison escape piece with a tight running time and Steven Mackintosh playing a mental. Because he either plays a mental, or a straight character you keep expecting to go mental, but never does. Typecasting: gotta love it. Elsewhere, Damien Lewis perfects his mince. Sweet.

What Just Happened
Oh God. I mean, do we need another crappy Robert de Niro movie? We really don’t. When will it end?

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Keanu Reeves playing an emotionless alien. Method acting at its finest. Ropey CGI and an overall feeling of lameness. Also, Jennifer Connelly needs to eat at least....*counts on fingers*....5000 Subway meatball subs. Where is old-school big-titted lovely Jennifer? She collapsed in on herself like a manic-depressive white dwarf.

Outpost
Zombie Nazis. Cool. Tyres doesn’t die too early on, if you were wondering.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
They really do. Me too. I liked it. They reveal the killer pretty early on, and while it seems obvious who it is anyway, you can’t help but suspect there’s a twist ending coming. There is, and it sags a bit there. But Jonathan Levine is a director to look out for and you’ll be seeing A LOT of Amber Heard in the coming years. Possibly too much.

Seven Pounds
I cried all the way through shamelessly although it is, of course, fucking awful. Also, I was upset by the casting choice of Barry ‘The White Rat’ Pepper. If you’re going to cast Barry Pepper, give him something to do. Suggested viewing includes The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, 25th Hour and The Green Mile for proper awesome Pepper usage.

Films What I Done Watched In January

2009-01-29T04:47:00.000-08:00

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.

The 10 Best Movies I Watched In The Last Year

2009-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

I Continue To Watch Movies, These Are Them

2009-01-03T09:22:00.001-08:00

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.

Some Movies What I Done Watched, Yeah?

2008-08-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Cloverfield
Or ‘No One Gives A Fuck About Hud’ as a great man once suggested. I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t great. Pretty much what I expected.

Shutter
Original Asian version, filled with the usual visual tricks and metaphors akin to these kinds of movies: long dark hair, water, pissed-off dead girl ghosts. Strangely effective, though. A lot of them aren’t.

AVP2
Ok I liked the first Aliens Vs Predator, but I generally enjoy Paul Anderson movies. This second one is bad, though. A lot worse. Seriously.

P2
Rachel Nichols is hot. I mean, damn. This is bad, but worth it to see her running around panting and jiggling.

One Missed Call
Oh, God. Don’t.

Charlie Wilson’s War
Entertaining, if slight, fare from Aaron Sorkin. He’s trying to get back on our good side after the shocking Studio 60 situation. Shocking Studio 60 situation. Try saying that 5 times fast.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
Bad. I liked the first one. This ain’t even that.

Before The Devil Knows Your Dead
It’s ironic, because Philip Seymour Hoffman used to the be the guy that had a few lines in a quirky indie flick and steal it completely. Now here’s Michael Shannon screwing him over in exactly the same fashion.
“I’m gonna call you….Grouchy.”

Iron Man
It’s a Jon Favreau movie, with Robert Downey Jr in it. I found it pretty hard to hate.

The Signal
Visual showcase for directors David Bruckner and Dan Bush, who I’m sure we’ll be seeing around in the future. The film itself is often impressive and awful in equal measure.

Stay Alive
Frankie Muniz-starring horror movie about a video game that kills. I know it sounds like it could be fun, but it really isn’t. I love that the IMDB trivia page says “Ben Foster was going to play the role of Hutch O'Neill, but gave the role to his brother Jon Foster instead because he thought it was better suited for him.” BULL. SHIT. That’s like hearing “Dennis Quaid was originally going to play Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation but gave the role to his brother Randy instead because he thought it was better suited for him.”

Wristcutters: A Love Story
Eh, it’s no good. I like Tom Waits as much as the next girl, but apparently Shannyn Sossamon is just a fuckin curse, now.

Awake
Y’know, I watched this movie on the same day I watched 4 other really bad movies, so it seemed alright in comparison. Terrence Howard is just the weirdest guy - interviews with him frighten me to the very core of my being.

Gone Baby Gone
There are two movies here. One’s good, the other’s Along Came A Spider. So, there’s that. But good acting throughout.

3:10 To Yuma
Ugh. Ben Foster was the only good thing going on here. Not that I wish he’d picked Stay Alive instead, of course. Heh.

Lars & The Real Girl
Really quite sweet and affecting.

Semi-Pro
Not funny.

Super High Me
This stand-up comedian tries out the Morgan Spurlock documentary style, with a lot fewer rules. He basically decides to not get stoned for three months. Surprisingly (or not), although he’s ‘less psychic’ and ‘less smart’ straight, his comedy act gets a thousand times funnier.

Indiana Jones & The Mystery of The Turd in The Circle
What can I say that hasn’t already been said. It should be better than The Mummy, than National Treasure; those movies that ape the Indy vibe. What disturbs more is that it isn’t even better than the sequels to The Mummy and National Treasure. And no, I don’t blame L’eau d’Beef Soup, I blame Lucas of course.

Death Sentence
I only got around to watching this as soon as I did cause Phil is a ‘James Wan completist’. Whatever, it’s not as good as Dead Silence, but probably on the same level as the original Saw in terms of stupidity. Also: James Wan is hot.

Shutter (Remake)
Joshua Jackson - RIP. See you on Fringe, doing that thing you do. The film? It’s what they always do, isn’t it? Just rip out the guts of the scares and such.

Vantage Point
Are action movies supposed to be as dull as shit? Oh. Well, this was GREAT then. Really….ACTION-Y.

Be Kind, Rewind
Yeah, the problem here is that Michel Gondry can write and direct short things no problem, but in terms of anything past 5 minutes he just doesn’t have a clue on how to glue his ideas together with any real heart behind them. Everything’s too slap-dash and earnestly whimsical. I think he can be a great director, but he needs to stop doing scripts.

Jumper
Apparently, Doug Liman is done with scripts and stories all together. I didn’t mind what he did with it, to be honest. I think my mind did, though. It kept thinking stuff like “who’s he?” and “what did he say?” and “that doesn‘t seem credible.”

Teeth
Great. I loved it. Really old-school.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Occasionally amusing. I found the rumour that Jason Segal did this whole movie just so he could get the go-ahead to write a new Muppets movie strangely believable, as silly rumours go.

Wargames 2: The Dead Code
Dude. I can’t…just. It’s just going along, being a crap hacker movie. And it’s filmed a little bit like Spy Game. Like a bad Tony Scott movie. And then, kind of half way through, they decide to bring in the WOPR. I actually found myself getting physically upset. The last minute is the killing blow.

The Darjeeling Ltd
Not as bad as Life Aquatic, but. I think the well is dry. He’s no better than Shyalaman to me, right now.

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Yeah. The first one was better, I guess.

There Will Be Blood
Having seen all the ‘Best Movie’ Oscar nominations now, I feel like this was robbed. And I don’t think I will get tired of shouting ‘You’re a BASTARD from a BASKET!!’ as a comeback any time soon.

Transamerica
Decent enough. And short.

The Ruins
It’s The Hole-y. But slightly less crap.

Pathology
Really, truly, awful. Even seeing Milo Ventimiglia’s ass didn’t make it worth it.

The Happening
They keep saying “happening” throughout. It’s annoying. Also it’s a bad movie. I think I hate Mark Whalberg. I don’t know how he keeps getting work.

21
Surprisingly long and utterly predictable, but mildly entertaining. You could easily watch it on a Sunday afternoon and instantly forget it.

The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe
I think I read a review that said “if Corey Feldman is the best thing about your movie, you’ve got problems.” That just about sums it up. It copies the first movie’s plot almost entirely, with some scenes almost copied shot-for-shot. Corey Haim appears, briefly. It’s still not nearly as bad as Wargames 2.

The Savages
Ok-ish. Oh, Laura! Je t’aime!

Tears of a Clown

2008-07-18T02:32:00.001-07:00

What is it about Thomas Jane that makes me laugh, even when I don’t want to? It’s hard to say.

I remember watching Boogie Nights, Face/Off and The Last Time I Committed Suicide, but I don’t remember him being in them. The first thing I registered him in was Deep Blue Sea. I saw it in the cinema and laughed like a drain – to me, it’s always been one of those ‘so bad it’s funny’ movies. His looking slippery and buff in that wet suit also made the movie an easier pill to swallow.

Maybe that’s where it started.

I couldn’t make it all the way through The Sweetest Thing. But if you think you can take one for the team, you can witness therein Thomas Jane having good old college try at ‘comedy’.

Next, he turned up in Dreamcatcher: another film I place firmly in the ‘so bad it’s funny’ vein of things and was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who also wrote Raiders of The Lost Ark and Empire Strikes Back (and is penning the screenplay for the remake of Clash of The Titans). At the time, and even now, if you pitched a film to me like “It’s got Jason Lee, Timothy Olyphant, Damian Lewis and Morgan Freeman in it. It’s a sci-fi movie about an alien invasion, by the guy that wrote Raiders!” I’d be all “That sounds AWESOME.” It isn’t. Look, here’s a trailer:

See? Looks pretty good, huh? Not even a whiff of shit weasels.

There’s a scene in that movie, which I probably can’t do justice. It’s a scene in which Thomas Jane is riding in a truck and hears a phone ringing. He picks up a gun lying nearby and talks into it like it’s a mobile phone. This is supposed to be a dramatic scene. I still laugh when I think of it.

So at this point, even though I know Thomas Jane isn’t really suited to comedy, I associate him with laughing a lot. I go on to miss out on Stander and The Punisher, so the next thing he appears in is Arrested Development, where he plays himself to great comedic effect.

Japes.

But recently, here’s The Mist: a deadly serious monster flick by Frank Darabont, with a sobering downbeat ending. The human race is all doomed; we’ll destroy each other without the aid of CGI tentacles, etc, etc. And I’m watching for a while, aware of the rave reviews, respectful of Darabont’s career (I still think The Fly 2 is as grim as all Hell and definitely one of the best things Eric Stoltz has ever done) but something’s feeling a little...weird. Then I realise, sort of anxiously, that I’m grinning as if I’m stoned. Thomas Jane’s mere existence is amusing me. I find I can’t look at his face and take him seriously. And he gets work! A lot! With his Paul Newman-y good looks and his Patricia Arquette-banging lifestyle! He’s going to keep being in serious movies! And people will be all “I really liked The Mist/Whatever He Does Next” and my mental agenda will be “Yeah, I mean, yeah...but, didn’t you think that it was unintentionally funny?” and I’ll get that blank stare by return.

Because he HAS to pull it off.

2008-06-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

I feel sorry for Alan Ball.

After John From Cincinnati got the offstage hook last year, everything seemed a little frownyface emoticon for the kids down at HBO. Sopranos was spluttering to an end, Entourage had lost the plot and even the most hardcore fellows among us were getting pre-emptively emotional about the conclusion of The Wire.

And here comes Fox, smirking and casually lifting up its skirt so we can have a look-see. What's under those sexy frillies, then? Fringe. Hm. New 24. Oh. House. Yes. A new Joss Whedon show? Jesus!

