Battle: Los Angeles is a predictable and unoriginal sci-fi action movie. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of District 9, I never thought it was as good as everyone else seemed to, it was a fairly original take on a sci-fi action film. I have heard some say that Battle: LA is a new District 9. In short, they’re wrong, it’s not! What they seemed to have done is taken some generic action characters, a fairly bog standard and weak action plot and then added a lot of fairly decent CGI in alien form. It doesn’t wash with me or hide any of the films short comings.
The lack of script would not be too bad if there was some great action but I just didn’t feel the action scenes worked. There were lots of them and just not enough linking them together. My biggest gripe is the camera work, one word sums that up – shocking! I’m not a big fan of the ‘wobbly camera’ shot, a steady cam is a wonderful invention please use it! In Battle: LA the annoyance of the wobbly camera is so bad that it is a distraction, the cameraman didn’t seem to have
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I saw the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau and thought it looked like it would be an OK film, when I read it is based on a short story called “The Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick I was a little more interested. For those of you who don’t know Philip K. Dick wrote the likes of Total Recall, Minority Report and Blade Runner.
The Adjustment Bureau is about David Norris (Matt Damon), a young, ambitious politician. A chance meeting with dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) changes his life forever. He feels a connection with her and instantly wants to see her again but he doesn’t know how to get hold of her or anything about her other than her name is Elise. His job is made even harder when a group of mysterious men try and prevent them seeing each other. David learns these men ‘control’ the course of our lives. These men are members of The Adjustment Bureau, they will do anything to prevent David and Elise from being together. Can David change his ‘fate’ or will The Adjustment Bureau managed to carry out their duties and prevent them.
The Adjustment Bureau is a decent enough thriller, it
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Hereafter is the latest offering from director Clint Eastwood and writer Peter Morgan. With Peter Morgan’s writing credits including The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Frost/Nixon you would think this film would be a well structured, well written affair. I have really enjoyed most of Clint Eastwood’s latest project as a director, I thought the likes of Invictus, Gran Torino, Changeling, Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River were all good films with something interesting to say. The pairing of Peter Morgan and Clint Eastwood would offer something that would be worth watch, surely?
In Hereafter we follow three people. George (Matt Damon) appears to be a normal guy but he has a ‘gift’ which allows him to connect to the afterlife, he worked as a psychic for a time but the pressure became too much and he now has what he considers a much similar life though he still feels he can’t have a normal life due to his ‘gift’. Marie (Cécile De France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience and this is so profound that it effects how she sees the world and what comes after life. The final thread of the film follows young Marcus
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I’d heard a lot of buzz around The Fighter so it was definitely on my list of films to see. There have been a lot of films in the boxing genre and I did wonder what could The fighter bring new, surely it’s something that’s been done to death?
The Fighter tells the true story of “Irish” Micky Ward, a boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts. Micky lives in the shadow of his older half brother Dickie Eklund. Dickie “The Pride of Lowell” Eklund had been a promising boxer before he turned to crime and became addicted to crack. Micky is coached by Dickie and managed by his mother. We see how Micky struggles with the current situation he is in and after a series of events culminating in Micky’s hand getting injured and Dickie being put inside Micky decides he needs to refocus on boxing and that may mean making some difficult decisions.
The Boxing is definitely the driving force that moves the story forward and I really liked the gritty boxing scenes, they were shot as the TV of the time would have shot them, this gave them a pretty real look. However the fighter really isn’t about the boxing.
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Black Swan is the latest offering from the acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky, apparently he initial approached Natalie Portman about the concept 10 years ago but due to funding problems the project never got going, however after the success of Aronofsky much praised ‘The Wrestler’ in 2008 he has found it a little easier to get his projects of the ground.
Nina Sayer (Natale Portman) is a ballerina who is totally in love with what she does but is still waiting to get her big break. We pick up Nina’s story as the artistic director of her ballet company, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake. Nina manages to win the role of swan queen. The swan queen has two sides to her, the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Leroy is confident that Nina will carry the White Swan side of the role perfectly but is unsure about Nina’s ‘black swan’ side and encourages her to try and discover it. Lily (Mila Kunis), is a new dancer to the company, who seems to have also
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Slumdog Millionaire was one of the most talked about films of 2009, I was always a little surprised of just how well it actually did at the Oscars but there is no doubt it’s a great film and showed Danny Boyle most certainly knows what he is doing and put him in a small list of current directors who I look forward to seeing their next project.
