Film 2010

[Lyndhurst 14]

“The Ghost Writer” – best political thriller I’ve ever seen with a final twist that nobody in the cinema I was in saw coming. Strong leads from Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall proving she can act as well as look pretty. Based on Tony Blair writing his autobiography so I don’t imagine he’ll be too chuffed when it comes out in the UK – especially on top of the inquiry into Iraq.

8/10

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Sherlock Holmes: It was alright but a bit disappointing. Holmes has far more to offer than this film gave us. 6.5

The Road: Very good film. Bleak as anything, hard work but worth it. A good adaptation of an excellent book. 8.2

 

[vegster]

A Single Man

Where do I begin ? Stylish, Arty ? Understated ?… Overrated ? I think a little of all. This film is all of the above but within it’s core it seems to be a tad pompous and self-centred. Colin Firth, for it is he, plays George, a gay 50 something English professor living in LA in the ‘60’s. George is apparently haunted by the death of his lover and soul mate in a car accident. Unable to shake the demons from his mind he resolves that the only way out is suicide. Throughout the film we see how the romance between George and Jim blossoms in flashback reminiscent of a montage of Woman’s Weekly cardigan patterns.

Being precise, organised and anal ( excuse the pun) George decides to put little things in order an his last day on Planet Misery. He removes his pistol from its hiding place , packs it with his papers, and he drives his sporty Mercedes Coupe in to college. I thought “ Hello, this could get gory ? “ But he sleep walks through his last lecture where he surprises the brooding sulking students by going a tad off piste and railing against society, and its failings. rather than spraying the motley students with hollow point. He then clears his papers from his office and sails serenely out for the last time. Tagged by a student who looks uncannily like he has fallen off the set of “ Happy Days”, George realises he has an admirer ! A cunning game of understatement and cunning speak ensues as the two exchange blanditudes amid much smiling and flashing white teeth.

George has arranged a last dinner with an old girlfriend and while stopping off at the local bottle shop bumps in to a Spanish James Dean double who takes an immediate fancy to our Mr Darcy. More blanditudes, broody looks and a renewed interest in smoking later, George does a News of The Screws, pays Jimez $20 and makes his excuses and leaves. After wining and dining with his girlfriend its back home for some serious suicide.

The trouble is, suicide by hand gun , is a messy business and so George tries numerous positions and angles in order to minimize the next mornings work for his housekeeper. Unable to bite the bullet or fire it, George decides to head to the beachfront for a couple more un-liveners. There he is surprisingly confronted by kenny from Arnold’s earlier who is eager to show off his new jumper and re bleached teeth. A couple of whiskies later and they both find themselves skinny dipping as man and boy leading to much brooding and suppressed arousal etc etc. I leave the synopsis here as I would hate anyone to guess the ending without having to sit through what I sat through.

Well, that was the “ Official “ film but the subliminal movie was far more fun ! George seems a likeable guy and has a lovely standard of living and it does seem somewhat selfish to smear his well educated brains all over the wall. I lacked sympathy for him and his understated grief, life does go on and, the good citizens of LA were queuing up to throw themselves on his unusually muscular physique ( for an English Professor ) and high credit rating. So, why not stick his toe back in the dating pool ? As an add on and as a nod toward Avatar being crowned Best Movie, George had to hide his grief behind a pair of 3D Glasses. This made George look like a terribly contrite British Clark Kent. In a further nod to Avatar, George wakes up with a large blue wet patch on the bed to the left of him, he blames a leaky pen but It looks more like he has had a hot session with a Na’vi who is a heavy comer !
The flashback showing how George and Jim met was not dissimilar to the classic Monty Python sketch where a member of the public reports the loss of his wallet to a policeman. “ Er, someone’s stolen my wallet officer “ Did you see anyone near sir ? “ “Er no “ “ Sorry then sir, there’s not much I can do then “ “ Oh darn……… do you want to come back to my place then ? “ George was picked up almost as easy as that ! What a tart !
Jim was a naval officer so that’s another cliché slipped in.. oops !
Skinny dipping ……. Well well …has that been put in for the lady Mr Darcy fans who crave and demand a flash of Colin’s sandwich or lunchbox ? Very out of context given Georges inability to be anything less than dependable, staid and Kent like.
Finally, George had a gun ? admittedly he didn’t have any bullets for it but then even strolling round with an empty gun is a terribly un-British thing to do. Surely George could have dissuaded a mugger or robber with some well aimed prose or invective rather than the coarse American response of firearms ?
Not only that, in the course of his day he takes the gun to College, the Bank and a Liquor Store ! What Brit abroad would do that without being eaten up with embarrassment or ending up ventilated like a colander ?