HBO, meanwhile, must be pinning all their hopes on new shows like True Blood. Don't they have every reason to? An Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) creation, the source material centres around Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress living in the deep south. She can read minds (which are often full of supernatural secrets) and comes under the employ of a local group of politically-minded vampires. Oh yeah, this is a vampire show.

I watched the pilot last night and while it wasn't anywhere near "Bad TV", it had some pretty serious problems. To be fair, it wasn't a final cut and I'm already hearing some pretty major parts have been re-cast. Casting (although often strange in places) wasn't a particular problem of mine, with Ryan Kwanten (Dead Silence) being a damn-near perfect embodiment of the kind of glassy-eyed grit needed to keep the character of Jason Stackhouse a Question Mark.

No, the main problem here is tone. Whilst the books are jam-packed full of surprising violence and sex (ideal for Alan Ball) he's chosen to not to centre the pilot around the main protagonist. Whils this is perfectly normal for a show, it doesn't work here. Sookie is dreamy, naiive and inexplicably brave, with an "Oh mah stars!" perspective (the perfect foil for making violence and sex intriguing - as a further-down-the-line jaded and cynical Sookie can attest to), Jason is shown sticking his dick and tongue in anything that moves. These two storylines don't mesh well, with Sookie looking like kind of a retard up against Jason's horndog fuckfest, and his horndog fuckfest jarring with her romantic slow-motion fantasies.

At this stage, I wouldn't like to be in Alan Ball's shoes; an awful lot of people surrounding him with the same begging question: "How can we change this so it works? It HAS to work!"

Somewhere there is a stack of teleplays six feet under that used to be a tree.

Movies I've Seen (Recently) - Archive

2008-06-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

Superbad
Not badly made, just not that funny. I enjoy Michael Cera, though.

Resident Evil 3
It continues. Mercifully short.

The Heartbreak Kid
Properly slated when it came out, unlike Superbad, but suffering from the same condition. Someone, somewhere, believes wholeheartedly that all the ingredients are in place to make Hilarity Soufflé. But I guess the right ingredients don’t necessarily make for a good end result.

The Nanny Diaries
Scarlet Johanssen is a super-intelligent chick who decides to become a New York nanny in her gap year (or whatever). That’s pretty much it.

Rescue Dawn
It’s weird to watch Rescue Dawn (which is actually a decent movie, despite the tacked-on ending) without feeling a little dark pain somewhere deep inside. That’s what I expect and love from Herzog, usually. Approached in the right way, however, it hits the right notes. I miss the dark pain, though.

Rush Hour 3
I found it really hard to get through Rush Hour 3. It’s really awful.

Stardust
After the first 20 minutes shake by like Bambi on ice, you forget this is A British Movie. Well played, sir.

Waitress
It’s kind of ok. You wonder whether Adrienne Shelly would have gone on to make better stuff, had she not been murdered.

The Invasion
You ever see The Forgotten? Yeah. But not as good. Mm. Which is saying something.

This Is England
I didn’t think it was as good as Dead Man’s Shoes (which is a fuckin masterpiece, by all measures) nor as delicately crafted as Room For Romeo Brass. It’s weird that this movie a) got the most attention with respect to awards, and b) was so ultimately unsatisfying, in terms of it being such a personal thing for Shane Meadows to get out there.

I Am Legend
It probably wouldn’t be so crap, had they actually invested some money in the look of creatures. Was I the only one who was thinking ’I guess this is ok’ until they popped out looking like the I Robot CGI bots from 5 years ago, but with a different skin tone?

The Flock
I just don’t know where this movie came from. Sometimes I am baffled by Richard Gere’s career. It’s shot in the worst over-saturated film stock you can imagine, then it tries to be proud about that. Don’t be proud, you made a movie that’s worse than 8MM and The Bone Collector combined. Don’t be proud.

In The Land Of Women
Adam Brody is a whiny guy in his mid-twenties who has lost his way when some hot chick dumps him, so he moves in with his gran back in suburbia. There’s not a lot here. Meg Ryan’s face is not getting any easier to look at.

Shoot Em Up
I don’t know whether you have seen Shoot Em Up, but it gets pretty far in before you start saying "Wait, is this a joke?" Like Chubby Rain, the film-within-a-film from Bowfinger, or Nathan Barley’s fantasy flick, it is filled with the worst dialogue ever written, ludicrous action set pieces and confusingly miscast actors. And you know what? ….I think it might be good.

The Lives Of Others
I thought it was going to be better than it was, but it was decent enough.

Sydney White
It’s a modern re-telling of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs in the Greek college system. With Amanda Bynes.

Saw 4
Yay, it’s back. The inexplicable movie franchise keeps shitting them out, with Costas Mandylor from Picket Fences and Donnie Whalberg reprising his role from instalment 2. Wonder whether shooting this was the turning point in his decision to get on board with the New Kids On The Block reunion.

Good Luck Chuck
Dane Cook. Why.

December Boys
Really quite good. Nicely shot and involving from beginning to end.

Keane
Not sure.

Sherrybaby
Quite good.

The Ten
And we’re back with Paul Rudd and his wildly vacillating film career.

Joshua
Decent Omen-esque thriller with Sam Rockwell going a bit bonkers after his son evolves into some kind of robot-like evil offspring, who just wants to hang out with his gay uncle (I guess).

The Hunting Party
Richard Gere and Terrence Howard are an ex-tv reporter and his cameraman going back to Serbia in search of the wanted war criminal who massacred a town back in the day (housing Gere’s preggo squeeze). He’s out for a little revenge and possibly a story, with the network’s vice-president son along for the ride. Pretty entertaining, actually. For some reason.

The Nines
Ryan Reynolds is God. No, it’s serious. Ly bad.

He Was A Quiet Man
Little more than a director’s showcase with an unsuitable Christian Slater trying to get on the method make-up bandwagon.

Away From Her
Good. Young female director makes quality movie. Hardly ever happens. I hope this is the start of something new.

Eagle Vs Shark
I’m not a huge fan of Flight of The Concords, but this won me over with some pretty great dialogue and characters.

Juno
Oh, Jason Reitman. Can’t find your own style, can you? Rather rip off a few other directors, masque it with a semi-hip indie soundtrack and hope no one notices? Ok.Good script, decent acting, but do we really need another hack out there? At least Tony Scott went with something for Christ’s sake.

30 Days Of Night
Great looking. Love Danny Huston and Ben Foster. Overall, a bit pish.Wedding DazeA mess.

Eastern Promises
Liked it a lot. Cronenberg is officially ’back’.

No Country For Old Men
Look, it’s just not their best movie. It’s all there, it’s just….I guess cause it’s based on source material or something….I don’t know. I wasn’t a fan. Seems like they were just treading old ground. There’s nothing of their own creation in the near future, either. Have we seen the last of the Great Coen Brothers Movies?

Red Road
Not a particularly original story, but I liked it. There’s a real sense of dread and menace to it, too. Awesome atmosphere. Hard to accomplish.

Lions For Lambs
Talky talky lefty lefty talky lefty. Alright.

HitmanI don’t really know what to say. It’s not good.

Enchanted
I’d heard good things, but I didn’t think it was up to much and tonally it was a clusterfuck.

Run Fatboy Run
Just, nothing. Not good. Not bad. Average.

Michael Clayton
Yes, quite good.

Sleuth (Remake)
Terrible and almost unwatchable.

Atonement
Yeah, you know, pretty decent. And it’s not that I think it was the Best Film or anything, but I’m struggling to think of some criminally overlooked piece right now I’d throw into the running.

The Mist
I just can’t take Thomas Jane seriously. And Frank Darabont’s whole ’I love hand-held now! I’m going to kind of cram some hand-held shots in there to mix it up!’ thing jarred with me.

Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
I thought it was alright in the grand scheme of things, on a sliding scale of crap kids movies that get shoved out there on a production line of poisoned lollipops.

Southland Tales
I read a review of this recently that referred to it as "like Mulholland Drive’s retarded kid brother" which is not far off, but look out kids cause this has cult classic awesome sauce written all over it and this baby’s gonna go on and on, cause it’s a pimp. And pimps don’t commit suicide. Richard Kelly clearly didn’t give a fuck what the outcome was while he was making it, and I kind of admire that.

The Eye (Remake)
Well, the original wasn’t up to much. So imagine that, but with Jessica Alba and a feel-good ending inserted where the original’s downbeat one used to be (probably the only decent thing about the original was the downbeat ending, so).

The Orphanage
Look, it might be well shot, in that The Others slash Pan’s Labyrinth slash Mexican DOP de jour slash labradoodle kind of way, but I’m sorry, there is NOTHING new here. If you’ve already seen Don’t Look Now, The Grudge and Devil’s Backbone you’re gonna be pretty fuckin under whelmed. That being said, there’s at least one good jump in it, and a cinema-based viewing is likely to sustain the atmosphere of the story better than DVD.

The Holiday
Tiresome nonsense.

Flushed Away
Eventually entertaining. Takes a while to become amusing though. And children are not known for their patience.

The Killing Floor
Marc Blucas. Low-budget horror movie. Bad.

Zodiac
Totally great, apart from one fatal flaw: Jake Gyllenhaal miscast again.

Disturbia
Yes, I have seen Rear Window. And all the other movies that are Rear Window. And Disturbia is like the Pepsi Max of Rear Window knock-offs.

Die Hard 4.0
All even-numbered Die Hard movies suck. Possibly because Renny Harlin and Len Wiseman were the directors of choice. And the script is just basically some other movie they had hanging around in development hell that someone just stuck a "Die Hard 4????" post-it on.

Perfect Stranger
Don't watch Perfect Stranger. That is all.

Fracture
Vaguely entertaining but forgettable ham-fest.

VacancyAll I needed to hear was "Luke Wilson" and "horror movie" in the same sentence to know this was a mistake of epic proportions.

Inland Empire
Impenetrable Lynch fare in the vein of a bunch of ideas come unglued and stuck back together. With Laura Dern (sometimes).

The Number 23
Joel Schumacher makes a movie. That movie is bad. We all forgive him next time he makes a good one. And the cycle continues thusly.

Sunshine
I like a lot of sci-fi and horror movies. So when you rip sections of those great movies off and ram them together, you can't expect me to sit back and be agog at the originality. Not good.

The Reaping
No.

The Simpsons Movie
Well, I laughed quite a bit. One supposes that is all that could have been expected.Wind ChillI actually quite liked this low-budget horror even though it was lame.

Kickin It Old School
Jamie Kennedy has a break dancing accident when he's a kid and wakes up from a 20 year coma only to discover everyone's moved on but he still wants to break dance. Cue hilarity. Or not in this case.

The Last King Of Scotland
Decent. The direction isn't so hot, though.

300
Trashy sandal-wearing music video popcorn entertainment for chicks and gay dudes.

Fantastic 4: Rise of The Silver Surfer
Or as my boyfriend quite eloquently re-titled it: Fantastic 4: Rise of The Turd To The Surface. No better review could be available.

Harry Potter & The Order Of The Pheonix
Liked it a lot.

The King of Kong
Awesome doc about one man's quest to become the ultimate Donkey Kong champion.