When I heard what Danny Boyle’s next film was though I wasn’t convinced it would work as a piece of cinema. 127 hours is a true story about Aron Roulston, a man who gets his arm trapped under a boulder and stuck in a canyon, this leaves him with a pretty difficult decision, to die or amputate his own arm?
The film starts in a fairly light mood, following Aron (James Franco) on a fairly normal weekend as the adventurer he obviously is. He heads off to Utah for a bit of Canyoning. It’s not long though till the mood of the film completely changes, in a freak accident a boulder falls and traps his arm against the wall at the bottom of a canyon. Having not told anyone where he is going,
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If you’ve seen the original TV series, like me, you’re probably intrigued to know how this box office version compares. I loved the TV series, I loved the fact it was a little bit absurd, that they could make a tank out of just a wheel, a battered up old car and some drain piping, it was silly but in a good way. The A-Team was over the top, fun and entertaining, it never took itself too seriously and that was the point.
So what’s this version of the A-Team like? Well, in one word, disappointing. Yes there were some OK moments but these were few and far between. It’s not a bad film but it just didn’t do it for me. I was left thinking ‘why wasn’t that as good as I hoped?’
We pick up the four soldiers in various parts of Mexico half way through a mission. After successfully complete this mission we jump to Iraq where the team have formed a very successful alpha unit with many missions under their belts. They are then asked to perform one final mission in Iraq to recover plates for printing 100 dollar bills that were used to print a
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Having seen Memento, The Prestige & both batman films, I have consistently been immensely impressed with Christopher Nolan’s film making skills, even with a comic book film in The Dark Knight he produced not just one of the best comic book movies I’ve seen but a top notch movie which stands alone. So when I first heard about his new project I couldn’t wait to see what he would produce this time.
As I heard the cast list slowly announced, my excitement grew as you realized this could be something special (or at least hoped it could be), quality was just oozing from it in all directions. However it’s all to easy to build your expectations too high and then be immensely disappointed with the end result, as I have done once before. So in order to try and avoid doing this I managed to avoid all reviews and comments about what the film was really about, except the very basics that I will share with you later and just caught the trailer. However, as I entered the cinema to see Inception I couldn’t help but feel a little excited, fingers crossed then that it’s good!
Well no it’s not
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Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has now announced to the world that he is Iron man and will continue to protect the US and strive for world peace, however he is under pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. He is unwilling to let go of his invention. Stark also faces various other issues in his life and on top of that over in Russia, a slightly unhinged man named Ivan (Rourke) is out to kill him. Stark, along with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and James “Rhodey” Rhodes (Don Cheadle) must work together to confront and beat the enemies.
Returning from the original Iron Man are Stark’s trusted assistant Pepper Potts and army liaison “Rhodey” Rhodes (Now played by Don Cheadle not Terrence Howard as in the original Iron Man). There are also a host of new characters to get your head around to, the main ones being Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke).
I was a big fan of the first of the Iron man films, it was a bit of a surprise package, slightly different from other
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The Ghost or The Ghost Writer as it seems to be called in the U.S. is the new film by Roman Polanski based on the Novel by Robert Harris. The film follows The Ghost writer to Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former British Prime Minister (with some obvious comparisons with Tony Blair). We pick up the story just as the the new Ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is being recruited to continue Adam Lang’s memoirs after the apparent suicide of the original Ghost writer the story.
I would class film as basically a political thriller and so I don’t want to give any twists or turns away by going into to much detail about the plot, but basically as I said we follow the Ghost Writer as he tries to write Adam Lang’s memoirs but as he researches various details he finds things out about the former Prime Minister which may put him in harms way.
Overall it’s actually a pretty good film but I did leave the cinema somewhat disappointed, strange when I say it’s a good film. I liked the look of the trailers and may be built the film up ad I was expected something really good, especially
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Invictus is the latest offering from Clint Eastwood. The movie tells the story of the South African Rugby team in their historic Run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final. It’s much more than that though. Although the back story is some what limited we join the story as Nelson Mandela has just taken power of the New South Africa, a South Africa after Apartheid.
For those who don’t know Apartheid was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994, it was a pretty unfair system which basically gave the majority Black population few rights and maintained a minority White rule.
When President Mandela took charge the country had many issues, it remained a nation that was racially and economically divided. Mandela decides that he can bring the country together through the universal language of sport. As the rugby world cup is in South Africa in 1995, a year after he takes charge, he decides to get behind the South Africa rugby team and try to inspire them and a nation to victory.
