tigerland

there weren't any tigers in this. not one. colin farrell was in it instead, and he did a pretty good job of it all in. if he was a tiger i would predict this wouldn't have been as good. but it was good. which is great,

look here, i didn't get much sleep last night. i was up until 4am drinking incredibly cheap white wine, so you're not going to get much of a review about tigerland i'm afraid. if i really try i'll be able to tell you that is was good. it won't change your life or anything, but it was good. well, y'know.. okay.

uurrrrrrgh.

6/10

thx 1138

this is why people think george lucas was a visionary, this is why they gave him countless wads of cash to make a fairy story about incest set in space. with comedy robots. because visually this film - originally made in 1970 - is groundbreaking. it hasn't aged at all, not in nearly 40 years which is basically amazing. i would compare it to moon which was released this year, so that's pretty good going.

lucas' vision doesn't end there. this film makes a fair few predictions about the future that hold remarkable truth. despite the setting of a far distant future, it still has the general public spending their life watching bland, mind-numbing television. it has people blindly following religion without question. it's a clever film.

unfortunately, it has a whole bunch of problems. the pace is willfully slow. this is an extension of the narcotically muted life that humans lead in this universe, but ends up holding the beats of the film back so much that it becomes soporific. it's cleverly done, but damages the film.

the script is pretty poor. again, this can be blamed on the sedatives that every character is constantly loaded with. and makes sense. the unfortunate side effect is that there is no flare, no flow... but then, that's served lucas pretty well so far. i don't think the star wars fan-base would ever attribute their obsession with The Saga to the poetry of greedo's monologue.

so it's an impressive film. i'm a bit sad that Lovefilm sent me the updated, re-edited version (2004). as with all his great films (star wars 4-6), george lucas has thrown the original cut away, and refilled it with silly little cartoons that destroy the integrity of the film. oh well.

6/10

funny games u.s.

... actually, no. it's not very funny. not very funny at all.

funny games is a weird one. you can't say you enjoyed it, it's uncomfortable to say you liked any part of it. you can appreciate certain things, the skill with which it's filmed and the performances from all the central actors. all those things are pretty good. i mean, not "good" but done with skill. um. yeah... i did think it was a well made film. totally sinister, tense, and it does make you question your own morality as it intends to do.

as i was watching it i appreciated the 'speech to camera' device by which director michael haneke directs these questions towards you. perhaps i shouldn't have watched the accompanying interview with him, though. he just turned out to be a humourless and pretentious jerk, and sort of ruined the whole convention.

anyway. watch it if you have a strong stomach. you wouldn't really lose anything if you don't. 'cept your dinner! HA HA HA HA HURGH... uh

6/10

inglourious basterds

i haven't liked anything tarantino's done for quite a while now. nothing since pulp fiction has floated any of my boats, but i so wanted to like this. a lot. i'd even heard from reliable sources that this was something new from the jumped-up little weirdo. people who have shared my opinion about the gremlin-faced geek have told me that this was brilliant, so i was expecting to really enjoy it.

which i did... for about an hour.

i did really get into the traditional tarantino conventions for a little while; the garish graphics, the inappropriate soundtrack, the strangely affected reality. but, as with many films of late, this peaked far too early. the best scene was, by far "chapter two" in which brad pitt and his team of blood-thirsty jews interrogate a nazi officer in a forest. but that was in the first hour. and it went on (and on and on (and on)) from there.

do you remember films like blade runner or shaun of the dead, where they're brilliant all the way through and arguably progressively more so scene-by-scene? what happened to them?

... yeah, i just got bored really, once the cool scene had finished the rest of the film was just a bit too slow and predictable. it's a shame because while i don't particularly enjoy his films, i do respect ol' quentin and his obsessive geekiness. despite calling him a "jumped-up little weirdo" i like him. i like that he makes movies because he loves movies. he does a load of things similar to what i'd probably do if i had a massive production budget and brad pitt at my beck and call.

it wasn't all bad. it looked pretty cool, didn't take itself seriously and played around with different ideas. brad pitt was very good. blah blah blah. shame it felt pointless by the end.

6/10

hoodwinked

its pretty immediate that the quality of animation is about the level of a playstation 1 game, but it is more than made up for by the script and story. there are some genuinely hilarious bits of this and some great characters. i think we all guessed the ending pretty quickly, but the ride there is a lot if fun.
i especially like the goat character who had me in tears throughout his scene.

6/10

memoirs of a geisha

this pretty much only gets any points because it looks so amazing. the recreation of period japan is beautifully done, totally convincing and with an attention to detail in every shot that you could press your nose to the screen and pretend you were motorboating a real geisha house.

you should. it's weird.

as for the rest of the film, it's just a bit too tedious. no faults from the film-makers or cast, i just think they were backed into a financial decision from the studio to adapt a popular book. regardless of whether the book's successes would translate to the screen.

6/10

a history of violence

It's not a bad film. It's just quite small. You sort of expect something a bit grander, a bit more like Eastern Promises.

Maybe 'subtle' is the word. It doesn't do anything wrong, the whole cast is really good, it's pretty gripping and unexpected... Just doesn't quite give you enough to get that excited about. All the suspense and curiosity of The Long Kiss Good Night, but all the adrenaline of the autumn harvest.

6/10

the inside man

i think spike lee is a good (not great) director who makes a lot of bad choices. once you get past the constant 'subtle' race-war jibes in this movie you get a pretty good heist film with another cunning heist ending.
wasn't really sure/bothered about the whole jodie foster bit.
worth a watch, but don't expect to be wowed.

6/10

little children

I couldn't decide for a good while whether I was watching a work of genius on on the same level as Donnie Darko, or just a really really long episode of Desperate Housewives.