The Lookout
Not that good movie about a bank robbery with Memento-leanings. People need to start being careful about labelling every movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt a masterpiece. Cause they aren't. And every dumb gush lessens the impact of the good ones.

Spiderman 3
Just awful.

Knocked Up
Quite funny.

28 Weeks Later
Nice gore. And Stringer Bell. But forgettable.

1408
Stephen King adaptation. Do you need more information than that? Oh, ok: shit, then.

The Invisible
David S Goyer. Pointy-faced kid from War of The Worlds re-make. Interesting start quickly turns to crapsoup.

Oceans 13
Better than Oceans 12, but that ain't hard.

Little Children
Quite good. With love it or hate it narration.

Shortbus
More craziness from John Cameron Mitchell which contains some of the greatest dialogue of the year, including my own personal favourite: "Was that the first time someone sang the National Anthem into your ass?" ………. "No."

Transformers
Unwatchable Bay piffle.

Reign Over Me
Adam Sandler is horridly miscast in this post-9/11 comedy(?)

The Wicker Man (Remake)
Bees. Not even so-bad-its-funny. I don't really know what Neil LaBute was thinking.

Bridge To Terabithia
Nice kids movie. Not like Angus good. But decent.

Planet Terror
Winsomely gory and one-shot entertainment. Like snorting a line of coke off a dead frog.

The Painted Veil
Really quite good. If you're into period tragi-roms.

Brothers Of The Head
Can't say really what I thought of this head-scratcher.

Breaking & Entering
Watchable Anthony Minghella fluff.

Pirates of The Caribbean: At Worlds End
And you thought it couldn't get any worse. Well, you were wrong, weren't you.

The Bourne Ultimatum
As forgettable as the second one. Frankly, I find Paul Greengrass pretty overrated.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
So bad it makes you wish you were watching Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End. Really.

Ratatouille
Great animation and style, but not up to the usual Pixar standard. We're in A Bug's Life territory here, rather than Toy Story/Incredibles. There's just something missing.

Shrek 3
Unnecessary and dull third installment.

Hairspray (remake)
Surprisingly fun, although Travolta is a little jarring.

Bug
Insanity from William Friedkin. Almost great.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Amusing.

The Hoax
I have problems with Lasse Hallstrom movies in general but this is ok. It would make a good opener for a triple bill with Auto Focus and All The Presidents Men.

Breach
Chris Cooper makes a nothing kinda film worth watching.

Infamous
All this "It's better than Capote" crap. No, it isn't. It's alright. It's not better though.

The Fountain
So, in his efforts to prove he's not a one trick pony (I say that despite the man having made two good movies - they both utilised the same visual techniques) Aronofsky brings us what can only be described as "a turkey." It is a truly awful affair.

Wal Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price
Yeah, Wal Mart are evil. This is not new information. It's ok.

Marie Antoinette
It's actually ok. It just breezes on by, not offending anyone (except the French. But who gives a fuck what they think). I'm kind of sick of Kirsten Dunst though. Maybe she should take some time off.

Deja Vu
Oh Tony Scott. The Scott. Visually, he can only do one thing, so it's not like I was expecting anything original. It's vaguely entertaining, especially in the more ludicrous plot devices (may I be so bold as to tap the 'portable future vision' macguffin? Hilariously bad. "Don't forget to take the battery backpack!").

Dreamgirls
It looks good, but it's about an hour too long and the songs made me pray for death.

Smokin Aces
Bad, but almost worth it for the brief Jason Bateman scenes. I guess the Narc fanatics out there are hanging their heads in shame for pre-emptively labelling the dude the "next Scorsese."

Premonition
Do I even need to say this was terrible?

Thr3e
Not the Kelly Brook movie. The Marc Blucas low budget horror. At one point they seriously try on the old "multiple personalities fractured mirror" trick. I kinda thought that shit was illegal now, worthy of the death penalty. But I guess not.

Ghost Rider
Worse than the main character's little eccentricities (I guess that whole M&Ms in a Martini glass thing doesn't clang so much in the comic format). Worse than the effects (wow. over-used CGI? this must be the FUTURE or somethin!) Worse than the script (must.crowbar in.character history.and.exposition.from.comics!can't.sacrifice.a syllable!) Yes, the worst thing about this movie is Nicholas Cage's hair. I don't know whether it's a wig, or hairplugs, but someone should tell him to sort that shit out. That shit ain't right. Also, someone should tell him that just cause he likes comics, doesn't mean he can play the main character in the movie adaptation. C'mon Cage, you look 60. Let it go.

The Kovak Box
Hmm, The Kovak Box. Basically a showcase for the director. Played a few indie festivals. Works for me, although I remain strangely undecided about its actual quality.

Black Christmas (remake)
Alright. Didn't hate it as much as everyone else. Didn't love it either, mind.

88 Minutes
Al Pacino gets a call telling him he's gonna die in 88 Minutes. That's it. Limp.

Reno 911: Miami
Kind of three episodes of the show strung together. Amusing, in parts.

The Devil & Daniel Johnson
The best movie on this list. Really very good.

Jindabyne
Nice atmosphere. Linney: drool. Above average.

The Thirst
As I feel obliged to watch everything Jeremy Sisto's in, I'm ashamed to say I skipped through a lot of this low budget vampire movie. It was just too bad, even for me.

Music & Lyrics
Without effective rom or com, and saved from 1 star territory only by that "Pop Goes My Heart" tune. Which is oddly addictive.

Next
Cage's hairplugs get another outing in what is, one supposes, supposed to be 'mind bending' action fare. It isn't. Mind bending, I mean. Just pretty bad. And I don't get the whole Jessica Biel thing. She doesn't appear to be a good actress or even all that special looking. But, whatever.

Hot Fuzz
Whereas Shaun Of The Dead was the kind of movie you could watch any old time and pretty much enjoy, Hot Fuzz is the kind of movie you should probably watch with a few mates and a few more beers. On your own, you'd only be left to conclude that while it might be fun, amusing and diverting; it isn't really laugh out loud funny. Which is a little disheartening. Also, I think we've seen all Edgar Wright has to offer as a director now. One might suggest both himself and the man Pegg move on to just writing.

Dead Silence
Compared to a lot of shit out there, Dead Silence is alright, and on a couple of brief occasions, midly creepy. Of course it's crap, I won't dispute that. But on a sliding scale of cripplingly inept horror flicks that are churned out by the second, it's decent.

Sicko
The thing is, I just don't trust Michael Moore. I don't trust his integrity. Back in the Roger & Me days, the TV Nation era, he hadn't lost our trust. But now he has. So while this is an ok doc, it's hard not to take anything but the bare, undisputed facts presented without a pinch of salt.

The Queen
TV movie. Nothing, really. Yes, Helen Mirren is a good actress, but this isn't even close to some of the great performances I've seen from her. I recently re-watched the first Prime Suspect and she still blows me away in that.

Blood Diamond
The accent bothered me. Also, this is about a pretty harrowing and serious subject matter and it treats it like a cheesy popcorn flick, which left me tasting vinegar and lemon in mouth. Sour.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres
Hugely silly and great fun to watch late at night. It's not really critique-able, as such.

Cars
Nowhere near as lame as the trailers make out, it's actually pretty good.

Accepted
Justin Long is actually a pretty good actor. Shame he's reduced to crap like this and being the dorky sidekick (again) in Live Free or DIE HARD. Yeah, there's fourth one coming. Did you know? Oh you did? Well, fuck you then. Accepted isn't that bad, it's just not funny. Like:

You, Me & Dupree
No laughs. Just....none.

Just My Luck
Yeah, I watched Just My Luck. I don't really need to say anything about it though, cause it co-stars McFly and Lindsay HoHan.

Nacho Libre
Looks great. NO LAUGHS. There's been a spate of these recently. Did Jared Hess peak with his first movie? It happens.

Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Parts.
Really, really good. First Inside Man, now this? Did Spike Lee get hit in the head or something and find some new id?

She's The Man
Yeah, I watched She's The Man. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I probably would have loved it as a kid.

Beerfest
No. Don't do it. Don't watch Beerfest. There's nothing here for you. THIS IS NOT THE WAY.

Clerks 2
THE SONG IS SINGING WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE SCREEN. I hate it when people do that. I love Talking Heads and I have nothing against Kevin Smith, but it's like nails down a blackboard straight off, which is never good. It grinds along for a while then becomes adequate enough with some amusing moments, but it has tone problems, and occasionally veers into a land I like to call "Please Stopville."

Superman Returns
Popcorn fodder. A little gay. A little Barbara Streisand's hairdresser. Yeah, a little Peters. Giant spider was replaced with giant rock. Which still sucked. But overall it was ok. Better put together than the X Men movies.

Miami Vice
Hot cast alert. Theroux, Farrell, Herc from The Wire. Hello. A speedboat flies across the water as Colin Farrell's mullet shimmers in the wind. A bi-racial girl with protruding collar bones pouts beside him and removes some items of clothing for...comfort. It looks great, but it's silly and vacuous. If you're not expecting to get blown away it'll divert you for two hours. It ends with a nu-metal Phil Collins cover version. Mm.

An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder
He's done nothing since the last one! So the stories just go on and on and go nowhere and are of only vague interest! Its Ricky Gervais' Politics syndrome all over again.

The Break Up
Meh. It's ok.

The Sentinel
I don't have to tell you The Sentinel is bad. You already know it's bad using your psychic powers. It's like you have ESPN or something.

Pulse (Remake)
No. It's not good. Despite a nonsensical minute with Brad Dourif. It actually managed to be worse than the original. How is that even possible.

Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Infrequently amusing and utilising every ounce of Gary Cole. He's human celluloid momentum.

The Devil Wears Prada
Fluff. A little bit crap, too. Maybe quite a lot crap.

The Covenant
I enjoyed Mark Kermode's review of The Covenant: "Renny Harlin: How? Where? Why? And when is he going to stop?" Despite it being truly awful and having absolutely nothing going for it, I sense a possible sequel, and cult crap success? How do you join The Covenant? Well, you must be bleached out grey in skin colour, and have generic male model good looks. You also must be prepared to either adopt the exact same voice as Josh Hartnett, or the voice of every surfer dude ever put on screen. He's not fooling us! He picked these guys out of a hat! I'd lay money on it!

Beat
Keifer Sutherland is William Burroughs. Courtney Love is his wife. Ron Livingston is Allan Ginsberg. No, really. I got this for 99p as I thought it might be unintentionally entertaining, but it was actually alrightish, which for some reason disappointed me.

My Super Ex Girlfriend
Not funny. Not good. Just not anything, really. Remember when Ivan Reitman used to make good movies? Maybe he used to take drugs or something, and now he's clean he's lost it. Like Aaron Sorkin. And speaking of drugs, look out for the new Joel "coke-fruit" Schumacher movie coming soon, "The Number 23" with Jim (newly Scientological) Carrey.

Bloodrayne
I don't understand Uwe Boll. I really don't. What's his motivation? So you make a really bad movie, then you end it with a ten minute montage of the bad movie you just made? I don't know whether Bloodrayne is a good game. It probably is. Maybe i'll make an effort to play it. I just don't think it would make me think this is a good movie. Rich Kyanka Vs Uwe Boll fist fight? Comedy gold.