Morgan Freeman stars as the inspiring Mandela and although his accent seems to wander from time
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Jason Reitman’s previous two films have been pretty good movies to say the least. ‘Thank you for not smoking’ is highly enjoyable and definitely worth checking out and ‘Juno’ is just brilliant. So what about his new one ‘Up in the air’, I was hoping for something as good.
‘Up in the air’ is about Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), he has a job which involves traveling around the country firing people and ‘preparing’ them for the a new start. He spends his life in hotels, living out of a suitcase most of the time and those few days he does spend at ‘home’ a year he hates. Some would see his life as empty and unfulfilled, he has nothing to do with his family, no real friends, he’s alone…. just the way he likes it. All is well with Ryan’s life until his company try and stop him flying thanks to a young upstart with a fancy degree who thinks she can revolutionise the way Ryan does his business.
There so put to ‘Up in the air’ than I’ve given away in that short synopsis, in fact if you look at the synopsis it doesn’t sound a very appealing movie
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So I had big doubts of what Guy Ritchie was going to do with Sherlock Holmes. Having read a fair chunk of the stories when I was a little younger, thanks to a ‘Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes’ book I was given which happens to be written in the smallest font know to man! I feel I know the character fairly well. I got a little off topic there, my point was I was a little concerned as to what Ritchie would do to the character but felt I had to see it, in much the same way as you can’t help but look at a car accident when you pass one even though you don’t want to! I’m digressing again, sorry back to the movie.
We join Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) as they are at the end of a case to catch a serial killer and occult “sorcerer” by the name of Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). Dr. Watson is just about to move out of Holmes’ house and get married. Is this there last case together? Well, of course it’s isn’t (it would be a pretty short movie if it was!), when Blackwood mysteriously
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The year is 2019 and most of the world have become vampire and humans are now being farmed for their blood. As the number of humans reduces the blood supply is running low. As time is running out for the scientists looking for a blood substitute to stop starvation of the vampire population Edward Daulton (Ethan Hawke), one of the ‘vampire’ scientist meets up with a group of surviving humans who are in hiding but have an idea of how to ‘cure’ the vampires.
I’m not a big vampire film fan but the trailers looked pretty good for this one so I thought I’d make the effort to see it and I’m glad I did.
The story is pretty solid and the cast are pretty all put in pretty good performance, I could be picky and say there are a couple of over bloody scenes which are unnecessary and actually make the scenes look more fake, however they don’t distract from the overall look of the movie.
It’s not going to change the face of cinema so don’t expect anything deep and meaningful from this one, but it’s a good bit of fun and worth checking out.
More information at
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13 January 2010
Nine
I have never seen the original movie this is based on (8 1/2 by Federico Fellini) and I’d never even heard of the Broadway musical. I had, however, seen the movie version of Chicago and thought it was quite a good adaptation of the stage show. The same director, Rob Marshall, brings this musical from stage to screen, this time he misses the mark by along way.
The good first, it’s shot pretty well and I actually think the cast puts in some good performances, both Marion Cotillard & Daniel Day-Lewis put in solid performances. If you take each section of the movie it’s not bad but that’s the best I can say about it!
Overall I thought it was a confused effort where the musical numbers didn’t fit into the movie, most were badly performed, staged and lacked the class & slickness that I was expecting from the Chicago director. As I said I don’t know the musical, apparently it was Tony award winning but from these performances I thought it was distinctly average and the music was very uninspiring to say the least. The whole movie felt like when you put together a really hard jigsaw puzzle and
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09 December 2009
The Box
Wow, so I’m finding The Box a difficult movie to really know how/what I feel about it. I left the cinema slightly bemused as to what I had just seen, had the previous 2 hours been a complete waste of time or was it genius….
As I sit here the morning after the night before trying to write some kind of review I’m still in the same position.
The Box follows a relative normal family who are visited one day by a mysterious man who brings them a box with a button in it They are told if they push the button two things will happen 1. Someone they don’t know in the world will die, 2. They will get 1 million dollars…
So there are some really interest moral dilemmas to discuss in that situation and to be honest that should have been the movie right there, but it’s not. The decision is made far too early on in the plot and what then unfolds is a story that twists and turns but with out any particular focus or direction (trying not to give too much away!). The Box is an odd and confusing movie which is why I’m
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I’m not going to mess around and sugar coat this review. Planet 51 could have been a pretty funny movie but it just isn’t and I’ll tell you why…
An astronaut goes to a new planet and finds it inhabited by ‘aliens’ but how about we view it from the ‘aliens’ point of view, i.e. flipping it on it’s head so the human’s are the aliens, seems a pretty good idea. I can imagine some one pitching that idea to me for a movie and I would think ‘I can see where the comedy would be in that situation’…I wish the film makers for Planet 51 could have only realized that.’ because that’s the set up for the movie.
