Wednesday, 25 November 2009

HARRY BROWN


Now this is what films should be like engaging, engrossing and just generally awesome. now i am not a big Michael Caine fan I've often thought he is over rated, but this performance is truly stand out sensational. he plays pensioner Harry Brown living on a rough (i assume South London) estate with youths having taking over the subways and the street corners, after his best friend is murdered its fair to say he goes a little vigilante on those mothers. this is like the Brit version of Gran Torino, only much much better. true some of the scenes and situations i felt were a little unrealistic, but they add to the films style and the directors vision of showing a cracked and destructive society. there are strong performance from a supporting cast, but this is without doubt Caines film, delivering a performance showing the vulnerability and anger and frustration and many emotions at exactly the right pitch - perfect. though the very ending seems a little fairy tale in that it seems everything is lovely now and right with the world after a few killings, this is without a doubt one of the best films of the year and unquestionably the best British film, i know this sounds cliche for any Brit gangster film, or Brit film with Cain in, but it is true.

4.5 stars

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

The Informant! (contains possible spoilers)


I enjoyed The Informant! although I was confused as to what was going on for the first half hour. Matt Damon's Mark Whitacre was a very interesting character, constantly lying to everyone about everything. Which made me think of friend of mine who claims to be constantly buying the latest car or has just been hired by Sony as an executive or has whatever the latest illness is (such as swineflu, birdflu he's had 'em all), making me wonder if he's been bipolar all along. Mark Whitacre lies to his work, his wife, the fbi, the workmen doing up his land and fooling the majority of them too well although he finally gets caught up in his lies, to hilarious effect.
The style it's filmed in really reminds me of the Coen brothers (we were going to go see A Serious Man the same day but decided to watch something less heavy in content... see previous review to see how that turned out) , very quirky in style nothing like Soderburgh's Oceans films and not as epic as Che. Feels quite long for 1 hour 48 mins.
3 Stars

Twilight Saga: New Moon

Going in to watch this, I can't say I wasn't bias against it. I suspected it would be bad, no... I knew it would be. If it had turned out to be vaguely good I would have give it credit, like 2012 which I thought would be also bad. But there was no possibility of me liking this movie... it was awful. Bad acting, bad script and poorly executed. Bella was some kind of psycho crying and screaming for months on end because her anorexic pale faced 107 year old virgin boyfriend goes away. What did they even have in common? They just stood around being pasty telling each other, "I love you." , "I love you!", "I can't live without you." and so on. And she can't get with the guy who's ripped and she actually having fun with? Bitch needs to be slapped and told to get some waffles... and get them for free!

You will not like this movie if you are over sixteen years old or if you are male. This is for teenage girls and the gay audience. It is painfully slow moving and dull. I found myself having to find fun in the awful dialog, "I'm coming!" "You can't come." "You don't want me to come?!"
It would be easy to go into even more detail why this movie is so bad, but I just can't bare to think about it anymore.

Avoid... like the plague.

0 Stars

Monday, 23 November 2009

Twilight Saga:New Moon


Now i'm not that way particularly inclined, but man that Jacob Black character is ripped. if he really is 17 in real life then he has taken a ridiculous amount of steroids and is now majorly lacking in another department... that's what I'm telling myself anyway. so, the film, basically a big love triangle between a young fit girl(Bella Swan - played by Kristen Stewart) and a werewolf boy(Jacob Black - played by Taylor Lautner) and a vampire boy(Edward Cullen - played by Robert Pattinson). shes with vampire boy he leaves her to protect her, werewolf man moves in, but then she eventually goes running back to vampire boy. pretty easy going stuff, and the film is pretty slow especially at the beginning, with a lot of Bella and vampire boy looking at each breathing deeply and kissing. personally i just don't understand why it's these two in love, whenever they are together they seem so unhappy and melancholy, but when she is with wolf man they have a great laugh and enjoy life. Jacob Black's (wolfmans) body is also extremely ripped compared to the skinny runt body of Edward Cullen (vampire boy), so it is completely beyond me as to why she would choose the skinny depressed guy who obviously has to use shading for 6 pack over uber ripped and funny tanned guy. oh well that's girls for you - all messed up.

enjoyable enough, i suspect even more enjoyable if you are a girl. or gay. as there is a lot of male flesh on show. just hoping Kristen Stewart gets them out in the sequel to give us boys (or lesbians) something to gawk at.