Rest Stop
So we've seen Rider Strong try his hand in Cabin Fever and now here's Joey Lawrence from Blossom in a movie about a killer who picks his victims off at a "REST STOP" (no shirt, shitlock) and it's just not good. In fact, the more of this shit I'm subjecting myself to, the more I'm starting to think Wolf fucking Creek was a good movie. Clearly, this is not a happy development.

Population 436
So, Jeremy Sisto? Your TV show was cancelled? Yeah, well. Its sucks to be you. Luckily, you're efforlessly charming slash strangely attractive and you'll bounce back. You get paid for this, you get paid for Wrong Turn, you get paid for May. True, on this you had to endure spending six months with Fred Durst, but you GOT. PAID. Now pick yourself up, do another trashy horror b-movie, and try again motherfucker! You never backed away from anything in your life! Now fight! FIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHT! *shakes head* Sorry, I channelled Ed Harris again.Run Ronnie RunFor a movie with so many funny people in it, it's not funny. Once again, the wildly oscillating talents of David Cross nose dive dramatically.

Scary Movie 4
When the funniest thing in your movie is a 3 second appearance of Chingy, you know you've got problems.

Fragile
So it's a ghost movie made on the Isle Of Wight, by some Spanish people, with Calista Flockhart. Confusing. It's alright, nothing new.

The Woods
I love May. This is nowhere near being as good as May.

Man About Town
Well, its primary issue is tonally, it's all over the place. You never really like any of the characters, which is important when you haven't got a script that relies on not liking the characters. Like in Happiness, Rules Of Attraction, ok. Ben Affleck is at least trying some new things. John Cleese was like nails down a blackboard.

Click
Fairly entertaining, I suppose. Better than a lot of Sandler efforts.

Venom
Produced by Kevin Williamson and directed by the guy that did I Know What You Did Last Summer. By the numbers, but passable at least. The bad guy is a zombie possessed by 13 evil souls which were transferred into him when he was bitten by voodoo snakes. That's all you really need to know. You either just read that and went "sounds awesome!" or not.

I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer
Diabolically bad.

Art School Confidential
Malkovich and Broadbent are great in this, but it isn't vintage Zwigoff. {"That breakfast nook is VINTAGE LOHAN!"} It's good but not great. Worth watching though. Some decent laughs. Terry from Reno911 is in it. He is in everything now. Has 40 seconds of TV exposure ever led to so many film roles? But hey, I love Terry, i'm not complaining. He was also in Click and The Benchwarmers, and he's got a bunch of movies coming out in which he will still probably have 40 seconds of screen time. Money in the bank.

Poseidon
It's not the worst movie ever, but you never need to see it more than once.

Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift
Awesome. I laughed a lot. That probably wasn't intentional, but who gives a fuck. Bright, shiny colours and lights!

Munich
It was ok. Nicely shot and everything. What was up with that shit near the end though? Bana climaxing in slow motion while he screams at the memories of the dead Israeli's? It was just grating.

Mission Impossible 3: More Mission, More Impossible
Well the first two sucked so hard it was hard for this one to aspire to those depths. It was entertaining enough, like an Alias 2-parter with a bigger budget. Funniest moment? Tom Cruise happily strolling across the bridge in Shanghai wearing 9 inch platform shoes. No one can make that look natural, I don't care how much money you've got, or how long you've been practising your drag act.

The Lake House
Snore.

Stay
Marc Forster is a decent director and this looks pretty good. Everyone's trying to lift the material somewhat, and Gosling does better than in Leland; but Ewan McGregor is WOEFULLY miscast and is just awful. Like chewing tinfoil.

Thank You For Smoking
It was ok. Lots of continuity errors, which I don't normally notice, but these were extremely fore-frontal (is that a word?) Ok-ish first time effort, but it won't blow you away.

Friends With Money
Not as good as Lovely & Amazing, but you get what you pay for. Indie character piece with no real story to speak of. No one is buying Jennifer Aniston as a cleaning lady, just as no one is buying J-Lo as a Maid In Manahattan (that movie is diabolical though.)

Brick
Yeah. It was ok. I think I was expecting too much. It came off a little up it's own ass. Don't laugh, it happens to the best of us, right? Personally, I like to come off up my own ass at least bi-weekly.

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
Skilling. Skeksis. They should have dubbed the Skeksis noises over everything he said. Maybe they could mull that suggestion over for a future special edition. Or not.

Silent Hill
Look, it was crap. All style and no substance. Gans had a similar problem with Brotherhood Of The Wolf. And when I say "similar" of course I mean exactly the same fucking problem. He's a mysogenistic coke frog. But I like crap horror movies usually, as long as they're not rated 12a. If you're going to suck, don't candy-ass suck. So yeah, I liked it. My favourite parts were when it was laugh out loud bad. Those were the parts with dialogue.

The King
Seen it all before. Also: the boom was bobbing around in every shot. That boom should have got some kind of SAG PAYE.

16 Blocks
Silliness.

Slither
An entertaining way to waste 90 minutes. I love the Fillion. New Fillion project - White Noise 2: White Noise Takes Manhattan. White Noise 2: Electric Boogaloo. White Noise 2: 2 White 2 Noisy. White Noise In Your Butt. . . . .Cum Farts?

The Benchwarmers
Rob Schneider. David Spade. Baseball. A magic robot. No, seriously. Who was in that pitch meeting? "So it's about nerds getting the chance to beat up little kids and play baseball and it...." "Yeah. Let me stop you there. Loving it. Loving it. Hilarious. Mm. But...is there any way it can have a magic robot in it? Maybe a magic robot who is also an English butler?" "........"

Basic Instinct 2
Silly and fun and crap. And surprisingly well directed.

Running Scared
The guy that directed this wants to be Tony Scott. (WHY WOULD YOU WANT THAT. WHY.) Do you like Paul Walker? Can you buy him as a gritty crim 'from the block?' Are you un-sick of seeing Cameron Bright as sympathetic and unsmiling child actor foil? Do you like FLASH WHIP PANS? You'll LOVE this! It sucks.

X Men 3
3 pish films in a row. Can it stop now? Can it?

Manderlay
Probably as good as Dogville. Pretty messed up.

Pirates Of The Carribean: Dead Man's ChestI enjoyed it slightly more than the first one (which isn't hard, cause I didn't much care for that at all) but I think mostly the enjoyment was coming from watching Bruckheimer in the cinema. With the teeth-shattering music and the 'who cares about the plot' and the wanting to slap Orlando Bloom right in the giblets. Plus my expectations going in were extremely low. And I hate Gore Verbinsky.

Date Movie
One of the worst films ever made. In an ideal world, the people responsible would perhaps be lined up and shot.

The Hills Have Eyes
Well, blood and gore: not scary. It was alright. As in, decently shot but actually crap.

Hustle & Flow
I enjoyed it. Terence Howard is the black Benicio Del Toro. In the development stages of the movie, Howard wanted to change the musical passion of the character from rap to "more Kenny Rogers." True story. Terence Howard is therefore unintentionally hilarious, and rules.

Final Destination 3
Not as good as the first two (hey, I really like the first two.) There's an interview on the disc where James Wong disses the second movie (which he didn't get to direct), and says the third one is going to be much better than that. And by better, presumably, he means: shit.

A Cock & Bull Story
I like Michael Winterbottom. I like Steve Coogan. But I only laughed twice.

V For Vendetta
It was silly and a bit rubbish, just like the comic. But fairly enjoyable in a "watch it once and forget it" kind of way.

Flight 93
Ok. Doom-filled. Strange choice of Titanic-mimicking muzak tacked on the end.

The Proposition
I was looking forward to it. I love Danny Huston. It was just ok though.

Good Night & Good Luck
Meh.

Inside Man
Hugely enjoyable in a "this plot makes no sense but I don't care" kind of way. Nice to see Jodie Foster described as a "magnificent cunt" on screen. Clive Owen spends most of the movie wearing a mask so it kindly disguises that he is, in fact, a chair.

Aeon Flux
Silly, but nowhere near as bad as people made out. The animated series is superior but that goes without saying (that's why I'm saying it.)

The Three Burials Of Malquides Estrada
Great, yeah. Really good. Both dvd covers for this and Propostion had a tagline that stated "this is the best western since Unforgiven!!" I've never seen Unforgiven and I don't like Westerns in general, but I really enjoyed this.

Junebug
Amy Adams and Ben Mackenzie are both good in this, but the movie is so far up its' own ass it can lick its' own ribcage clean. It reeks of low budget indie. In a bad way.

American Dreamz
Yeah. It doesn't gel. It's not a terrible movie, it just doesn't work.

Everything Is Illuminated
"Pretentious" and "Wanky" and "insert anti-semetic, anti-actor comment." So I'm exactly the sort of jumped-up cunt that really, really liked it.

Mrs Henderson Presents
Eh. Y'know. It's just there. Doing what it does. And there's not a lot there. But it's ok.

Unknown White Male
Yep. Ok-ish, if slightly-Upper-East-Side-urban-pseudo-cool documentary on memory loss. It's nowhere near as epileptic fit-inducing as Tarnation.

Grizzly ManLook, I love Werner Herzog. I wish I WAS Werner Herzog. He has accepted that life is about horror and pain and cruelty, and he is the complete opposite of a tee-total eccentric animal lover. While the rest of us die unexpectedly at the hands of a bear or our own personal failures, Herzog will just continue being the kind of quiet, thoughtful, obessesed crazy man who casually rescues Joaquin Pheonix from a car crash then disappears. Or gets shot by a passer-by and then looks dispassionately at the bloody hole in his stomach and remarks simply "It is not a significant wound" in that strangely detatched German accent. And Grizzly Man is as much about Herzog's own relationship with nature and life as it is about Treadwell's. Oh, you can be aware of the bear. But don't love the bear. Because the bear will kill you. Some of us can't help loving the bear because we were built for loving the bear, man. (Or some such liberal-environmental cotton nonsense.)

Into The Blue
It's alright. I mean, it's crap. But it's alright. It's no feardotcom. But...

The Fog (Remake)
...is. Diabolically bad. I'm a fan of the (widely regarded as risible) original, but i'm pretty sure this was awful, nonsensical shitness.

Capote
Good, yeah. Old school. Tight. Probably deserved the BP, if we're judging on actual quality.

Where The Truth Lies
Got terrible reviews. I liked it. I usually find Atom Egoyan movies have a unique feel to them as individual projects. Intoxicating.

Noi Albanoi
Good soundtrack. Nice looking. Something missing.

Save The Green Planet
Awesome.

Twilight Samurai
Good.

Factotum
Matt Dillon can't do justice to Bukowski like Rourke did. Barfly: great. Factotum: sub-average.

Zathura
Great set and prop design. I want that game! The child inside of me was happy. Tim Robbins - still grating.

Vodka Lemon
Quite crap, actually. Armenia is not fun. Who knew.

Syriana
I liked it, personally. Everyone said it was a) complicated, b) complicated for complicated's sake, c) liberal nonsense. Maybe, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it, and thinking it was actually quite accomplished. Especially that "oh fuck" bit at the end that made me jump.