What they’ve done though is produced a movie that is so busy trying to poke fun at other movies it ends up missing the fun in itself. There are a lot of references to the 50s era and sci-fi movies including the standard E.T. reference – how many times has that been done, it was funny the first few times but it’s now old and boring. That one reference sums up the whole movie for me, there are some funny moments
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I quite liked the idea of Law abiding Citizen and to be honest the trailer didn’t look too bad but I just had a niggling doubt before I went to see it that perhaps it wouldn’t be that great, perhaps the effect of ‘Gamer’ is still with me. If Gerard Butler thought making that movie was a good idea I will have doubts about any movie he ever makes.
The basic plot of Law abiding Citizen is that an ordinary man’s family are killed and he sees it all happen so knows who and what exactly happened. Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) the ‘ordinary bloke’ in question feels let down by the justice system due to bargaining with one of the accused, he feels justice isn’t served and that the outcome was more about keeping good statistics than about trying to get justice. This is a good comment on modern society who seemed to be obsessed with stats in all walks of life e.g. how quickly are you seen at hospital, what’s the pass mark of an exams, etc. So may be it’s actually an action movie that also has something worthy to comment about.
I think underneath all the killing
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02 December 2009
2012
2012 is an action movie with an apocalyptic theme. My very short review will contain a spoiler or two I don’t particularly like to talk to much about the plots of movies when I write reviews but it’s very hard to talk about the movie without talking about it’s content altogether. I can assure you it won’t effect your ‘enjoyment’ of the movie, I’m sure I won’t give away anything you don’t work out as the movie unfolds or as the case may be you’ve already worked it out before seeing it (it’s so obvious!)
It gets 5 stars (out of 10) from me purely because even though it has a stupidly and unnecessarily long run time for this kind of movie I was surprisingly not bored so I suppose I must have been entertained. As for the story itself (I’m fully aware that a plot isn’t supposed to be the point of this kind of movie but I still think it needs one!), well it’s absolute rubbish. It has no depth to it at all, it’s just an excuse for the action. Why am I supposed to care about a load of rich people who can afford to be
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Saw the trailer for Nativity! and thought it looked a nice little light and fluffy movie. Then I read about it in my cinema magazine that said go and see it if you like ‘Confetti’, I didn’t like it, in fact I thought it was rubbish. It was an improvised movie with a great comedy cast about wedding couples in a competition, for me, it just didn’t work. Nativity is (apparently) an improvised movie set around a school nativity show, it also has a good little British comedy cast. Oh no, I thought, please not another confetti disaster. You’ll probably now thinking I’m going to be off on one of my oh so fun rants and that nothing ever pleases me, but you know what I’m not.
Nativity! is a charming little British Christmas comedy. I couldn’t give it a hugely high rating because there is a lot wrong with it, the first 20 minutes or so drags a little, there were certain characters that got on my nerves a little, but I could see the point. Dramatically it’s not the best, but you know what it doesn’t matter. It was a nice movie. You could take a family to
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The Invention of Lying is the latest offering from Mr Ricky Gervais. I like him, I like his sometimes awkward humor in which you sit there thinking I shouldn’t laugh but then do. I think he’s original and talented but even he doesn’t get everything right. The Invention of Lying is one such case, I liked the set up to the movie but I just didn’t feel the film worked.
Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) lives in a world where people are 100% honest all the time, they can’t tell a lie, they don’t even know what one is. The movie beings with Mark as one of life’s losers, he loses his job, his apartment and is not having much luck in the love department either. However his life changes completely when he learns how to lie.
I like the concept it seemed an interesting idea but it is just poorly executed. The film feels like a whole range of ideas slung together with none of them being bad but it’s like a badly made jigsaw where none of the pieces quite fit properly. There are some good individual ideas for instance a short scene by two of the extra regulars
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(500) Days of summer looks back over the 500 days that Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) spent in Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) life. Summer had always attracted the attention of men, Tom was no different, it was love at first sight. Tom was obsessed with finding the perfect girlfriend, his sole mate and he felt Summer was that person…
The movie has a narrator and he very early warns you that “This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story.” But that’s exactly what it is, it may not be ‘boy meets girl, they fall in love, they live happily ever after, the end’ but it is all about love.
