Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Oliver Stones first ever sequel and a timely film ready to reflect the world economic crises. i was expecting a powerhouse of a film, unfortunately this wasn't it.

now im not sure if it was due to my ignorance about the banking world and the world of investment banking, but i was pretty much lost for most of the the main plot. Considering the secondary plot was a fairly feeble one of Gordon Gekkos daughter and her relationship with her father this didn't make for great viewing for me.

And as for Shia LeBeouf. i have never liked him. He was ok and just about suited for his role in Transformers. as for the indy 4 debacle, don't get me started. I'm sure if he must be given roles by Hollywood directors that there are roles out there for him, but he was totally mis-cast in this instance and not once did i ever believe him.

2 Stars

Oliver Stone turns in a few visual and editing flairs as he does with his films, but on the whole the film was lost on me.

Buried

there was a lot of excitement about this film coming out. a one man film, and that one man was Ryan Reynolds. Now i for one, for whatever reason, wasn't too excited about this. not excited at all - i thought it'd be pretty boring.

how wrong i was - this is a terrific, energetic and gripping thriller. a claustrophobic and haunting piece. i do not consider myself claustrophobic, but for the first part of th film i felt trapped and uncomfortable, actively restless in the cinema and the thought crossed my mind about leaving. a tough watch, however the performance given by Reynolds starts to blister across the screen and you are gripped by his experience and and desperation.

a fantastic film and a jaw dropping performance from Reynolds, a very pleasant surprise.

4 stars

The Girl Who Played With Fire

This is brilliant stuff, most noticeably from the actress Nkomo Rapace, a quite simply brilliant and definitive Lisbeth Salandar. Dark, brooding and vulnerable and played with majestic ease.

The rest of the film is shot beautifully. It does resemble slightly a tv crime drama, but it is wonderfully acted and shot, subtle and slow cranking up drama and tension, and one can only hope that Hollywood tries to keep a bit of that when it comes blazing in with the remake. There a few moments where you question why certain things happen in the plot, having not read the novels I wouldn't know if that is a fault with the novelist or with the script writers trying to cut it down for a reasonable length for a film.

One other gripe with the film is that the last act is basically a set up for the third and final film and not a finale for itself. I understand the reasons for this and it is a dilemma - but the film makers failed to end this film properly in my opinion. However they have set up for the third and final film brilliantly.

4 stars

The Other Guys

A very funny if a little random film. The sort of film you would expect to see Will Ferrel in, not so much the sort of film you would expect to find Mark Wharlberg in. But he does a great job.

They play two hapless cops who want go make the big time, but they make many mistakes and find themselves the laughing stock of the police force.

There are some great moments, almost to the point of being surreal, characters opening up tangents for no particular reason then cutting straight back to the plot as if nothing has happened. In a similar way to how family guy uses it's comedy, but not to the same extent.

Some great set pieces and laugh out load moments but ultimately a fairly forgettable film offering up nothing to really savour to the comedy buddy cop genre, although all credit to the director Jay Roach being daring and trying out a few new things, but maybe not hitting the bullseye quite right.

3 stars

The Hole 3D, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Avatar Special Edition, The Town, The Last Exorism

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D
I'm sorry to say this is quiet possibly the worst film I have seen this year... And I've seen alot of bad films. This film contains the worst wooden acting of the year. None of the characters have any motivation, literally none! The villains from the Umbrella corporation are ripped straight from The Matrix but in a shit way, because they are meant to be human... and for some reason they want to kill the surviving humans left of earth... for no reason whatsoever. Filled with the worst kind of stereotypes.
BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD ZERO STARS! NO STARS! MINUS STARS!
Oh yeah... and the 3d wasn't all that either.


Avatar Special Edition
Alot of people I talked to were very cynical about this re release, "Haven't we given James Cameron enough money", "Oh it's got 6 extra minutes of footage wow!". The six extra minutes are great! Cos when I first watched this film... I didn't want less I still wanted more! This is still a five star film, after seeing so many shoddy 3d attempts (the worst being Alice in Wonderland, Resident Evil and Clash of the Titans) it's nice to go back and watch this epic on the big screen. This film is basically Pocahontas set on an alien whole... doesn't change the fact it still kicks ass. Some of the extra footage is a whole new creature (which there is a scene of hunting it), Tsu'tey has a death scene (and also tells Jake that he must run the clan now), we see the school for the naavi the humans set up and yes there is ponytail sex.
Still 5 Stars

The Hole 3D

I had great hopes for the Hole, being a Fan of Gremlins knew Joe Dante was directing. A pair of brother move into a new house with their single mum, they discover a hole in their garage and when they open it weird things start to happen. I was quiet enjoying this film untill everything they did within the film just didn't make sense, "Wait here on your own I'm going to check it out", that kind of thing was constantly happening, why didn't they learn the first time. The film definitely went down hill when the kids decide to visit the old man who used to own their house at the glove factory... Bruce Dern (the so called actor they hired) was awful and it was obvious they wanted Christopher Lloyd. The 1/3 of the film, wrapping it up was painfully badly done. This is a kids film and should definitely be seen as that. If your older than 15 avoid. 2 Stars Bleh!

