Overall I have felt that the standard of movies this year has not been as high as last years. Last year I spent a really long but enjoyable night at the cinema where I saw three of the movies up for best motion picture and I thought they were all absolutely brilliant movies and I think any of the 5 nominees could have won it, this year? well I’m not so sure. It’s been a year which has seen 3D movies become more popular, especially with the highly successful Avatar. I’m still not convinced, I’m also not convinced that sequels, CGI, big explosions, etc is what cinema should be about, I’m sure there’s room for them but not every movie. I truly believe going to the cinema is about the experience and as I say that doesn’t mean surround sound, lots of noise, 3D, etc what it means is sitting looking at that big screen with no distraction and being completely immersed, getting involved with the characters, laughing, crying, whatever, I love that feeling when the credits role and I don’t move for a few minutes because I’ve been left kind of speechless, then I know I’ve seen something special.

After this year I am left wondering if we are coming in to an era where the producers only want a sure fire hit rather than making a great movie. I hope this is not the case and the heart isn’t being ripped from movies because of the desire to make money. There is still the odd gem out there that reminds me why I go to the cinema and why I love movies and for every average movie I sit through it’s worth it to discover those gems.

One thought for you before I actually get on with my Oscar thoughts (kind of got a little distracted and off topic!), if you are one of those people who only goes to the cinema occasionally and only goes to watch the big stuff i.e. Avatar. Next time you go to the cinema go and see two films. The one you want to see and one you don’t know much about or you wouldn’t usually see, it won’t always be great I can’t promise you that but every now and then it will and you’ll thank me (I hope!)

So this year’s Oscars. As with last year review I won’t look at every category I will just look at five of the main ones, best Actor/Actress in a leading role and in a supporting role and then the best motion picture, this year there are ten nominees in this category rather than the normal five ……

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges for ‘Crazy Heart’
George Clooney for ‘Up in the Air’
Colin Firth for ‘A Single Man’
Morgan Freeman for ‘Invictus’
Jeremy Renner for ‘The Hurt Locker’

As usual part of the difficulty in predicting for the Oscars is the fact I haven’t been able to see all the movies yet. I’ve not managed to see A single man or Crazy Heart yet. I thought both Morgan Freeman’s and George Clooney’s performances were excellent in their respective roles. Although Colin Firth picked up the award in the BAFTAs I’m not sure he’ll pick up the Oscar, by all reports it will go to Jeff Bridges.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Matt Damon for ‘Invictus’
Woody Harrelson for ‘The Messenger’
Christopher Plummer for ‘The Last Station’
Stanley Tucci for ‘The Lovely Bones’
Christoph Waltz for ‘Inglourious Basterds’

Well this is a real difficult one for me because I’ve only seen 2 of these performances but I do actually think the winner will come from one of those two. I think the Oscars will follow the BAFTAs and give it to Christoph Waltz who was excellent in Inglourious Basterds.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock for ‘The Blind Side’
Helen Mirren for ‘The Last Station’
Carey Mulligan for ‘An Education’
Gabourey Sidibe for ‘Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire’
Meryl Streep for ‘Julie & Julia’

Unfortunately I don’t think this will be the year for Carey Mulligan, as that’s who I’d give it to. I thought she put in a great performance in An Education, one of the little Gems of this year I discovered and was talking about. It came and went very quickly at my cinema and all the praise came after it had finished but luckily I took a chance and saw a great little movie with some good performances in it. I don’t believe it should go to Meryl Streep, although it was an OK performance I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an Oscar winning performance. The tip to win is apparently Sandra Bullock.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Penélope Cruz for Nine
Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Penélope Cruz for nine, really?! What did she do, she shouldn’t win. I think the two nominees in Up in the Air show what strong performances there were in that movie. Jason Reitman really seems to bring the best out of his actors/actresses as Clooney also put in a strong performance in Up in the Air. I would actually give the Oscar to Vera Farmiga because I though she was excellent, not sure she will get it though.

Best motion picture of the year
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

When I see the list I realize there have been some good movies this year but I’m not sure all of them should be nominated. Up is a definite for the best animated movie but not sure it should win Best Motion Picture. I think Avatar was a great movie experience and those that say “…but take away the CGI and 3D then what have you got” are being narrow minded the Oscars should be about which is the best movie and that may include embracing new technologies to tell a story, however I don’t think it should win, even taking the movie as a whole. My most enjoyable experience was ‘Up in the Air’ I’m becoming a big fan of Jason Reitman, I think he is a talented director who can tell interesting stories very well and bring out great performances. Having said that I think the Oscar will be given to either ‘The Hurt Locker’ or ‘Avatar’ with my tip being ‘The Hurt Locker’.

Well that’s my thought’s for another year, it’s been pretty hard this year because a lot of the movies haven’t been released over here or have not got to my cinema yet, it would be good if they could sort this out so everyone had seen the nominated movies before the Oscars.