Ultimately, this did not do it for me but as the fragrant Lady Vegster is very partial to Mr Firth, I have been generous !

7.3

 

[Barrel of Fun]

'We Own the Night'

A rather predictable, but entertaining flick with a strong cast. You can't really go wrong with Eva Mendes and Joaquin Phoenix.

I'll be generous and give it a 7.4

 

[Meade's Ball]

It's Sunday. The day in which the biblical say is one of inactivity for most, and i'd kind of go along with that, but i do like to go to early screenings at local cinemas on such a day. I find very few people bother, but cinemas open nonetheless. I went to The Crazies, the remake that's meant to set the bone-mode to 'shiver'. 11.30am start. A grand total of 8 people in there. Sadly, one of them was an over-mature, flat-cap-wearer with a cane who didn't like to stay in his seat and ambled between them during the film. One of the seats was right by the entrance and a light spilt from the outside and onto this gentleman as he thought things through.
Anyway, the film itself was a little drab. It concerns a small town in yankeedoodledandyland which is the victim of a plane crashing into its local water supply. The plane carried an experimental toxin being taken to a part of Texas for destruction. Of course this toxin made people a crazy. They never really explain how crazy and why, but you can see people who've drunk the poisons have the wish to kill everyone else insanely. Luckily for no one, the sheriff and GP in the area are the escaping-from-mayhem heroes of the piece. Timothy Olyphant is the sheriff and his face moves little, his brow constantly strained botoxically, and his mouth perhaps too small to smile. He is also a semi-professional Michael Beihn lookalike. His wife is pregnant and played by Radha Mitchell who you'll recognise by face but have to imdb it to see she was in Pitch Black, The Surrogates and other such drivel.
Chilling and gripping it wasn't for the most part. A watered-down version of 40 Days of Night really. It has the chance to become sightly interesting when the government look to slaughter everyone in the town and set up camps for the infected and "clean", but not much thought was put into it. Instead, you get the good-guys battling the state, the infected and some crazed huntsmen with a deathwish. Too many villains, i think. Still, there are some thrills in it at times, and my heart jumped once or twice. A 2-star film really, and those are not the leading pair whose characters lack any background to give us some real feel for.

 

[Acker79]

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
This was a surprise. The advertising makes it seem like a Harry Potter knock off. Sure it has some similarities - young boy, unaware of his importance discovers a whole secret world in which he is something special, sets about solving a mystery and saving the world.

But that's about it, this is a silly, entertaining ride. It either doesn't take itself too seriously, or does so in such a way that it seems they don't. It has funny weirdness, funny crapness, funny cheese, it was just a fun couple of hours.

 

[mistahclarke]

just watched 2012 for my sunday no-brainer movie...... complete toilet!

watched 9 the other day, the Tim Burton one, that was quite good.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I went to watch Five Easy Pieces the other night for the first time. What a little cracker. Nicholson before he was lost in his own self-made devil-with-charm pomposity. He actually seems slightly realistic in it. A masochistic man disappointed with reality itself, but mostly his position in it. He's a heavy-drinking smooth-talker working the oileries of southern America. He dates a woman he's thoroughly disapproving of, who can little read and has little or no expectation of life, but smiles throughout, seemingly unplagued by that the knowing believe they know of. He cheats on her whenever he can, caring not at all for his actions. Yes, a bit John Terryish, but with intelligence and a certain pzazz. He has to head back to his origins, the ones he tries to cheaply escape, and visit his dying father and rich family of unreal buffoons. It gets all the more moving and sexualised whilst there, and painfully upsetting when the girlfriend arrives and these opposites of "class" semi-collide.
Overall, it's a brilliantly slow-moving but humanly exciting tale of one man struggling with himself.

 

[Questions]

I went to watch Five Easy Pieces the other night for the first time. What a little cracker. Nicholson before he was lost in his own self-made devil-with-charm pomposity. He actually seems slightly realistic in it. A masochistic man disappointed with reality itself, but mostly his position in it. He's a heavy-drinking smooth-talker working the oileries of southern America. He dates a woman he's thoroughly disapproving of, who can little read and has little or no expectation of life, but smiles throughout, seemingly unplagued by that the knowing believe they know of. He cheats on her whenever he can, caring not at all for his actions. Yes, a bit John Terryish, but with intelligence and a certain pzazz. He has to head back to his origins, the ones he tries to cheaply escape, and visit his dying father and rich family of unreal buffoons. It gets all the more moving and sexualised whilst there, and painfully upsetting when the girlfriend arrives and these opposites of "class" semi-collide.
Overall, it's a brilliantly slow-moving but humanly exciting tale of one man struggling with himself.

