Honest movie news and reviews from an honest movie fan
15 Dec 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Chris Pine, Denzel Washington, Taking of Pelham 123, Tony Scott, Unstoppable
Image via Wikipedia (yep this hawt-e has a pretty large role. It's not all bad...)
Yes, I went to see Unstoppable, a relatively long time ago, but if you still haven’t seen it, and you’d like to hear my musings about its ability to make you bite your nails (the long and short of it? It won’t ruin your manni) then hit the link here.
28 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Jackass, Jackass 3D, Johnny Knoxville
Click here to see my review of Jackass 3D
28 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, Natalie Portman
Check out my review of Black Swan here!
22 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Horror, Oren Peli, Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity 2, Reviews
Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr
Scary films are best watched at the movies, where you can relish watching other people squirm just as much as you are, and laugh together after you’ve just thrown your popcorn sky high. My best cinematic experience was Final Destination (the original) when the audience laughed together, screamed together and even shouted at the screen together, ‘No, don’t do that!’. It was collective enjoyment of a spectacle at its best, and Paranormal Activity 2 had a similar (but not as strong effect). It doesn’t so much carry on from the original but tie in, the stories run parallel to each other which gives an interesting twist on things. Christie is Katie’s (the mental girl from the original) sister. She’s just given birth to a baby boy and they’ve returned home to start a new chapter in their lives, along with daughter, Ali. A year passes, and strange things begin to happen in the house, especially to Christie and Hunter.
Overall the movie didn’t provide me with the real, terror the original did, however it did give some good demon. My feelings were mixed as there were things I liked about it and things I didn’t. It certainly wasn’t a smooth ride on the cursed train.
The acting in places seemed a little contrived. That’s not to say it was worse than the original (comparisons will always be made) as some of the acting in that was relatively weak too. To me, the dog and the little boy who played Hunter (both the newborn baby and the year old tot) were the best actors in the whole flick. Followed closely by Ali.
When you really dig down beneath the surface, the story was really just exactly the same as the original, it was almost a rehash, with a few more camera angles added in, a couple of children, and the dog. (As you can probably tell by the way I keep mentioning it, the dog really did do it for me. I actually lent over to my neighbour and whispered ‘I hope the dog doesn’t die’. I had no worries for the baby or people, the hound was the main concern for me. That goes some way into explaining my general blah-ness surrounding the movie.
Finally for the bad, there were too many days and nights. The original had something special going on for it, the suspense could be built up over many 24 hours because we didn’t know what the bejesus was coming. The demon was a surprise, but this time around that suspense is gone and in the end this was a movie that was purely about making the audience jump.
Enough of the bad – onto the good reason to spend your money going to see this sequel.
Tying in the stories of the original and the new was pretty well done. They extended the mythology that first film left unanwserd, which gave us more to go on, and more to freak out about. Also they cleared up a few random things that happened in the original where were left wondering, WTF?
There was humour. This is what I found best about this movie it garnered a response from the audience, quite similarly to that of the audience in Drag Me To Hell. At one point the father is closing in on the demon with a crucifix and a guy near me said ‘what’s he going to do? back hand her with it’, this provoked a few chuckles from those nearby. The other response it provoked was jumping. Lots of jumping,plus a bit of screaming (from both boys and . In the beginning the scares were given a comic edge, a sure sign that the film was not taking itself too seriously. Which I saw as a good thing. The kid was pretty funny as was the dog (there I go again) and there was some quite witty dialogue in there, particularly coming from the father. But as the movie went on the subject matter got way more serious with a successful shocker of an ending. I’ve run out of the good…
Urm…
Did I mention the dog?
Go and see on a busy night for a more entertaining experience.
17 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Animation, Despicable Me, Movies, Reviews, Steve Carell
Image via Wikipedia
Sometimes we all like a good old family flick, but with the multitude of child-friendly movies out there, is there a new twist to be taken? A road less travelled? Well how about making the villain the protagonist of the story? Despicable Me does just that, in entertaining style. Okay, so Disney’s Emperor’s New Groove may sort of already done it, but this is animated man, give them a break.
Steve Carell voices Gru, the bestest, greatest supervillain there is or ever was (not sure why I haven’t heard of him before really…). But with a new kid on the block trying to steal all the dastardly plots to ruin the world, Gru needs a new plan to maintain his status. So what does he decide to do? Only steal the moon of course. Part of his diabolical scheme is to adopt three little kiddie-winks too, cute and annoying in equal measure. Okay maybe annoying tips the scale a little, but that’s just my child-fearing opinion. These little brats, urr I mean, cuties, manage to show Gru the meaning of life, seemingly knowing more about it than he does.
The minions are probably the funniest part of the movie, go and see it in 3D and hang on for the end credits, a nice little way of using the latest technology and have a bit fun. If you’ve got kids who love 3D and fancy a bit of mindless entertainment then this is a worthy choice.
Thumbs midway for me.