The Constant Gardener
Good. Sad, but good. Ended kind of abruptly, but the ending was the only scene glaringly Le Carre. Yes, quite decent. It's kind of by-the-numbers, but not in a jarring way.

Caché (Hidden)
Oh, Caché. Genius. Or wank. Or both. I reserve the right not to make a decision. decision n. The passing of judgment on an issue under consideration. The act of reaching a conclusion or making up one's mind. A conclusion or judgment reached or pronounced; a verdict. IN YOUR FACE, HANEKE. Two can play that game, my friend.

Panic
An indie movie with William H Macy that disappeared completely last year. It's alright. Hitman-in-emotional-quandary-type affair we've all seen in plenty of past incantations.

The Chronicals Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
I found the books unbearable when I was a kid, so it's a small achievement(sp) that this first film in the series is quite watchable. This is probably down to the fact that the director, Andrew Adamson of Shrek 1 and 2, is highly competant at making the CGI half believable and had enough guts to savagely tear out all the cringeworthy dialogue i'm sure must have been in the original script. Well done, that man. You may continue. I might also add this was better than all three Lord Of The Rings movies for me, but then we all know i'm a Tolkien-hatar.

Lucky Number Slevin
Paul McGuigan last directed the risible Wicker Park, but it's not McGuigan's fault Wicker Park was shit. He's a decent director. It's everyone else's fault. The same goes here, where even though McGuigan might try to pull it off, he can't. The script made me wince. It thought itself to be terribly original and amusingly referencial, but it wasn't. Josh Hartnett can only be allowed in movies where he is surrounded by good actors that distract from the fact that he himself is not a good actor. Here: Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis and Stanley Tucci. You can see the predictable outcome of the film from the first 10 minutes in. And Ben Kingsley is fucking awful. It's only McGuigan's deft hand that leaves this film clinging by its' fingernails to a pile marked "Average." Give the man a decent project, for chrissake. What's that? His next project is a film version of the "classic" tv show The Equalizer? But...why....?

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance
Nice touches, but definitely the weakest of the trilogy. It could have been better, but there were too many pointless parts. Plus it climaxed at least 3 times. Which is no Return Of The King, but. Quite annoying.

Thumbsucker
Meh.

Sky High
The Not Kitamura film. I liked it. However, the 8 year old inside me is easy to please. Especially when it comes to Kurt Russell.

North Country
Meh.

Underworld: Evolution
It is slightly more bearable than the first one, due to there being less dialogue.

In Her Shoes
It was alright. Bit of a bawl fest. Total chick flick.

March Of The Penguins
Well, I cried like a bitch all the way through. So, I can't really judge whether it was great or not. I think it was, kinda.

Nightwatch
Russia. Were-tigers. Vampires. A lot of really speed-edited CGI. Pretty much arse.

Broken Flowers
I'd heard a lot of bad shit about Broken Flowers, and I really didn't like Coffee & Cigarettes. But it was quite good. I get that it's nice to have these sort of unresolved films, but I reserve the right to feel a little cheated.

Jarhead
It's very well shot, very good direction and acting. But we're on familiar ground here, thematically. The film doesn't attempt to break any new ground, unlike say Three Kings or Apocalypse Now. I'm glad I took the time to listen to the Mendes commentary. He's very sly, that Mendes, and he really does know how to convert you a little more with his own passion and understanding of the material. And he can't help but take his hat off to Peter Sarsgaard, who he describes as "[producing the] best acting performance in any of my movies so far. Truly heart-stopping." He's not wrong. He also adds a little fuel to the "Jake Gyllenhaal is a jumped-up, arrogant, violent prick" fire. A fire that perhaps began when Popbitch outed him as the guy who, while doing promotional work for Jarhead and Brokeback, started every conversation he had at a party or meet-and-greet with "I just fucked Chelsea Clinton."

Just Friends
I liked it. I laughed my ass off. What can I say? It was highly retarded, and I dig that. Plus the guy who had the foresight to cast Ryan Reynolds and Chris Marquette as brothers is some sort of Idiot Savant. Anna Faris is stupidly hot.

Mad Hot Ballroom
Quite enjoyable to watch.

Happy Endings
Don Roos. Is not a good director. This, therefore, is not a good film.Walk The LineCompletely by the numbers and offering nothing new. It's just...a biopic. Average.

The Brothers Grimm
Since 2002, my Worst Hollywood Film Ever has been feardotcom, the dull horror movie with Stephen Dorff. Now it's The Brothers Grimm. Truly, truly terrible.

The Barbarian Invasions
It was alright.

Brokeback Mountain
Pretty good. Great direction. Good acting, especially from the women. Quite sad. In retrospect, I would say neither Crash or Brokeback is the "better film" really. They're both too different to single one out either way. Both good at their own thing. And may I say, Heath Ledger is a fucking baked ham, and is awful in nearly every movie ever, and only isn't awful in this because they've managed to edit around it somehow. And for that kind of Save, Ang Lee deserves cash.money.

Rock School
Eh, it was ok. I've seen quite a lot of documentaries, this falls in the middle.

Nobody Knows
Grim. Sad. Depressing Japanese film about 4 kids who get abandoned by their mother and have to fend for themselves for a long time. Great details. Kind of like The Cement Garden, but better, and not so much with the incest.

The Sisterhood Of The Travelling PantsPants.
Bradley Whitford: for shame.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Good, although Robert Downey Jr is a mumbler by nature, so I missed a few jokes. Perhaps it was crappy sound on my dvd player.

The Family Stone
Pishy.

Ivans XTC
Great. Danny Huston playing a movie agent/exec/producer who finds out he's about to die from a massive lung tumour. Based on a Tolstoy book/play. I thought it was excellent.

A History Of Violence
Another good comic book movie (there are very few) and although it got a bit silly toward the end, my faith in Mr Cronenberg is once again restored. (Oh come on, he's sucked for years and years and you know it.) Also features Maria "pins" Bello in a number of erotic scenarios. Mmm, that's good Bello.

King Kong
You know how sometimes a movie is so boring you start inventing an offensive subtext for it? No? Oh well. I found this film as dire as I feared. But then I've hated all of Peter Jacksons' films bar one. [To explain: there used to be this guy around called Adam Somethingbeginningwith"B"icantremember, and he was a schizophrenic. I mean really, i'm not saying that in a jokey way. Clinical. And when he was off his meds he used to sit and watch films obsessively and look for bizarre subtext in Hollywood movies. Like "The Star Wars Paedophilia Subtext" and "The Eyes Wide Shut Social Subtext" and "The Jewish Hollywood Conspiracy Subtext" etc etc. And I used to actually find the dude entertaining even though he was quite insane, because he was fairly harmless. So now, when I watch certain Blockbusters that are boring the shit out of me, I like to play The Adam Game in my head, where I try to see the Whatever subtext he might have gleaned. From King Kong I got "The Aryan chick dumps the black guy for a Jew, therefore revealing the Jewish conspiracy to breed out "the Jewish look" by mating with white blond girls." I wanted to explain that, because you all know I'm not insane, but harmlessly offensive is still offensive, which is why I only play The Adam Game in my head.]

The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Very good. France: One. Harvey Kietel: Zero.

Tzameti (13)
Good. Like Intacto, but B&W, minus the luck stuff and plus despair.

Land Of The Dead
I enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't watch it again but it wastes 90 minutes effortlessly.

Wolf Creek
Like Haute Tension meets Blair Witch without the witch...not my kind of thing.

Stealth
More unintentionally hilarious stuff from Rob Cohen, ubiquitous director of Fast & The Furious, XXX and The Skulls.

White Chicks
Awful. Like Pacifier bad.

Wallace & Gromit In The Curse Of The Ware-Rabbit
Depends if you like Nick Park-y things. They're quite silly and not to everyone's taste. But I do like Nick Park-y things, so I enjoyed this.

Cry_Wolf
Made Swimf@n look like Taxi Driver. Awful. Gary Cole appears for exactly 7 seconds for no reason.

Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire
I haven't read the books. I probably won't, unless I go on some long boat journey somewhere and need something extensive to do. Saw the first two movies, kinda thought they sucked. Saw the last one, liked it a lot better. This one is ok too. Note that the acting of that kid playing Hermione isn't improving, and grates constantly, reminding one of Veruca Salt in the original Willy Wonka.

Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance)
Not a big fan of exploitation gore movies. Or the French. Hot lesbian masturbating does not a classic make.

Madagascar
Alright. Passed the time. Not particularly good, though.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Better than Nightmare Before Christmas (overrated by 20-something goths everywhere, much like the risible Crow) but the songs are still crap. Short, easy to digest. Neither film is a patch on Vincent though. Why spend 10 years trying to better something you perfected in 5 minutes at the start of your career? Move on already.

Flight Plan
Looks good. Co-stars the uber-fuckable Peter Saarsgard. But ends up being a bit shit, really. Totally disposable.

Kairo (Pulse)
I was looking forward to it a lot. It's quite creepy but makes no sense at all; and not in a good way. Also could have used about 40 minutes cut out of it. Remake could be better, in this instance.

Saw II
It's as bad as the first one. And by bad, I don't mean "gross", I mean awful. They're both essentially structured the same way as The Usual Suspects. Which, as it happens, is not a shit film. The first 20 minutes of this second outing is edited like a trailer. Very migrainous. If migrainous is a word.

The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
I really like Laura Linney and Campbell Scott. However, this movie is crap. Regarding my Laura Linney devotion: I would say (not knowing anything of her personality) she is the hottest woman alive, and I have seen most of her films at least 20 times. I also own The Mothman Prophecies, a film in which Laura Linney stars and I find somewhat creepy despite the prescence of Richard "5 facial expressions" Gere. Emily Rose is not creepy for its horror part, and is not tense in its courtroom part (riddled with the most predictable dialogue--if you've seen more than 2 court movies or watched some kind of lawyer show on tv at any point you will be able to actually say the lines before the actors do. Would have been more entertaining as a drinking game: "Objection, your honour! Leading the witness!"..."Sustained!" CHUG.)

McLibel (New Version)Same as the old one, pretty much, with 15 minutes tacked on the end.

Lords Of Dogtown
Dogtown & Z-Boys was a pretty good documentary. Lords Of Dogtown is not a good movie. Emile Hirsch is the best thing in it. He appears to be making a living out of being the best thing about any movie he's in (Girl Next Door, Dangerous Lives Of Alter Boys). That could change with the new Nick Cassavetes movie "ALPHA DOG" in which he stars with old Next Big Things - Shawn Hatosy (remember The Faculty), Dominique Swain (remember Lolita), Lukas Haas (remember Solar Babies and Mars Attacks), Vincent Kartheiser (remember Another Day In Paradise and Angel), - The Next Big Things Of Now - Ben Foster (Remember Get Over It, Six Feet Under, Hostage, Bang Bang You're Dead and now XMEN3), Anton Yelchin (remember he's Hank Azaria's son "Byrd" in the TV show HUFF) and The Next Big Things Of Tomorrow - Justin Timberlake. (Don't look at me, that's what *THEY* are saying. I cannot vouch for the acting talent of Captain Bimberflake, although Nick Cassavetes recently sponsered another Mickey Mouser's leap to big parts with Ryan Gosling in The Notebook.) Time will tell.