Nicholson is superb in that film and the cafe scene with the toast is outstanding. This was the performance that won him the part of R.P. McMurphy in Cuckoo`s Nest I always thought.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Alright so i have the week off work and intend to see something at the flicks every day. This afternoon i went for Micmacs as posters on the underground describe it as "incredible" and "magnifique". I know they all say that about anything, but i thought this might have something to it. I was wrong. It was damnably annoying.
I saw it at The Odeon. When going in, they had a sign saying "Box Office Closed", and it was. I queued behind people buying popcorn to buy a ticket for a film. Jeez. When i finally got there, the seller said "You are aware this is a French film with English subtitles?". I sniggered and said yes. I should have followed her "foreign films are shit" statement and gone for something with Sandra Bullock instead.
The film is made by the Amelie director. That's a film i sort of refuse to see as the people i know who loved it also used to read Harry Potter and marvel at it. That told me it was bozac. This one was. A man who accidentally has a bullet in his brain investigates the relationship between the bullet-maker and their arsenalic rival across the road, who happened to make the landmine that blew his father up. What a coincidence. He is homeless and moves in with a contortionist, a f***ing cannonballman and some other happy-go-lucky underground fools who all potter about without any misery in their lives. They live in an elaborate underground tunnel in a junkyard. They are so quaint and one of them invents dancing robots from junk. Arse.
I disliked all of them and found myself fuming at the supposed cleverness of it all. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh, i thought. Mime artists in a sepia-tinted world without a hint of character to anyone.
Shite.
Tomorrow there'll be something else i'll listen to the advice of the popcorn girl about.

 

[Nibble]

Adventureland. it was okay-ish.

 

[Acker79]

The Lovely Bones
Quite good. Some metaphorical beautiful imagery which may be hard to actually work out what it means. I found it depressing, but not sad, if that makes sense.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I went to the cinema this afternoon to watch Headless Woman, the tale of a woman who feels a bump as she drives and becomes more convinced that she struck someone and never stopped.
Sadly, i got a bit lost on the way there, turned up to ask if it had started to find the woman there saying YES 5 MINUTES AGO. Well balls to it then, i said, and remounted my bicycle for another 45 minute cycle home. Arsebiscuits.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

40 Year Old Virgin

There is so much dross produced by the Americans, but this is a stand out. Stand out for being exceptionally entertaining, funny and enjoyable.

I am rating this as it is currently playing, but I have already seen it.

Something everyone can relate to, regarding the virginity situation, whether you are 15 or 50.

7.9

 

[albion534]

Saw The Crazies the other day, not bad, few jump scenes....worth watching if ur bored

ZOMBIELAND!!!! if you havnt seen it....see it...bloomin funny, especially the Bill Murray Scenes

 

[Oscar]

Alive In Wonderland

looks good but you really don't have to see it in 3D. But it in every way but visually it is utterly dull. The story is bland and some of the performances awful - Anne Hathaway particularly.

Depp is predicatably decent as the Mad Hatter and Bonham Carter is the best thing in it as the Red Queen. But the girl who plays Alice is so bland it's hard to care what happens to her.

I really don't understand why Tim Burton didn't just make a film of the book rather than this sequel that merely steals the best bits of the book but allows maximum screen time for Depp and an older, boring Alice in Slumberland.

5.9

 

[Mental Lental]

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Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

Absolutely awful. Terrible. So bad in fact that paradoxically, it was actually absolutely hilarious and a very entertaining watch. Definitely part of the "so bad, it's good" club.

8/10

 

[vegster]

Alice in Wonderland

Oh dear, rather overhyped disconnected dross but mildly interesting. Alice is Cadaverous and bland, Depp, manic and wild eyed and the story, rather poor. Burton has parachuted a Jabberwock in to the mix in order to set up a faus blockbuster ending.... you know what, its so poor really I can't take the piss, its wrong to mock the afflicted.

6.5

 

[CHAPPERS]

Elite Squad - this was alright. Reckon it was a bit on the light side though and the story was a bit skittish (?) in places.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I saw Father of My Children the other day. Good stuff. Has a nasty, sudden twist halfway through that changes the feel of it, but it still stays in and around one family and the financial collapse of a film production company. That makes it sound as enthralling as a lecture from an old person about litter, but it was a good film. I'd give it 12 out of 15.