In the end I liked it's oddness: I liked the unexplained narrator, the unfinished stories, the unresolved nature of the whole thing.
The clown hat?

It's a tough old watch sometimes, a real slow burner but you feel inexplicably rewarded at the end. A small reward, but a reward nonetheless.

And if you're into playing 'co-stars' a really good route out of Watchmen and into a Kate Winslet mainstream, with Rorschach and Nite Owl reunited in a particularly unexpected way.

6/10

the terminal

i defy anyone who attempts to deny that Tom Hanks is anything less than warm, cuddly, a great great actor, and so full of charm he could make a pot of gold appear from a puddle of his own urine. except for a couple of epic fails with Meg Ryan, he hardly ever puts out a bad film; and this is ever more enhanced when you add Steven Spielberg into the mix.

the terminal is a great little movie, actually. totally led by Hanks' charming demeanour, it tells a simple but captivating story about a guy trapped between countries in a time of political turmoil. it's all improved by the fact that it's loosely based on the true story of an iranian dude who ended up living in a paris airport for 18 years, although in true hollywood style it is dissolved into a saccharin solution of "man's unrelenting triumph over adverse conditions." the result is undeniably Spielburg in its political subtlety but captured with his traditional skill.

i could've happily made away with the romance part and concentrated on the different ways the central character learned to live in the environment (like in Wall-E); and it only felt like he was there a week when i was hoping for the full 18 years; but it was a good ol' switch-your-brain-off of a movie, and.... um... yeah

6/10

watchmen: tales of the black freighter

directly taken from the alan moore book 'watchmen' this is more of a special feature that could have just been put on the final watchmen disc. it's been created as an accompaniment to the zak snyder movie in his attempt to re-create the entire watchmen universe on screen, but although i felt overcome with absolute joy at the watchmen movie, this felt a bit too fan-boy. i appreciate the want to drown in the brightly coloured dystopian universe of watchmen, but i couldn't shake the idea that making 'black freighter' was partly just to try and win moore's favour.

alan moore has been very negative in regards to all the film adaptations of his books (with league of extraordinary gentlemen he was in the right) and i can understand the reason why. it's like writing an awesome song and then having kanye west sample it. and making lots of money out of your talent and hard work.

my complete hallucination aside, this is a good little animated tale from the depths of one of the best contemporary literary minds in britain, adapted by some very talented (if obsessed) film-makers. not something you'd watch every day, but a fair piece in a complete film collection.

6/10

sex & the city

admittedly i don't fit into the target demographic for this movie, but i thought it was okay. my main criticism - i suppose - is that i always thought chick flicks should include two things:
1 - be uplifting
2 - be really empowering for women

i spent the majority of it feeling really sad, actually. quite depressed that a kid hiding a phone could result in such a terrible end to a relationship, a sad feeling that wasn't resolved for most of the movie.
and it ended with a reaffirmation of the idea that women do need men to be happy.

get some, feminists.

i actually thought they would've been better off turning all the stories they covered in the film into a whole other series. that way they would have still had screen-time to add 'the funny' that my girlfriend informs me fills the tv show...

it was alright though. it kept my attention, you can't really fault any of the actors and all the characters are actually pretty believable. and paris hilton isn't in it.

6/10

donkey punch

i was fully expecting utter trash with the worst acting you've ever seen.
actually, the acting turned out to be the best bit. with equal measure of hit and miss on the rest. the weakest part was any time it needed to be cleverly edited... and it never was.
didn't quite hit the mark, but showed signs that these film makers have promise.

6/10

eagle eye

its enjoyable, but an entire story filmed on the premise that an artificially intelligent computer capable of the observation and control of every mobile phone, computer, fax machine, sat nav, vehicle, computer-controlled crane, television, traffic light, microwave oven etc. etc. .. can be fooled by an identical twin mix-up.
has the director ever met identical twins? they aren't actually identical.

this film also predominately featured one of those 'if you break a computer monitor, it destroys the computer' moments, which is ridiculous.

still, its a fun ride. and shia lebouf is - as always - excellent.
and - as always - better than the film itself.

6/10

lucky number slevin

this is like a Guy Ritchie film, but with believable characters and a better script.

bit of an obvious twist, but there we go.

i thought lucy lui was a tasty sex kitteh in this. a tasty sex kitteh.

6/10

pineapple express

i was quite bored for the first bit of this, which was mainly just a stoner flick with people acting wasted for a while. not something that entertains me in any way.
the film starts for me, when the guys fight red. then i 'got it' and it became a comedy action film in the same ilk as one of the old police academys. it wasn't a bad movie, but i've seen better from these guys.

6/10

mr. brooks

never once will you guess what will happen next. good, strong performances from everyone. well worth a look if you're in the mood for a serial killer thriller.

the watcher

now, i don't know any good reason why i should like this. in essence, it's terrible.

but.....

but i liked it goddamnit. i liked the weird, slightly inappropriate soundtrack filled with interesting but non-sensical choices.
i liked the cliched simplicity of the highly predictable story.
i even liked keanu's acting, which unbelievably, is at an all-time wooden low.

one reviewer called it "a superb thriller"
i wouldn't go that far.....

6/10

where the truth lies

a little-known straight-to-video gem filled with intrigue and a high level of acting. nice to see colin firth not playing a big wet wimp of a character,... and rachel blanchard with no clothes on.

6/10

hancock

nice little movie. i would've liked to see more hancock disasters pre-PR... it was a bit obvious that charlize was going to be another 'super' character - they did ladle the build-up quite a lot. no matter; it was funny, good looking and although it screeched to a sudden halt was thoroughly enjoyable.

6/10