Innocence
Ok, here's the premise of this movie:"At the heart of a densly wooded forest lies a mysterious girls' boarding school, cut off from the outside world by a great wall with no door. Within, a group of youngsters aged between seven and twelve gather round a small coffin, from which emerges a new pupil, six year old Iris. Led by the eldest girl, Bianca, Iris is introduced to this strange yet enchanting world of lamp-lit forest paths and eerie underground passageways, where there are no adults save for some elderly servants and two melancholy young teachers..."It was packed full of metaphor and symbolism and layers, was utterly mesmerising and I loved it. Some of the reviews have been pretty bad, but those were clearly dumb people, as it is really, really good. Although I think dudes might have a hard time liking it.

McLibel (original 1997)
Pretty interesting, i'd like to see the new McLibel.

Howl's Moving Castle
Those of you who know me pretty well know that Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones has been my favourite book since I was 8. I've never met another person who's read it, and why should I? It's a childrens book, basically a fantasy love story, which almost completely disappeared on release and has survived about 19 reprints due to cult word of mouth.Around three years ago, I heard that Hayao Miyazaki was making a full length animated feature of it. The man behind Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Grave Of The Fireflies. So...how excited was I? Pretty. Fucking. Excited. So excited that I got the 2 Disc edition that appeared this week without even so much as watching the trailer; my excitement further enhanced by the American dub, and what I observed as great attention to detail twixt that and the novel. (Howl is originally from Wales. Christian Bale is originally from Wales.)But what I forgot to keep in check was an incredibly relevant fact about Miyazaki: he's a little bit obsessed with nature and war and small animals. And a little bit crazy. It's why we love him but never understand him.So he took the novel, and kept visciously to 50 per cent of the story elements and minute details therein. And then threw the other 50 per cent away, and inserted a war. Yeah, he just made up a war, and threw countless minutes of screentime away on it, never exactly explaining why it's happening or who's involved.Subsequently, the movie makes very little sense after about the half-way mark. Can't help but feel that if he'd stuck to the book it would have been a 100 per cent good movie, instead of a half-good movie.And I thought perhaps since I was so avidly, stalker-like, crazy-person about the book, perhaps I wasn't objective enough to see the film on it's own merit. So I asked around a bit, read a few reviews, but they near-enough all came to the same conclusion: "Yeah, it's ok and that. It looks good. Doesn't make much sense though."Shame.

The Road To Guantanamo
Incredibly accomplished documentary slash re-enactment of the story of three British kids who went to Pakistan for a wedding and ended up in Camp X-Ray/Delta for many years. Frightening and fucked up. They must have rued the day they decided to visit Afghanistan on a whim cause "they have huge Naan breads there! Fucking huge!"

Enduring Love
Oh, Enduring Love. Much maligned by my boyfriend. Much nodded at by British critics. It's very decently made, with an excellent opening scene involving a hot-air balloon. And most of the way through I imagined it was trying to make insights into Post-Traumatic experiences, with the Rhys Ifans character playing an imaginary conscience and harbinger, preying on the brittle Daniel Craig with ideas of God, and Love, and Life. But it turned out to be about predictable stalk and slash nonsense. What a pity. I could take that film, change the end and give you a modern classic. So why didn't the director? Because he's the man responsible for the utterly risible Notting Hill, that's why. N00b.

Millions
Yeah. This guy directed Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Shallow Grave. Danny Boyle. Here he directs a childrens movie. It sucks. Maybe children would like it. I seriously doubt it though.

One Day In September
Pretty decent documentary that made me hate Germany a little more than I already do. (Oh, don't take offence, Germany, I hate nearly all of Europe! Fuck, I've even got a grudge against the Belgians! 'The Belgians?!' Yes that's correct, sir slash madam. One word: Rwanda. Yes, they pretty much started that whole deal.) Although some of the presentation of it grated on me. I feel the same way about other documentaries which shift gears into music videos with no real reason.

The Island
Ripped apart by critics, shame-facedly drop-kicked from most cinemas after 2 weeks, and much bitched about by nearly everyone involved (and their agent), here comes THE ISLAND.MICHAEL BAY. MICHAEL. BAY. MICH.AEL.B.AY. has made an entirely derivative popcorn film. A patchwork quilt of everything from Coma, Clonus, I Robot, Minority Report, and....all his own movies, of course. The hack.And I couldn't tell you why, but I enjoyed the shit out of it.

Lord Of War
Really quite good film about the arms trade. Nicholas Cage effortlessly playing a soulless cunt of a man who sells weapons to children simply because he's "good at it." It's actually better than most of the movies it borrows from (Goodfellas, Blow, Scarface--you know the type.) I don't usually like Nicholas Cage unless he's playing in something with a maximum trash factor and a minimum think factor (Con Air, National Treasure, Face/Off) because if he's in something with higher stakes he tends to either boringly underplay the character (Matchstick Men, Family Man, City Of Angels) or wincingly overplay it (Rainsing Arizona, Moonstruck, Wild At Heart, Captain Correlli's Mandolin.) But he was just right in this.

2046
I liked it a lot better than In The Mood For Love. Which I hear is grounds for a public lynching in the Asian Movie Nerd Universe. Tony Leung once again stars as Mr Chow, who has become what can only be described as An Asshole after his earlier heartbreak with old Mags. This time around, he vacantly moves from one gorgeous piece of chink ass to another, writing a sci-fi novel about lost memories (the scenes in the future are what Blade Runner has masturbatory fantasies about) and refusing to fall in love with Zhang Ziyi. Moron.

Murderball
Great. Great. Great. It's every sports movie. But real.

Dark Water (Remake)
Well the original was shit. And this is just as bad. Walter Salles here disposes with the unintentionally hilarious climax of the original (ATTACK OF THE CLINGY KERMIT) and replaces it with...nothing. Just dull.

Primer
And that means...an experience. The impenetrability of perfection. How do you review a movie with no real conventions or cliches? A movie that refuses to bend to it's own genre (sci fi. but not.)? You don't.I love how the synopsis makes it sound really straightforward though. Won Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Confused the living fuck out of me. But that seems to be the point. (Which Abe is that? Which Aaron? When is this? Is this today? I don't know.) WHO'S THE PRESIDENT!!!1one

Surviving Christmas
Panned family Christmas romp with Ben Affleck. Isn't really that bad. Watchable enough, if easily discarded. Unlike:

Kicking & Screaming
Awful, awful shit. Diabolically bad. Can't even deliver a feel-good ending, which every mass-of-kids-doing-sport movie knows; if you can't beat em, copy Mighty Ducks shot for shot, and you'll get halfway there.

Bus 174
Harrowing, depressing and well-constructed doc on a Brazilian bus hi-jacking. Similar to Capturing The Friedmans. Which I forgot to put in my Best Of Year List, i've just realised. Knobhead.

Guy X
This is the kind of movie you catch channel-surfing at 2am and end up staying up til 4am to watch it til the end, as it is competently involving. But then you wonder why you bothered, cause it's not too clear about its' plot points. Perhaps the book is better. Still, it's nice to see Natascha McElhone in something fairly decent. She wildly vascillates between being in great movies (Solaris) and the worst kind of shit (feardotcom).

Silver City
Good. John Sayles is no mook, he knows how to put a decent movie together. And with the oft-forgotten Danny Huston taking centre stage in an ensemble piece and holding it up like Elliot Gould in Capricorn One. No complaints.

Central Station
Quite good. I cried. Which means nothing. I probably wouldn't buy it or anything but it was alright. Typical Walter Salles movie.

Le Diner de Cons
77 minutes of old school French farce. They're remaking it apparently. The remake will probably suck. No one can pull off this shit like the French. It's their thing.

The Brown Bunny
The Brown Bunny? The Brown Bunny! The Brown Bunny.This is either one of the greatest pieces of American cinema in the last century, or the worst film ever made. I can't decide.See, cause, the first 70 minutes is Nothing. And while Gus Van Sant can make 70 minutes of Nothing seem intoxicating, Vincent Gallo deliberately goes out of his way here to make 70 minutes of Nothing dull, repetitive, and, well....Nothing!But then...that ending. No, not the blowjob. The blowjob is irrelevant. And you want to scream, cause the ending is so good. And of course you then think...why didn't he just make the ending, and have a short film? But, that would have made the ending irrelevant. The Brown Bunny. The Brown Bunny? The Brown fucking Bunny!I DONT KNOW.I DONT KNOW.I DONT KNOW.and I hate that I DONT KNOW.

The Secret Lives Of Dentists
I don't know why I liked this movie. It was fairly average. Campbell Scott and Hope Davis are really good actors though, maybe that explains why.

Crash
Drew from AICN said this was the most overrated movie of the year. You know what he said the most underrated movie was? Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith. [ludicrousness n. -- Laughable or hilarious because of obvious absurdity or incongruity. See Synonyms at foolish.]Crash is good. It only has two minor problems; a slightly overbearing score, and a few cheesy moments. And I wouldn't say it was overrated. Everywhere I look are people complaining that "Crash is ok, but it isn't THAT good." while they roll their eyes. At least, their tone suggests eye rollage.Well it IS good. I really enjoyed it. And Revenge Of The Sith? Is a gigantic pile of shite wrapped in hunner dolla bills. I don't know how something released worldwide to an audience of millions that MAKES hundreds of millions can be underrated.Frankly, I'd rather buy my imaginary kids Crash-related toys. "Look mommy! It's the Don Cheadle and William Fichtner dolls! Can I get them? PUHLEASSSE? I WANNA PLAY 'SELL OUT TO WHITEY!'"

Me And You And Everyone We Know
I loved this movie, because of it's insanity. I don't think it's possible for me to hate a movie where the centrepiece moment is "I will poop into your butt, then you will poop back into my butt. I want to poop back and forth. Forever." I laughed so hard watching this movie that a little bit of pee came out. However, it is, arguably, hugely pretentious.

We Don't Live Here Anymore
Two couples in their thirties in unhappy marriages fuck each other and argue and stand around being upper middle class and frowning. YAWN. It's not The Ice Storm, which did this a lot better (it is also my controversial opinion that Ang Lee hasn't done anything near as good since.) Peter Krause, Naomi Watts and Mark Ruffalo should be doing something a little more worthwhile. But apparently Mark Ruffalo is currently selling his soul to RomComs, so he's very busy. The cunt.

The United States Of Leland
"Let's do our own version of Catcher In The Rye! That's not been done 5000 times before!" "Ok!!!!"Lame.

Tiptoes
Matthew Bright directed Freeway and Freeway 2:Confessions Of A Trick Baby, two crazy and trashy movies I love. So why, in 2003, did he front this project, a by-the-numbers romdramcom about dwarves? I don't know. It tantamounts to a Movie Of The Week, and ends inexplicably and suddenly. You probably haven't heard of this movie but it stars Matthew McConnoghey and Gary Oldman. Yeah, they ran a million pound publicity campaign for Two For The Money, and this completely disappeared, even though it's just simply "alright." It's not awful, just fairly inconsequential.