15 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews, Must Watch Tags: Andrew Garfield, David Fincher, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network
Image by sitmonkeysupreme via Flickr
Today I went to see The Social Network, one of this week’s new releases. If you haven’t heard anything about this movie or seen the trailer at least, say, ten times, I’d be likely to believe you been sent off the earth in a rocket, with earplugs tightly squished in, and a blindfold across the eyes. Undoubtedly it is one of the biggest movies of 2010, one that certainly will be the talking point of a lot of awkward ‘I don’t know what to talk about so I’ll try movies’ conversation parties. After seeing it I am skeptical of exactly how close to the truth it really is. I believe that Mark Zuckerberg was (or is) probably a sociopathic genius. I believe he probably screwed over his contemporaries to get what he wanted. But I don’t believe much else. Only Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin are the ones who can attest to a lot of it. Plus the story leaves a lot unresolved; Who really betrayed who? Who was really jealous of who? And so on.
The first thing I was struck by, actually in the first scene, was the speed of the dialogue. It was like watching the West Wing on fast forward with the sound on loud (which isn’t that much of a surprise seeing as these were both written by Aaron Sorkin), and also I hear David Fincher was under contract to make the film around 2 hours long and therefore has confessed he made the actors run through pages of dialogue as quickly as possibly). The pace is constantly speedy; which is good for me, I hate when a film drags unnecessarily. I think Jesse Eisenberg played the character of Mark Zuckerberg with excellence, Andrew Garfield showed why he is one of our rising stars (go Team GB) and even Justin Timberlake gave a performance that didn’t make me hum Sexyback quietly to myself.
Overall I left the cinema with a sense of wonder (at the genius of the concept of Facebook, its meteoric rise to success, and the film’s portrayal of its beginnings) but also at the empty and sort of cruel irony. If what the film portrays is in any part true then the founder of Facebook, the social network of 500 million people and countless friends, is (or maybe was is a better word to use) a lonely person. A lonely person who is now the youngest billionaire in the world yes, but a lonely person none-the-less. This is certainly what David Fincher seems to be trying to get across in the movie and it’s executed smartly and beautifully within that 2 hour 19 minute time slot.
Thumbs up from me!
13 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, London Film Festival, Mark Romanek, Never Let Me Go
Image by Bex.Walton via Flickr
The 54th annual British Film Institute London Film Festival is finally underway and it’s started off with a big fat rainy but quirky bang. The opening gala night showing of Never Let Me Go, a film directed by Mark Romanek, has been eagerly awaited by both those who have read the bestseller book by Kauzo Ishiguro, and by those intrigued by the dynamics of Keira Knightly and rising stars, Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan on this blockbuster film.
And from the looks of early reviews (see links below) this film could be a definite go-see.
I’m really interested by the story, a plot revolving around an English Boarding School that’s not quite what it seems and an overall philosophical theme of what it is to be human, (I won’t divulge further just in case there are those that stroll across this post who don’t have enough time to cover their eyes) has success written all over it, scrawled in Keira Knightley’s diamond encrusted hand no doubt. She’s definitely a draw for this movie, I always like to see whether she can actually take her acting any further than the English rose style she’s come to embody. Although… When I think about it, the subject matter doesn’t really see her getting out of her comfort zone,does it? So it’s sure to be same old, same old, hopefully with a little twist… I can but hope right?
Also Andrew Garfield, the new Spiderman, stars, I’ll be waiting to see what he brings to the boarding school table. Hopefully he won’t have us watching something that is the equivalent to eating rancid gruel. Sorry, had to get a reference to boarding school evils in somewhere, you know how it is.
I’m hopefully going to be headed to some of the showings, tickets to Catfish have been booked and I’m keeping a sneaky eye on the BFI website. Just in case some more tickets for the big showings that sold out before I had a chance to say ‘SHABAM!’
Fingers crossed
http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/films/
01 Oct 2010 Leave a comment
in Hot Reviews Tags: Chris O'Dowd, comedy, Dinner For Schmucks, film, Humor, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, trailer
Not kno
wing what exactly was in store for me when I headed off to the cinema to catch a showing of Dinner For Schmucks, I had hopes that this could be exactly what the trailer made it out to me. A cheesy, cringe-inducing, raucous comedy. Okay, so it was all those things, and if you thought (as I did) that it could be a recipe for success, nothing could come as more of a disappointment. Mixing a quart of terrible jokes, a barrell of ridiculous ideas, and some seriously embarrassing acting moments on the parts of the cast, this really didn’t add up to an enjoyable (or tasty if we want to keep on with the food-related puns) experience.
Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, with all their comedy credentials and previous experience working together, just couldn’t carry the story off. A brief moment of actual laughter interrupted what was only really smirk-inducing at best, and came in the form of the IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd as the blind swordsman. But what this movie suffered from, was too much focus on pulling in the comedy big guns, and not enough focus on what an audience would actually find funny. Sorry guys and girls but this little earner, gets a thumbs down from me. I would wait for this one to head to TV screens if you really feel the need to watch.
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Left Me Reeling 