I love the whole feel of the movie it’s so different from your typical romantic comedy, it feels raw and real, you really feel Tom’s pain, his happiness, you live these 500 days with him. As always what makes a film so enjoyable is the brilliantly written story but the great performances, some lovely cinematography and some quality music just draw you in and make this a very memorable experience. I would normally now find what’s wrong with the movie
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During World War 2 a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds”, under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pritt) set out to brutally kill Nazis. “The Basterds” are enlisted to help with an operation to blow up a cinema which will contain the heads of the Third Reich at a film Premiere. This cinema is owned by Shosanna Dreyfusare (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish refugee who when younger had witnesses the slaughter of her family by the Nazis and is out to plan her own revenge.
What to say about Tarantino’s latest film? Sure he plays around with history which would normally really annoy me but it is so absurd in this case it doesn’t matter. I also wasn’t a fan of some of the on screen ‘doodles’ (you’ll know what I mean if/when you see it), I just didn’t feel they fitted in with the style of the rest of the movie. That’s it, that’s the only negatives I can find. In a summer of countless boring, uninspiring films (with ‘Moon’ being the only exception) what Tarantino has produced is a fun, dramatic, enjoyable film. I don’t want much more than that, despite what people may think
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I neither saw the original TV series or played with the G.I.Joe toys when I was a kid so I know very little of the ‘background story’ of G.I.Joe. I did however have a MASK toy which was OK but I have to say I preferred Lego as a kid, much more fun, but enough of 80s toy talk, what’s the movie like.
The basic plot (if you can call it that) is the rise of the evil ‘Cobra’ organization and how the G.I.Joe unit, a military unit with elite operatives from around the world, try and save the world from this new evil organization. The Cobra organization manage to steel new ‘nano-technology’ weapons and threaten to use them on the world to become all powerful, however with unique technology of their own and their highly trained members the G.I.Joe unit will do their best to save the world. So in simple terms, the baddies try to take over the world and the goodies try to save it. Nothing revolutionary there but it’s a formula that’s worked before so why not use it again. I don’t have a problem with that at all plenty of good movies have been based
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26 July 2009
Moon
Moon is a very difficult movie to explain without giving away any of the plot, so really all I give a way is the set up to the movie.
Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an employee of Lunar industries, he has a three year contract to work at their station on the moon, where he is collecting helium-3 and sending it back to Earth for fuel. He is the only person at the station other than GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), an intelligent computer who helps with Sam’s daily duties.
With no direct communication back to Earth because the real-time link has broken, GERTY is Sam’s only ‘company’. At the beginning of the film Sam is coming to the end of his three year contract, he is struggling with the loneliness and isolation of no human contact. Sam is looking forward to going home to see his family assuming nothing goes wrong…
I have to say I’m neither a huge Sci-fi fan or Sam Rockwell fan but I thought this was a great film. Sam Rockwell does a great job of carrying the film almost single handed, with good support from Kevin Spacey as GERTY a computer very reminiscent of
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Based on the novel of the same name by Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s keeper tells the story of Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) who is a young girl suffering from leukemia. The doctor suggests to her parents, Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric), that they could produce another child in a test-tube that would be a perfect match as a donor for Kate, her parent’s who want to do everything to save Kate (especially her mother) follow the doctor’s suggestion.
We follow the family as they go through the difficulties of dealing with cancer. Kate’s younger ‘test tube’ sister Anna (Abigail Breslin) has been used as a donor for Kate on numerous occasions and aged eleven is finding it difficult to deal with. We see how Kate’s illness has affected Sara and Brian’s relationship, how Jesse (Evan Ellingson) Kate’s older brother feels neglected and how Anna feels about all the surgery she has had to help her Sister. I won’t spoil the story any more than that, I will say that apparently the movie doesn’t stay that close to the book (I haven’t read the book, but I have read lots of reviews complaining of the fact).
The movie is
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Public Enemies is the latest offering from Michael Mann, it tells the ‘true’ story of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). Dillinger was a bank robber in the 1930s, I know very little about him other than bits I have read (by all accounts Michael Mann plays with the truth a fair bit). He was very charismatic and became some what of a folk hero to the common public.
No one seemed to be able to stop Dillinger even the prisons couldn’t hold him. J. Edgar Hoovers head of a very young FBI made Dillinger Public Enemy Number 1 and sent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to capture him. The film follows Dillinger as he continues to rob banks while being chased by Purvis. Marion Cotillard also stars as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s girlfriend.