Mean Creek
People said great things about Mean Creek, a predictable indie movie that has nothing but atmosphere, decent editing and direction going for it. It's average, at best. Those 4 and 5 star reviews weren't really warranted.

Cellular
From the director of the forthcoming SNAKES ON A PLANE with Samuel L Jackson. I don't really need to say more than that, but I will. Jason Statham is the villain in this movie. As we all know, Jason Statham sucks. He really, really sucks. They only gave him about 3 lines in Cellular, which was a good decision. This is the kind of movie you can watch in the afternoon when you've got nothing to do and not want to commit suicide too much. But y'know...SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Red Eye
I really wish I hadn't seen the trailer, cause it shows you every freakin plot twist. If I hadn't known what was coming, I would have loved this old-school thriller, instead of just liking it. Wes Craven should do more movies like this, instead of more movies like Cursed.

Last Days
Yes, the 3rd movie after Gerry and Elephant. It's ok. I prefer Gerry. Michael Pitt continues his epic journey not to sell out. I suppose busting your cherry on Dawson's Creek is a steep learning curve for what constitutes a crap role. It's impressive though.

The Rage In Placid Lake
Ben Lee should stick to singing and playing the guitar. Not that he's totally awful in this, but the movie itself has been shunted together with ideas that just don't gel. Rose Byrne is hot.

The Isle
Kim Ki-Duk is completely insane. This movie is really good-looking. This movie also consists of nothing but fishhooks, sex and shitting. This movie sounds more interesting than it is.

Eulogy
Some good moments and a solid cast (I'll watch anything with Hank Azaria in it) can't save this movie, which drifts along aimlessly to it's conclusion. A better script and editing could have saved it. The director needs a slap.

Maria Full Of Grace
Was very good. I probably wouldn't watch it again, but it was very good.

Fantastic FourI
had heard it was awful. The first two acts were more entertaining than both Spiderman films, for me. The last act fell as flat as a pancake.

Coach Carter
It's 80 per cent montages, and was quite watchable. I even cried twice. But I'm pretty sure that was due to generic movie manipulatiuon.

Mr & Mrs Smith
Would have been 500 times more entertaining, had it not been so unbelievably FUCKING SMUG. Absolutely drowning in sheer, unadulterated (but not unadulterous) SMUGNESS. So, thumbs down, despite the action-based sequences, which were quite good.

The Jacket
"Lets rip off Jacobs Ladder and add a really dull twist."..."OK!!!" Adrien Brody is hot, he deserves better. Better than The Village, better than this, and better than King Kong (it looks fucking awful.)

The Pacifier
Vin Deisel. Disney. A script with ZINGERS like "Your duty? Oh so you're the babysitter, you must be on DOO DOO DOOTY."Yes, it is crap.

Seed Of Chucky
Mm. I love the Childs Play movies. This made me laugh a lot. And as Philip said, it does stretch to second guessing your own post modern ironic pop culture references. This is what happens when irony goes too far. I feel dirty, but I loved it.

Unleashed"YOOR MAH DAWG NAH!" This was a heap of crap. I heard Jet Li is thinking of retiring.....good.

Cursed
Some (possibly unintentionally) amusing moments, but on the whole, pish.

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
Less mediocre than Big Fish. Entertaining enough. But it's a remake. Y'know?

Skeleton Key
Watchable enough trash from Iain Softley (the man that brought us those movie classics-Hackers and K-Pax!...mm) and watchable due to the casting of Peter Saarsgard, John Hurt and Gena Rowlands. There's a difference between 'good' and 'watchable' though.

The Boondock Saints/Overnight
Once upon a time there was a complete dickwad called Troy Duffy who worked in a bar in Hollywood. He wrote a movie script, and Harvey Weinstein from Miramax bought it for $1,000,000! He also agreed to buy the bar for Troy that he worked in.Troy then continued being a complete dickwad, but now he was a COMPLETELY ARROGANT dickwad. He had MADE IT! IN THE INDUSTRY! Except when you've been signed on as a kissass, being a complete dickwad isn't going to wash. Soon, Troy Duffy is ostracized(sp) from Hollywood, but somehow he still managed to make his dream come true. He makes his movie, The Boondock Saints! It is, of course, a complete piece of shit!But, blessings counted, one of Troy's friends was smart enough to film the process, and turned in a decent enough documentary, Overnight, which lets you witness the whole car crash in its entirety.The only problem I have with the doc is, they said in the interview afterward that they didn't include the footage of Troy being racist, homophobic, sexist and violent. Why not? I don't think any eyebrows would have been raised. He is clearly That Guy.If only that car had succeeded in running him over. That would have been a sufficiently happy ending. But the only happy ending we get is...Troy's script was really bad, and he got a million bucks for it. A team of monkeys typing with faeces on their fingers could have written something better than The Boondock Saints, so at least there's hope for talented, struggling writers everywhere.

Ice Princess
It's a U-rated Disney movie about ice skating. The formula is set.

Million Dollar Baby
It's ok. Clint Eastwood can't really act. Hasn't really ever been able to act. But he's turning into a pretty good director. He should stick to that. The movie kind of dragged for me after sitting through The Sea Inside a few weeks back.

In The Mood For Love
I should have watched this a long time ago really but I kept missing opportunities. This Wong Kar-Wai film looks good enough to eat, and not in a slow-motion CGI flower petal or zooming dagger kind of way. Jamie bought me the sequel, 2046, last week, which I look forward to watching.

DiG!
As I previously mentioned, this documentary (spanning 7 years in the careers of two bands-The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre) blew me away. I think if you're a fan of the bands or not, it doesn't matter, they spend so much screen time unintentionally mocking themselves it makes the music itself irrelevant. My favourite scene has to be Anton (the lead singer of BJM) mocking Zia (the oft topless Dandy's keyboardist) for being visibly afraid of him while he rollerskates around her proclaiming to be the son of God, just weeks after sending them all shotgun shells with their names enscribed. "If I wanted to kill you Zia, I'd have done it already!"Also has the kind of quotes you'd expect from quite a large bunch of self-important pricks: "I SNEEZE AND HITS COME OUT!" which i've taken to saying in a Downs Syndrome voice in response to pretty much everything.Joins my Films Of The Year list.

Palindromes
Dear Todd Solondz,I have seen every one of your movies (to be fair there aren't many). I was expecting a disturbing film. But you truly succeeded this time. Yes, finally, despite molesting it 3 times in the past, this movie RAPED MY BRAIN.I pretty much knew it was only going to get worse after a scene near the beginning where a truckdriver comes up the ass of a 12 year old girl who's just had a botched abortion. And it did. So you finally did it Solondz, congratulations. You tore out my eyeball, you stuck your dick in the bloody orbit and you scrambled my brain up with your hard intrusive member. Looking forward to your next movie, your biggest fan, Kiki xxx

War Of The Worlds
I watched this movie one afternoon, and it was passably entertaining. Then I watched it again. Big mistake. Never watch this movie more than once. In fact you can live pretty well without seeing it at all. Never has a Speilberg movie been this shit. And I loathe E.T.I would say it's main problems are: Making no sense whatsoever. Having a piss poor ending. And Tim Robbins.It did have a few good moments. River of corpses. Train on fire (which, in retrospect, would have been a million times cooler if it hadn't been a CGI fuckin train on fire.)DUFF.

13 Conversations About One Thing
Alright. Some good bits. Some good acting. But overall mehness triumphed.

The Assasination Of Richard Nixon
Very good but hugely depressing.

DeLovely
Meh.

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
Better than Dude, Where's My Car? but then most movies are. Some amusing moments but not Laugh Out Loud funny.

Bad Education
The last of the Almodovar box set Jamie bought me (there's another one coming out this week with Women On The Verge and several others in it--want. And another one in June with Matador etc.)It starts off as an Almodovar movie then gets confused and tries to turn into a noir peice. It looks great but with stuff like this there's no excuse for a text epilogue. In fact, unless it's a true story or a massive ensemble piece there is never an excuse for a text epilogue. (See Unbreakable and others for proof of this.) JUST FILM IT. I WILL ACCEPT A MONTAGE IF YOU'RE THAT DESPERATE.

Sky High
I expected better, but it was ok. Still heart Kitamura heart. Just wasn't very good this time.

The Sea Inside
Again, an ok film. How much can you do with a plot thats simply 'I'm crippled from the neck down and i'm going to kill myself.'?

House Of Wax
Fifth movie from Dark Castle production, the company set up by Rob Zemekis and Joel Silver. It's slightly better than the four that came before it (which were only varying degrees of shit) House On Haunted Hill, Th1rte3n Ghosts, Ghost Ship and Gothika. I think the only reason I kind of liked it were the organic effects. It certainly wasn't Paris Hilton's plastic surgery mistakes, which made me want to hurl.

Hide & Seek
Haha. Crap. The perfect partner for Godsend.

Czech Dream
Great. Great great great. Great great. Might have to go on the Films Of The Year list. One of the last shots where the fake Hypermarket billboards get replaced with ads for Lucky Strike and Mastercard was sheer genius.

Batman Begins
Was great, I thought. Although, as previously discussed, the "batman voice" Bale used was annoying, and seemed totally pointless when he was talking to Liam Neeson. Dude, he knows who you are!

Game Over: Kasparov & The Machine
Alright, but nothing's answered or resolved really.

The Stepford Wives
Not even Walken can save this pile of shit.

Nid de Guepes
The french *remake* of Assault On Precinct 13. Or Rio Bravo. Or whatever. I'm sure it must be aware of that. Ok I guess. Must've been promising enough for Siri's subsequent opportunities to arise.
Look At Me
Very decent French ensemble piece that, according to the original plot, was supposed to be about two novelists, one on the acsention(sp) and one losing his standing in the publishing world; but ends up being quite a heartbreaking story about a fat-by-french-standards girl who tries and fails to get her father to notice her. But as with most ensemble pieces, it's not much to look at, fairly basic direction.

Zatoitchi
Kitano on form in his take on the old tale. I liked it a lot.

Downfall
A little dull, and less affecting and effective than promised.

Ping Pong
Hey, it's a two hour Japanese movie about table tennis. So...yeah.

Control Room
Good, yuh. It's nothing you don't know or couldn't predict, but I was left vaguely unsettled by scenes of British soldiers shoving and shouting at bewildered families on their knees. Also quite sad was the scene of the main Al Jazeera dude chain-smoking and talking about moving to America so his kids could be part of the American Dream; while simultaneously looking like he was chewing a mouthful of wasps.

Birth
Very well-shot follow up to Sexy Beast for Glazer, with a great score by...I think it's Alexandre DeSplat, who seems to be on a roll cause when watching recent movies and being impressed by the score I inevitably find out he's responsible. All the way through the movie I was thinking "this is great, this film is so underrated." Then at the end felt decidedly Meh about it all. Falls under the subjectively offensive term "Kubrick-lite."