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 to time he does do a great job and really becomes Mandela during the movie, Matt Damon also puts in a solid performance as the South African Rugby captain Francois Pienaar.

So you’ve got an inspiring story and a good cast, does that make a good movie? Well not always, I’m certain this could have been an absolute mess of a movie but in the safe hands of Clint Eastwood’s it becomes a good, no sorry, great movie. I did feel that some of the slow motion scenes were a little too much at the end of the movie and I didn’t like the ghostly images of Mandela in the visit to the prison but I understood the point. These minor glitches though didn’t get in the way of a highly enjoyable movie, well worth a watch.

More information at IMDB

When I saw and read about the iPad I was underwhelmed, there’s a lot that’s ‘wrong’ with it, however now I have a chance to mull it over I think I get where Apple are coming from. People were always going to be disappointed with whatever they made, they wanted something revolutionary. I read someone complaint that the text input is by an onscreen keyboard, what else was it going to be? A thought keyboard, where you just think what you want to type? Let’s get real people.

I’ve sat down and tried to imagine the thought process behind the device, first we know things that Jobs doesn’t seem to like:
1. Flash
2. External memory – he likes everything built in to the device
3. Stylus – he doesn’t like having to use a pen like device
4. Buttons
5. Connections – he doesn’t like lots of input/outputs from mobile device

Next let’s look at the market, I believe this is what apple thought and how they came up with the iPad (I could be wrong). If it’s to sit between laptop and Smartphone (which is where the ‘gap’ is, it’s got to be priced between the two. It’s going to be up against netbooks, if that’s where you price it. It’s got to be easy to use, they know what has worked with the iPhone. If someone is going to just quickly check email, check something on net, etc then they’ll just pick up their phone. If someone wants to do some major computing then they’ll pick up the laptop, so what’s the point in competing with either of those markets, they’ve already got arguably the best devices in those categories. So they need to find a market for this device and then fill it and I think they have probably found that by trying to aim it at recreational users, people who want something to carry around when they don’t want laptop or people who want an entertainment device for watching videos, music, ebook reader, etc.

There’s loads they have got right with the iPad which I’m not going to go through but I’m going to look at what people have been complaining about and see if it’s actually a fair complain when thinking about who the device is aimed at.

1. The Besel. The enormous besel is just not what you expect from Apple, it’s not the prettiest but I believe it is a case of them thinking of usability. You’ve got to hold it and you don’t want to keep pressing the screen by accident, where are you going to hold it if it doesn’t have the besel. People would complain if you couldn’t use the iPad, it’s not pretty but I get it. It also acts as a picture frame (I suppose) when viewing photos.

2. No removable memory, yes it’s annoying you can’t share files easily or add more memory. Still you can email to other computers and dock to the base computer. Not a real deal breaker, You’ve never been able to remove memory on iPods or iPhones and well they’ve been pretty successful and not many people seem to complain. I rarely us a memory stick or even a CDrom to share information I tend to email anyway.

3. Flash. I hate flash, I really hate it. I believe any website that is flash should have a non flash version or a way to view content without flash. I also believe that if you really want games, why play online flash games are they that good? You can download better games for free or very little on the iPhone/iPad. Get over it Jobs doesn’t seem to like flash I doubt you’re going to see it on the iPad (you never know though)!

4. Homepage. People are moaning about the bland homepage. It does a pretty good job on the iPhone, why change it. I’d be interested to know how else you would design it. I hate my computer backdrop to be cluttered I want the bare minimum on it.

5. Not widescreen. I can see why people would want widescreen, especially when watching videos but I don’t think it’s a disastrous flaw.

7. No cameras. What is people’s obsession with cameras, I rarely use the camera on my phone, I don’t have a webcam. I don’t need to see someone sitting at a computer staring at a screen when I talk to them. I use a digital SLR camera to take photos because it’s designed to do just that and it does it really well. It’s not like your going to carry your iPad with you to take the occasional picture. The only other use I see for a camera is webcam and as I’ve said above, not a great fan and lets think of Apple’s target market are they really going to be web conferencing?

So all of these issues for me are not actually great issues, when you sit down and think about it. I don’t think it’s going to be a device for everyone but I think they have actually done a pretty good job, there are two other issues that I have one, is minor and one at the moment is the deal breaker for me. First the minor one, the lack of connectors. I would like to be able to plug it into a printer but more importantly it would be nice to be able to plug it in to an external monitor or projector, I think it would be a great device for presentations but just for plugging in to the TV to watch movies from it it would be nice to have the option.

The second fault is the major one. Multi-tasking, it’s a minor problem with my iPhone having to keep logging in and out of messenger when I do anything else but the rest of the time it’s OK with the small screen you can’t really do two things at once anyway. However on this I need to be able to be logged in to messenger while I listen to music, or Twitter while on online or listen to spotify while I do a little work. Please sort this out in OS 4. I think it’s a must for this device to succeed.