Playing around with the truth is not Public Enemies biggest crime, it misses the mark on so many occasions. There are some OK performances from the main cast, nothing special but watchable, but that sums it up for me it’s just an OK film. In general I found some of the direction distinctly average and the development of the characters was just non-existant and you are left just not caring
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From the trailers I had decided not to bother with ‘the hangover’ as it really didn’t look my kind of film, I do like a good comedy but I’m not a big fan of over the top American humour. However after strong reviews and a good IMDB rating (normally a good indication of whether a film is good or bad) I thought I would give it a go and I was quite optimistic I would enjoy it.
My very basic plot synopsis is the film basically follows 4 guys on a stag do in Vegas. We don’t actually see the stag night itself, we see them just before the night out and then we catch up with them the morning after the night before. None of them can remember what went on during the night and worse of all they have lost the groom. That’s the set up, the rest of the film is about find Doug (the groom) and finding what went on during the night.
There are some genuinely funny moments that made me laugh and overall I was entertained which is why I have rated it fairly well (a generous 7/10) but I have seen much better
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Angels and Demons follows Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a Symbolist, as he helps the Vatican. He helps them in their search for four captured cardinals and a threat against the Vatican from a secret brotherhood, The Illuminati.
The movie fails as a book adaption, I just feel they have changed too much, if you are going to make a thing about how a movie is based on book then keep it faithful to the book. In Angels and Demons major characters have changed back stories or the relationships between characters are changed, a major part of the plot is removed (no investigation into the murder at CERN) and even the ending is changed, however much I thought the book ending was unbelievable you have based the movie on the book so keep it true, even in the books failings. The other annoying change is that in the book the Assassin identity is kept well hidden, in the movie it’s a clear as day who it is, this removes some of the plot’s intrigue.
As a movie (ignoring the fact it was based on a book) it is not as bad as I expected, it is a better movie than the
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Duplicity follows to ex-spies Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts), they have quit the spy business to go private. They are working together to try and steal a new development one company has developed so they can sell it for millions. The problem is neither fully trust each other and they are double crossing everyone they meet.
Although the background to product they are trying to steal isn’t that interesting, it is not about that. A cleverly shot trailer and an interesting idea bought me into the cinema. However, I was not kept interested throughout the film, I felt 30 minutes could have be taken out the run time and it would have improved the momentum of the film. The main problem though was the overlay complex plot.
I love a good plot twist, One that you follow the whole story, think you know where it’s going and then at the end they take you somewhere completely different. If I’ve not worked it out then it’s amazing. Shawshank Redemption, Gone baby Gone, Sixth Sense have great plot twist but when they are revealed they make perfect sense. This film follows a recent trend that thinks confusing the viewer is
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I was not inspired to go and see Gran Torino from the trailers but decided to give it a go as although I have not seen many Clint Eastwood films I have enjoyed those that I have seen.
Gran Torino follows Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) just after his wife has died. He continues to live in his neighbourhood even though it is changing around him that now includes people from all cultural backgrounds. Walt is a Korean War veteran and not the happiest of people, misunderstood by his family, he has never been close to his two sons and seems a bit of a loner. Walt doesn’t mince his word’s and loves every racist term he can get his hands on.
Thao, a Hmong teenager who lives next door, tries to steel Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino as an initiation task to join a gang. Walt finds out that Thao doesn’t want the life in a gang but there is little chance he will avoid it as it’s what tends to happen in his culture. Sue (Thao’s sister) draws Walt into their family and Walt sets out to try and help Thao stay on the straight and narrow. Walt finds he
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25 February 2009
Push
Push centers round a group of young adults (some younger than others) who have telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities. The film starts with a dramatic scene of a young Nick Gant escaping a group from a government agency. A nice opening and set up to what I hoped would be an entertaining film however that was about exciting as it got.
We catch up with Nick Gant (Chris Evans) about 10 years later, he is quickly joined by Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning) and later Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle). A couple of others also help with their special powers along the way. The group have to use their powers to stop Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) – the gentleman from the agency, from getting hold of a solution that Kira had stolen from the agency. This solution boosts the abilities of the special powers these people have, the agency want to use this to turn the ‘specials’ in to weapons. They have to outrun the agency and another group with special powers, the problem is this is difficult when they can read your mind and see the future.
