Star Trek: Emotional Pedantry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Continue To Watch Movies, These Are Them

Charlie Bartlett

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


Doomsday

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


Hancock

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


What Happens In Vegas

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


The Spiderwick Chronicles

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


In Bruges

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


Prom Night (Remake)

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


Street Kings

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


Wall-E

Great. I loved it.


The Mummy 3

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


The Dark Knight

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


The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford

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


You Don't Mess With The Zohan

Yeah....no.


Sex & The City

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


100 Feet

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


Stir of Echoes 2: Homecoming

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


The Strangers

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


Midnight Meat Train

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


Wanted

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


Get Smart

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


Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

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


Hellboy 2

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


Hamlet 2

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


Burn After Reading

A few good moments, but disappointing overall.


Prince Caspian

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


The House Bunny

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


Twilight

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


Ghost Town

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


Step Brothers

Complete lack of laughs from beginning to end. Pish.


Mirrors (Remake)

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


The Alphabet Killer

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


Babylon A.D.

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


Death Race (Remake)

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


Dance of the Dead

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


Passengers

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