Running one iPhone app in the centre of the screen or twice the size just looks silly. However judging by the standard of the iPhone apps that are out there I’m really looking forward to what is produced for the iPad, if they get the multi tasking sorted then it’s the apps that will make or break the device.

Only time will tell as to whether the iPad will succeed but I don’t think Apple are as far off the mark as some people initially thought. One final request please, please Apple sort the multitasking!!

I’d be interested to know what anyone else thinks, will you be buying one?

‘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 and in fact sounds quite depressing, how ever in Jason Reitman’s hands it becomes a special, well crafted piece of cinema. It is both amusing and full of drama, the characters are given the respect they deserve and there are some pretty serious messages underlying the movie which give it the depth that it requires without getting too bogged down, it’s just what I call a complete movie, it has everything I want.

Clooney puts in a solid performance as the traveling business man in perhaps a deeper role than I’ve seen him in recently. He shows he can act and that just helps the movie just fly by. It’s not just Clooney though, there seems to be a real attention to the casting which means no one looks out of place and all of the characters are believable and very involving, however small the part is. I’ve read that real people who had recently been fired were used in the firing scenes which I suppose is why their reactions are so believable.

If this is what 2010 has to offer in movie land I can’t wait, more of this kind of movie please. I don’t hand a 10/10 often and well I can’t think of any reason not to with this one, it ticks all the boxes. Go and see it I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

More information at IMDB

Now here are the fact about this season so far:
1. Derby are not playing great football at the moment
2. The results aren’t great at the moment
3. The club doesn’t have a lot of money
4. We have very loyal fans
5. Clough has never managed at this level before
6. We have had a lot of injuries

People are now complaining about Nige, saying he’s bought in a lot of non-league players who aren’t up to it, it’s solely his fault we are in the position we are in, he’s not up to the job, we should sack him. Here’s my thoughts….

I agree that are results are poor and we aren’t playing great football we don’t seem to have any consistency, some days we play well, others we are awful. I support Nigel and will continue to do so, I’m not saying he’s blameless/faultless but I am prepared to give him time. I followed closely what he did at Burton, he built a squad, it wasn’t instant, it took years and the first year he was at Burton they nearly went don’t, but look at them now.

I know Burton were non-league but he’d never managed at all before them, he knows how to manage people and it doesn’t matter what league you’re in you need to be able to manage people. I hope we give him time and get off his back, lets be a responsible club and build a team, we haven’t got the money to by 11 amazing players but if we can build a squad who can play together and stop making individual errors then we are in with a chance. We want stability so we need to be patience, please! I wish the Rams fans would stop complaining as it’s really annoying me.

N.B. now I’ve said this he’ll probably get the sack tomorrow but I really hope he doesn’t.

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 returns from the grave to continue killing. Holmes has to find out what’s going on before too many are killed, he is assisted by a somewhat reluctant Watson and Inspector Lestradethe (Eddie Marsan), while being distracted by temptress Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).

Holmes is a deeply intelligent detective who can solve the seemingly insolvable mysteries and he has to use all his skill here. I’m relieved to say some of that intelligence isn’t lost, yes it’s definitely a Guy Ritchie film, his stamp is all over it and Sherlock Holmes purists are probably not going to enjoy it, but as a movie, it’s not half bad. It’s amusing, entertaining and the plot is pretty good to.

I love most of the Robert Downey Jr movie’s I have seen and he puts a good performance in here as Sherlock, what you’d expect from him really, very Downey and not perhaps a traditional portrayal but I thought it was pretty good. The rest of the cast also perform pretty well with no one looking particularly out of place.

Overall much better than I’d expected and a much better effort from Guy Ritchie’s compared with the last couple of movies. Don’t expect anything revolutionary or anything close the the original stories bu it’s pretty entertaining stuff and I’d say it’s worth checking out.

More information at IMDB

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 IMDB

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 find it’s missing a few pieces. I think it could have been a good movie but with so many pieces missing it just misses the mark.

Reading some other reviews some people seemed to have enjoyed the movie, some people even say that it may get the odd Oscar, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near that I think they were watching a different movie to me.

More information at IMDB

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 still left wondering how I actually feel about it. I’m currently thinking ‘it was a load of rubbish and should have been more about moral decisions, etc. rather than over complicated, drawn out, sci-fi rubbish’ but I think it will be a movie that divides audiences and I think, much like Marmite, some will love it and some will hate it.

I feel the decision to go and see the movie is similar to the decision the couple have to take. Do you 1. Push the button, go see the movie, prepare for the confusion that could unfold and then try and piece it altogether or 2. Don’t push the button, run as far away from this movie as possible concluding ‘Probably not my kind of things, sounds a bit wierd!’. The choice is yours….

More information at IMDB

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 but in general it just all feels a little tired, unoriginal and uninspiring. The comedy should have come more from the situation, who’s the alien? what’s/who’s normal?, etc, etc. There were a couple of times they did this and these were the funny scenes.

Overall a movie that tries too hard to be funny and in doing so isn’t!

More information at IMDB