There are so many problems with the film, it is too slow, too complicated, too
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Vicky Christina Barcelona is the latest offering from Writer-Director Woody Allen. It is the Story of Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) who take a trip to Barcelona for the summer. The two girls are looking for very different things when it comes to love. Vicky is very conservative when it comes to matters of the heart, she wants some one dependable but straight forward and not necessarily passionate and she has found just that with her fiancé, Doug (Chris Messina). Christina, in contrast is just out of a relationship and is very impulsive and passionate and is looking for something exciting and different but she is not completely sure what that is.
At an art exhibition, the friends see a painter Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Javier Bardem). Later they meet him at a restaurant where he unexpectedly invites them to go with him to Oviedo. He offers to show them the sight, eat, drink and if he gets his way, make love. Cristina is immediately excited by him and agrees, Vicky is a little less sure but after a little persuading eventually agrees.
What follows is a very complicated romance with a combination of Juan, Vicky, Cristina, and Juan’s
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11 February 2009
Doubt
Doubt is set in 1964, It is set in a Catholic School with all it’s strict customs. The film is set in a time of political change and the school has just accepted it’s first black student, Donald Miller. The central characters are Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a priest willing to accept change and move the school on, and for want of a better term, ‘his alter ego’, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), a strict Principal who believes that fear keeps the children disciplined.
Sister James (Amy Adams), a very naïve but enthusiastic young nun, tells Sister Aloysius that she feels Father Flynn is paying a lot of attention to Donald Miller and that after a meeting with Father Flynn she smelt alcohol on Donald Miller’s breath. Upon this news Sister Aloysius sets out on a crusade to remove Father Flynn from the school without any proof.
John Patrick Shanley has adapted Doubt for film from his own stage play, having not seen the stage play and without knowing much about the film other than a basic plot and that it got a few Oscar nominations, I really didn’t know what to expect. In fact, when I heard the
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04 February 2009
Valkryie
Valkryie is the latest film staring Tom Cruise, what that means is it will get some unfair criticism before anyone has seen it because some people don’t like him for various reasons. I’ve also heard some criticism that it’s spoken in English – would it not be weird for the cast to be speaking German (badly!) or speaking English with a strange German accent, like ‘The Reader’, which I found annoying? Anyway enough about what other people think, what did I think?
I find history interesting (sad, but true) and I found the story involving, although we already know what happened it some how manages to keep a little suspense till then end. The interesting subject matter is what saved the film because there are some major flaws, firstly the casting seems a little strange Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard and Kevin McNally all seem a little out of place and although Tom Cruise isn’t bad as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg it just doesn’t seem to be a role that suits him. As I’ve said the story is interesting but the script itself is a little suspect. The other major flaw is the lack of exploration into the characters, you know
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Frost/Nixon is the dramatization of the interviews of Richard Nixon, the ex-President by David Frost, a television personality who wants to make a name for himself. The screenplay is written by Peter Morgan and it is directed by Ron Howard.
The film looks at the remarkable interviews which were originally filmed in 1977, 3 years after Nixon resigned as President following the Watergate scandal. It also looks behind the scenes of the interviews, what went in to preparing for them, the difficulties in financing the project and what both Frost and Nixon had to gain and/or lose from doing the interviews. The film doesn’t get bogged down in the politics but there’s enough to understand what all the fuss was about. What’s really interesting is the exploration of what makes both characters tick and their relationship.
The film’s pace is general good, although the interviews of those involved after the interviews (played by the actors) seem a little out of place and unnecessary. Frank Langella is excellent as Nixon and Michael Sheen seems perfect as David Frost. Ron Howard does a good job directing, the most enjoyable film I’ve seen from him since ‘A Beautiful Mind’ or ‘Apollo 13′. Both
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Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings in the two lead roles. Set over one night as the two try to discover a secret gig by ‘Where’s Fluffy?’. Nick has just been dumped by Tris (Alexis Dziena) and she is already going out with another bloke, Nick takes the news hard but is lured for a night out to find his favourite band. Early in the night he runs in to Norah, (who happens to be a ‘friend’ of Tris, yet have never met before!). The film shows the begins of Nick and Norah romance, dealing with their ex’s and love of music.
The film is a gentle teen comedy in a similar style as Juno, however it doesn’t pull it off as well. Although Kat Dennings is fairly reasonable as Norah I just don’t feel Michael Cera is leading man material, he was good in Juno as Paulie Bleeker, but that was a much smaller part. He also already seems to be getting a little type cast, which is a little concerning for an actor so young. Ari Graynor does put in an amusing performance as Caroline, Norah’s drunk friend.