The Town

I did not realize Ben Affleck directed this and co-wrote when I went to see it and Affleck has directing chops for sure. Unlike Peter G I really liked this. My only problem with it was that they committed too many bank jobs within a short amount of time and that didn't make sense. The police are interviewing you ... you've got shit loads of money hidden away... why rob another bank?!
But saying this I liked it alot ... 4 Stars.

The Last Exorcism

I enjoyed this, the character were really likable. Filmed Ala Blair Witch or Cloverfield. The characters a filming a documentary that is supposed to reveal how exorcisms are fake and the priest taking part wants to show that it's all psychosomatic (he also has lost his faith in god). The priest opens the a letter at random and visits a family to prove how its all a trick to appease over religious families... all seems to go as planned and then strange things start happening. Overall very good but the climax seems to let the film down (which I won't tell you about for spoilers sake), the film really deserved a better ending. 3 and 1/2 stars.

Other Films I have Seen Recently:

Dairy Of a Wimpy Kid - 3 Stars, a kids film but at least they can act unlike the kids that seem to get cast in the UK.

The Rocker - 2 Stars, It's oldish now but could have been so good staring that guy from the American Office, starts off wicked, adult & funny and then turns into Band Camp or something.

Karate Kids 1-3 - Classics!

Karate Kid Next Generation - Not so classic.

The Town

Expectations were high going into this film, i am the perfect audience for this film. i love a good hard gritty urban crime drama. I'm sorry to say that i was a little disappointed, admittedly this could be due to me and my expectations rather than it being that bad a film because a bad film it is not.

Ben Affleck plays Doug Macray, a Boston bank robber, who suddenly finds a heart and falls in love with a girl who works in a bank that he robbed. it just felt a little too character development by numbers - bad guy, sees a girl, falls in love, wants to go straight. there isn't at any point any real reason that i can see for him to be totally changing his livelihood and going against everything he knows, his friends and his family, but that is exactly what he does. i did however find myself rooting for Ben Afflecks character, whether this is a testament to his acting charisma or the script i am unsure. he does indeed pull off a strong performance, he is obviously taken note of the Team America song and gone and got himself some acting lessons, even more credit to him to have taken the helm as director and writer also.

Other characters again seem stock people in Dougs life, Jeremy Renners character James Coughlin is an example - again a strong performance, but he plays the obvious crazy unhinged friend, and we are never given an insight to how and why. Mention here for Pete Postlethwaites part as a crime boss florist (??) with a very strange irish accent. theses characters makes the film seem like it has been under a number of re-writes and drafts, seemingly part of a much longer script which had much more complex characters, but in getting a running time down they have been shorn of their development.

a good film though with a solid, if a little empty, story. i just wich there had been more guns and shoot outs with the police.

3 stars

Dinner for Schmucks

my first thoughts of this film is that it was an absurdist comedy. Not the sort of film you would consider seeing coming out of mainstream Hollywood.

Steve Carrell plays Barry a strange freak with a heart of gold, he is befriended by Paul Rudds character Tim, who needs to find a "schmuck" to bring to a grotesque dinner party that his powerful work colleagues regularly hold - the winner is the colleague who brings the biggest schmuck. This is based on a french film by the name of The Dinner Game, but apparently is no where near as cruel in its depiction of it's Schmuck, indeed Barry could just suffer from a form of autism.

To me the film is a collection of gags and strange characters that wouldn't seem out of place in a sketch show, and that's about as cohesive as the scenes get. the film lurches from one sketch to another, albeit very funny, but they are with the same characters, and they do start to get tiresome. The characters are so , strange an so surreal that it seems impossible that they could live in such a normal world as the rest f the characters live - which is fine in a sketch show, but with the fleshing out of all the characters and situations it seems to clash and pulls you out of the film.

so in all in all a collection of funny characters and sketches but struggles as a coherent film.

2 stars