Hostage
Decidedly silly but entertaining action fare from French Nid de Guepes director who's moved comfortably into Hollywood and Bruce Willis' lap by also staking a claim on Die Hard 4. Good score (DeSplat again probably--I like saying "desplat" teehee) and a strange, intriguingly out-of-place title sequence mesh with an awesomely baked ham turn from Kirsty-favourite Ben Foster, who's come a long way since Get Over It. If you like him as the Russell character in Six Feet Under, you'll probably enjoy his character in Hostage, a pot-smoking psychopathic Goth (duh-when will Hollywood stop churning that out?)And look out for him again in Brett "target practice" Ratner's X-Men 3, playing Angel...I'm guessing not as a weird pot-smoking goth, but who can say?

Boogeyman
Sucks

Ong Bak
Rules

The Chorus
Ok

The Wedding Date
Pish

Wicker Park
Awful

Cube Zero
Further convoluting the Cube mythology. Silly but entertaining in a Canadian kind of way.

The 5 Obstructions
Really good, I thought.

Outfoxed
Hahaha...jesus.fucking.christ.

Azumi
Awesome. And silly. Heart Kitamura Heart.

Arahan
I expected more from a movie that had a bad guy called The Supreme Master Of Absolute Evil. But that probably says more about me than the movie. Points for blood spitting, cheesy winks and bad subtitle translation. Liberties were surely taken with "Hey, knobhead!"

Flight Of The Phoenix
Average "we can do it!" movie, with a riveting and revealing Making Of. From the mad Irish director of that Peacetime classic Behind Enemy Lines comes...Hell Shoot! "Can someone explain to me how the Namibian Desert is colder than fucking Aberdeen?" asks Hugh Laurie. Quite.

Dogville
I kind of thought it was a masterpiece. But a few people i've talked to have said they thought it was Dogshit. So maybe I was just in the mood to love some Von Trier that night.

Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy
Hampered by bad pacing, editing and too little exposition (first time i've ever said that I think, as I usually loathe exposition) which is a shame, cause there's enough here for many repeated viewings otherwise.

Assault On Precinct 13 (Remake)
Lawrence Fishburne can carry a movie by himself, even a crap one like this. It is worth noting that since The Usual Suspects, Gabriel Bryne has been the kiss of death for most, if not all, projects flying out of Hollywood. Sorry to anyone reading that thought Stigmata, End Of Days, Ghost Ship, The Man In The Iron Mask or Enemy Of The State were the fucking bomb or whatever.

Gerry
The thing about this trilogy (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days) is that if you hate one, you're probably going to hate them all. Gerry was critically mauled when it came out (quietly) and I think it really all depends on taste. A 2 hour movie about 2 guys walking in the desert and only talking occasionally and briefly about nothing in particular is not going to thrill you out of your chair, but I don't think these movies are any less relevant than 2001 A Space Odyssey. Each shot is very very long, and usually very very beautiful. The shot at the beginning of the car driving alond the road from behind mesmerised me from the start. At one point it began to look as though the car were flying. These movies are the very definition of "Arthouse"...the more you stare, the more you see, the more reality generates new levels and becomes obscured by others. These movies are probably quite rightly defined as "awful shit" by most people, but I can't help it, they intoxicate me.

The Ring Tw0
Well...I was expecting the worst movie ever. It wasn't. No, it wasn't Feardotcom. It was alright. The appearance of Gary Cole for whatever length usually brightens my day. When I was a kid I used to think the main dude from V was Gary Cole. But then, I thought the Eiffel Tower was in Blackpool until I was 19 years old.Uh...where was I? Yuh, Ring Tw0. Nakata kept nothing from Ringu 2, except for his Well Chase set piece, which is re-imagined here, and is far more effective. Also, the corpses are, once again, far more frightening in the Ring remakes, thanks to Rick Baker. But other than that...not a patch on the originals. *shrugs*

Sahara
Suffers from some of the worst direction I've ever seen in a fairly big budget action movie. Also suffers from something I've now come to call "Pre-citable Music Interludes" (Catchy, huh) which is a deseise(sp) affecting a lot of movies these days. Basically, the director (or whoever) puts their favourite songs they've heard work in other movies in their own movie. So when I heard the strains of Sweet Home Alabama, I joked "what's next, heh, Magic Carpet Ride?" *cue opening feedback of Magic Carpet Ride.* Oh dear. Just a bit predictable really, and not in a way winning enough to make me smile. Just in a way that makes me sigh and press eject. Also of note: Penelope Cruz spends the whole movie running a practice session to perfect her Elvis lip-curl. So at least something was acheived.

The Girl Next Door
Good direction here, but suffers again from PMI's. Would have been a good little re-imagining of Risky Business, if it weren't for the fact that they forgot to give the female lead (Elisha Cuthbert, taking her clothes off a lot but sticking vehemently to her No Nipple clause) a personality, or a real background. Yes, this is a woman that men will move mountains for, destroy their futures, conquer small countries...! But all she really does is look confused and roll out an occasional forced giggle. Really? Is that all it takes? Your firm answer of "yes" is predictable.

The Tao Of Steve
Rubbish indie rom com that is without rom, or com. Shite.

Kinsey
Watchable biopic with a few good laughs and a full frontal by Peter Saarsgard. Its only real problems were its uncanny ability to not make any points at all (probably on purpose, but still stranding it in MOR movie teritory) and being strangled to death with its own score. STEP AWAY FROM THE STRING SECTION. Please.

Shall We Dance (remake)
Alright to watch once if you enjoy being won over by girly gayness. By the numbers and riddled with Richard Gere's trademark 5 rom-com facial expressions: Troubled, happy, bemused, slightly annoyed and blank. There're all the same except for a slight narrowing of the eyes. Stanley Tucci earns a paycheck as a faux-Latino ballroom dancer.

The Interpreter
Sydney Pollack finally learns to stay out of the editing room with this pacy but predictable thriller. As usual, Nicole Kidman plays Nicole Kidman with a wobbly accent and Sean Penn thinks he's making a politcal statement (he isn't.)

Last Resort
Previous Pawal/"Best Actor Of Our Generation" Considine effort viewed after last week's My Summer Of Love makes for fairly gentle and winning gem and features a creepy/amusing turn from famous Brit pornographer Ben Dover as....a Brit pornographer. Laugh out loud scene that should go down as a classic moment in movies comes as a computer monitor spits out requests to Considine as he has his trademark wobbler.

Alien Vs Predator
Wasn't expecting much, and didn't get much. Disturbing continuity, with Paul Anderson including tiny details like the nodding duck from the Nostromos and having morse code spell out "whoever wins we lose" for kicks, yet completely forgetting he'd included that the Predators have x-ray vision and can detect a little Alien inside a body. Also, the whole predator making human friends thing was laughable, and even more laughable in a scene where the predator seems to want to make out with a human chick. "hey baby, do you like tattoos?" Creature effects were good though, seems to be where all the money went.

House Of Flying Daggers
"Eh, just more of the same really." said Jamie, when I asked him how he found it. I'd have to go with that. Although I enjoyed Hero well enough, and it looks good enough I suppose; bad dialogue, and an ending reminiscent of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist resulted in much laughing, then yawning as I urged it to end with my mind. It didn't, and carried on being a bit crap for another 25 minutes or so.

The Sweet Hereafter
Atom Egoyan movie from 97ish, a modern day take on the fable of The Pied Piper, sees Ian Holm's lawyer visit a small snow-deluged town who have seen an entire generation wiped out by a schoolbus accident. As Holm deals with his own issues with his daughter, it becomes clear that broken hearts cannot be mended with money and life goes on yada yada yada. This movie, although slight, was quite good in fact.

Blade Trinity
Hahahahahhaahaha...no. Unless your question is: 'Does this movie join those great second movie sequels like Godfather 3, American Pie The Wedding, Cruel Intentions 3, Ring Zero, Return Of The Jedi and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3: The Next Generation?' In which case, yes. Lame. Even with hot Reynolds action.

My Summer Of Love
Perfect European lovemaking to British bodies results in a superb little movie about teenage lesbian sex, social divides and mind games, with Paddy 'Best Actor Of Our Generation' Considine turning in another amazing performance as a Former Cunt-turned-Born Again Christian. Not for everybody, but two thumbs up.

Shake Hands With The Devil
Utterly heartbreaking documentary about one Canuck's plight to intercede between warring tribes in Rwanda which resulted in mass genocide. FUCK THE BELGIANS.ManhunterI'd not seen it before. Was superior to the Brett Ratner remake (duh) but aged slightly by bad 80s clothes and music (which I secretly enjoyed-you tell no one)

The Woodsman
Difficult little movie handled with some care by Kevin Bacon (also Executive Producer) as a convicted paedophile attempting to rejoin society. Mos Def stands out in a supporting role as the Officer assigned to monitor him on parole. Kyra Sedgwick obligatorially plays the onscreen fuck puppet, seemingly as a favour for her real life husband, although which way the favour was offered is a matter for debate. (Well, it isn't really. Life's too short for that kind of speculation. But not too short apparently, because I have now seen White Noise three times and I'm pretty sure there might be a fourth somewhere down the line. Man, that movie is bad. I don't know why I keep watching it. Perhaps somewhere in my mind the So Bad It's Good button has been triggered and I am powerless to stop it.)

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
Have had a well documented crush on David Spade for quite some time. But crushes don't make movies funny.

he Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Looks like a Wes Anderson film, but doesn't feel like one. 100 per cent whimsy, 0 per cent humanity. Poor.

Man On Fire
It occurs to me that if Tony Scott didn't do that thing he does (whip pan flash jolt focus in and out whip pan flash jolt) bookending every motherfucking scene, his movies might actually be pretty decent. Denzel, Walken, Rourke. Hard to hate.

Layer Cake
Meh. Pretty much a showreel for Matthew Vaughn's future job interviews. "Look, I *could* make a *real* movie! Someday! Someday soon? Oops, I just accidentally walked out of X-Men 3 and pissed a whole lot of people off. But I still have my integrity! I think..."

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous
It will come as no surprise to you that this movie is terrible. However I have once again proved (to no one in particular) that I really will watch any old shit.

Hitch
Rubbish.

My Best Fiend
Good. Klaus Kinski was quite mad, y'know. But then, Herzog wasn't exactly in his right mind when he hired Mick Jagger to pull a boat over a mountain in Peru, narmsayn.

Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow/The Chronicals Of Riddick
These go together, as they were both really shit and yet enjoyable to watch for the most part. The elements of Push on both; in Sky Captain, fantastic score. In Riddick, snappy editing and a good eye for detail in effects and backdrop.

Coffee & Cigarettes
Like watching your friend's student movie skits for two hours. Except instead of 'my mate Dave' in the centre of the shot, it's Bill Murray or something. The last segment was ok. Best avoided. Unlike other Jarmusch movies, which are good.

Tarnation
Don't get me started! Unless you've seen it. In which case, I'd be happy to debate with you on whether this is a seminal work of art or the ultimate agenda-pushing wank for attention. Sits rather unhappily between the magnificent and hilarious (if you've not seen it, do so, you won't be disappointed) American Movie, and the groundbreaking Capturing The Freidmans. Still, when David Lynch, John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig) and Gus Van Sant come together to promote a movie made for 100 dollars on an iMac, you know you're going to see something interesting. Love it or hate it? Mostly hate it.