The film doesn’t break any
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Rachel Getting Married follows Kym (Anne Hathaway) on her return home from rehab for her sister Rachels’ (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding. Although set over the few days that lead up to Rachel’s wedding this is just a backdrop for the main issues, the film is a drama that looks at the interesting relationships between the family members, what Kym’s addiction has done to herself and the people who love her.
It is very much an ensemble drama with Rosemarie DeWitt putting in a strong performance in the title role and both Bill Irwin and Debra Winger also put in good performances as the Sister’s Father and Mother. Although these are good performance special mention must go to Hathaway’s portrayal of the obviously deeply disturbed Kym, it is no surprise that Hathaway is getting such praise for this role. I loved the dark humor which ran through Kym’s dialogue and found myself genuinely interested in Kym’s addiction, her time in rehab and how she could sort her life out.
Hathaway’s excellent performance as Kym steels the show in an interesting film about Kym’s and the relationships with her family, however there are some overly drawn out scenes, particular wedding scenes that really
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Seven Pounds has one of the most random trailers ever, you know very little about the film after you’ve seen it, this has been all part of the mystery the promoters have tried to create around what the film is about. I’ll try not to give too much away.
The film follows IRS agent Ben Thomas (Will Smith), we see him meet various people who are down on there luck and/or ill, in some way. The film jumps around between characters, giving various clues as to Ben’s ‘secret’ and what the film is actually about, the director tries to keep the mystic of the film until towards the finale but to be honest if you haven’t worked it out by half way through the film I would be amazed. The film drags and just doesn’t go anywhere, even after ‘the reveal’ the tempo doesn’t pick up and you just want it to be over. A good performance by Rosario Dawson as Emily Posa does give some interest to the dull plot, but not much.
I’ve read some people’s reviews saying it’s an incredibly moving film and they thoroughly enjoyed it, well I must have completely missed the point. I enjoyed
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Into the Wild is based on a true story, originally a book by Jon Krakauer of the same title, the screenplay is written by Sean Penn who also directs. The film follows Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), we pick up his story just as he is graduating from Emory University. Due to reasons I won’t go into now Chris runs away making sure he can’t be found by ditching his car and removing the plates.
We then follow Chris over the next couple of years of his life, we follow his ‘journey’ eventually ending up in Alaska, we see him meet different people, form relationships, the different places he ends up in, all the things that happened to him that are important for his quest of ‘self discovery’ (for want of a better description).
Chris is obviously a well educated young man but during his ‘journey’ he makes some foolish decisions – some bring him fantastic experiences, some don’t. The film also shows how selfish he is, especially when it comes to his family. These character flaws make him real which is so important – no one’s perfect! Into the Wild is (in my opinion) what a a film should be,
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It’s been a week or so since I saw The Dark Knight but due to the site updating and me writing about other things I hadn’t written about it yet, so here goes.
I traveled down to Birmingham to the IMAX as I thought it was worth seeing in it’s full IMAX glory. Some scenes are shot in full IMAX but the majority are in normal aspect, stretch to fit the width of the huge screen. The transition between the two formats is done really well, you hardly notice when it flicks between the two and the change from the end of the opening credits to the first scene in IMAX format is breath taking. All the IMAX scenes are absolutely stunning, especially the panoramics across the cities, one action IMAX scene was too much for my little brain to cope with as there was too much going on.
The film is excellent, it’s dark as a Batman film should be, the plot is well thought out and never drags. I did feel that Two Face was very under used as a character and a lot more could have been done with him. There was enough in this film without
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At last I got chance to see the much talked about and well reviewed Wall.e, Pixar’s latest film. It follows the story of Wall.e (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), a robot which is left on earth to tidy the mess the humans have left, I won’t spoil anymore of the story than that.
The animation is superb, it’s amazing how you end up generally caring for this robot, and that has to be due to the excellent sound & visual design that Pixar have created throughout the film. Pixar have really taken time with everything and the attention to detail is fantastic, as you would expect. The excellent story line and the film generally moves at a nice pace. There are clever nods to other films including Pixar’s own.
Just a thought I wonder if Pixar have slightly missed the target audience, this is a family film, normally Pixar hit the mark by have something for adults and kids, with Wall.e the opening 30 minutes are very clever cinema, but the 70 kids who were in the cinema seemed restless, I also thought this was the case with a lot of the humour, it was very clever and by my
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