3 stars

The Informant!

a film of two halves for me, for the first half of this film i was confused to hell and bored out of my mind. it was slow and clunky and i did not have a clue what was going on. by the time it got to the second half it had pretty much completely changed, it was had got faster slicker and funnier. the funniest part of the whole film were the voice overs describing Matt Damon's characters inner random thought - some are so random they are hilariously brilliant. overall an enjoyable little comedy, with a great central character of mark whitacre - a brilliant creation maybe based on a real person, if so I'd love to meet him.

3 Stars

Jennifer's Body


Jennifer's Body has quite possibly the worst script (by oscar winning writer Diablo Cody). This isn't a horror, at no point did I jump or feel grossed out. It isn't a great comedy, there are a couple of laughs... "Am I too big?"
It only has two things going for it, Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried, because they are hot. Funny thing is I found Amanda Seyfried more attractive than Megan Fox (who is ment to be the sexist person ever) in this film.
It was the directing debut of Karyn Kusama, who should have got it rescripted. Although she probably didn't have the power to do that to the oscar winning writers script, coming hot off Juno (probably the most over rated film of 2007).
Very lame story of girls best friend gets possessed by a demon with lesbian undertones.
2 stars (1 star if you don't like breasts)

Thursday, 19 November 2009

The Fourth Kind

A funny one this. firstly the actual film - not great. lots of jumpy editing, with a mix between "actual" real footage and then reconstructions (which is basically the film you are watching) i can understand what they were trying to do with this, but a lot of the time the interspersed sequences of "real" footage just don't seem to work - it doesn't add anything to the story or indeed add to any of the suspense. also the music was doing my head in, constantly in the background trying to make you scared or on edge, i personally found it intrusive and annoying. secondly - it seems to be more interesting trying to find out on line about whether the film was actually based on real footage or no, apparently it wasn't but is still fun looking at the forums where the ufo geeks are going crazy for it.

2 stars

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220198/

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

An Education

awesome. great script and great performances all round. Peter Sarsgaard plays a brilliant charming older man, but there is something about this guy that i always find a little weird and creepy, in all his films not just this one, and now i know that i was right! new comer Carey Mulligan does brilliantly, but i t was the parents (like in taking woodstock) that again really stood out, alfred molina and cara seymour are understated and outstanding.

4 stars

Pete G

Cold Souls

really wanted to enjoy this, i really did. a quirky little film with a great actor in the lead role playing himself. however, i found it pretty boring and slow, and not enough quirkiness to keep me entertained. reminded me of being john malkovich and synedoche new york, but unfortunately this is no-where near as good. avoid.

1 star

Pete G

Taking Woodstock

very good. surprisingly good in fact. made me wish i had been there to enjoy woodstock at the actual time. brilliant performance all round, but especially to imelda staunton and henry goodman – awesome. also eugene levy is a legend. absorbing story and characters. brilliant

4 stars

Pete G

2012

far too long. mildly enjoyable, thought it did exactly what it says on the tin. bit fed up of all the close calls they had escaping stuff in an aeroplane.

2 stars (out of 5)

2012 / Taking Woodstock

2012 was a fairly fun ride considering I was expecting it to be awful, I’m talking Day after tomorrow awful. The film was basically a kind of car chase… except it was the planet blowing up behind where ever John Cusack was running, driving, flying to. Quite a fun … feel good film… considering most of the world dies in it.

3 stars (might be 2 stars but was expecting alot worse)

In Taking Woodstock we see how the festival was put together. It really made me wish I grew up in the 60s and got naked with all the hippies. This is quiet possibly Ang Lee’s best film (especially if you don’t hold Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in high regard, which I don’t. And let’s face it his Hulk sucked!). I was expecting a funnier movie, but it was an interesting engaging one.

3 1/2 stars.

Peter S