Right, apologies for taking so long on these reviews, been busy lately, but here we go:

Surrogates:

Surrogates re-unites disgraced director Jonathan Mostow with the disgraced writers of Catwoman and Terminator's 3 and 4, to be disgraced for one film is rather hard to do, to be embraced for many films and raping a child is all well and of course though, another robot film after 6 years of hiding from fans of the Terminator series sees Bruce Willis don the most ridiculous blonde wig to be a robot version of himself investigating the death of Surrogate creator James Cromwell, you know, the guy who invented US Robotics in I, Robot and monarchy in The Queen, and shot up Kevin Spacey in LA Confidential, that guy, guess who the bad guy is, go on, it's not obvious at all, even with Ving Rhames sporting dreads in a human only area, have a guess who is really killing people using robots.
For that matter, have a guess why this film is getting bad reviews and limping at the box office.

One clue, people are smart.

There are points in this film that close the gap between bad and so bad it's , but the film constantly goes for seriousness and thus makes the whole experience painfully awful. There are scenes in this film that I wouldn't deem Bruce Willis screaming "Go Go Gadget Chainsaw Army" out of place, it's the level of been-there-done-that that these futuristic sci-fi conspiracy thriller films are stuck with until someone makes the next game-changer, and as the films flounder more and more I doubt it'll come anytime soon, so we're stuck with September dumping ground pieces of crap like Surrogates, which sports Rosamund Pike with a terrible American accent as the surrogate wife of Bruce Willis, who has friends that like to jack-on with electricity, yes, they even RIP OFF FUTURAMA! They call humans meatbags for ness sake.

Mostow should *** off back to hiding and never come out again, for an 88 minute action thriller the action was slow, poorly shot and limited, the thriller element was painfully obvious, and the runtime is appalling, it's thirty minutes too long and the credits begin at the 80 minute mark, to pad out the film they desperately, read hopelessly, add Bruce WIllis trying to get his wife off the robot machine, and it never ever feels like anything but desperate padding, probably based on poor early test screenings and March re-shoots, which might help explain the horribly cartoony CGI in the film.

Avoid.
4/10 (And that's being kind, due to it's short runtime)

The Soloist:

Joe Wright returns after triumphantly proving all wrong about the unfilmable-ness of Atonement, by making Atonement, and making it a damn film.
With the aid of Susannah Grant on typewriter, joe makes a drama about two men in different circles of life, one a lonely journalist who writes human interest pieces, the other a homeless musical genius with schizophrenia. Together they bond for two hours in a Reign Over Me style push me pull me, I hit you then apologise, I don't know what I'm doing really film, which has been done before, and better, but gets by easily on the charisma and skill of Lucky Downey Jr. A man who oozes brilliance and makes acting look easy. Though it also makes Jamie Foxx's turn look like he's trying to hard and failing at every turn.
In addition to these two there's an unfairly ignored Stephen Root being funny, Catherine Keener, who gets roped in to a sub-plot that makes Downey's character more human and have issues, Tom Hollander in a bad American accent being a bible bashing music teacher and an assortment of quality yet unknown actors peppering scenes in the LA Mission Centre, homelife of Foxx's character and Downey's investigation and quest to help Foxx's character.

The plot is far too basic to go over, but the film isn't sure what it's doing most of the time, it starts focussed on Downey's character in a biking accident, then he finds Foxx, writes about him, gets a great response from people, but then goes into flashbacks of Foxx's character, as uncharismatic and uninteresting as possible on a movie screen, and evolves from young kid to adult in an apartment in a very Lynchian nightmare sequence, that goes nowhere and explains nothing.

Fortunately Downey is always close by to increase the film more, but the biggest problem of this film is somewhere in there it's a dark, interesting and funny character piece about two people who become friends against all odds, and things go wrong, but it's clearly Americanised to the point that happy endings are expected and painfully given in a desperate attempt to wrap up the previous hour and forty minutes of film before it. And it's a shame as it could have been something more, but as it is The Soloist is Oscar bait that won't get far and is disappointingly mundane, save for Downey as always.
7/10

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs:

Sony Pictures has a new output of animation following Open Season, Monster House and the absolute masterpiece Surf's Up, again grabbing as many insanely awesome voices in one film, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs announces the first worldwide 3-D release from the studio, Monster House was rather limited given it was before the 3-D boom.

I think before we start the film's talk, I want to focus on the cast.
Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Bobb'e J.. Thompson, Neil Patrick Harris, Lauren Graham, Will Forte & Neil Flynn.
I know, right, epic! Hader, Forte and Samberg being some real gems from modern SNL, also included in that genre are Poehler and Wiig, then Anna Faris who is, alongside Catherine O'Hara, one of the funniest females around right now. James Caan, well, needless to explain that, Mr. T is pure retro, Bruce Campbell is groovy, Bobb'e is hilarious even in dreck like Land Of The Lost, NPH is NPH, he's Awesome, Lauren Graham is fantastic and Neil Flynn, well, he's a genius.

And that as a voice cast is ridiculously sturdy, and it shows, as the acting is never out of whack in this film, even when zany and emotional mix together, with Hader really going a step up here for developing a character who retains eccentricity in the face of romantic and parental scenarios.

So, the plot is this weird odd kid, Flint Lockwood, constantly invents things, ratbirds, remote controlled televisions, in a small island in the middle of the Atlantic whose sole income is a Sardine fishing and canning industry, which goes out of business, leaving the island with no money and only sardines to eat in many ways.
One day Flint invents a machine that can transform the molecules in water into food items of any kind, but when testing found it needs lots of power. Meaning he has to go outside, to a transformer station. And of course things go wrong to satisfy a feature length plot, the machine gets too much juice and flies into the air, making it rain food items. Soon enough as the town becomes popular, thanks to a weather intern, Faris, reporting on the crazy situation, radiation from the clouds affect the machine, the food gets bigger and bigger, and as Mayor Campbell gets fatter and more selfish the whole town is put in peril of being destroyed by massive food crushing them.

In between action Flint forms a relationship with the weather intern and tries to impress his father, who has become more and more introverted after his wife's passing. You know, generic middle class problems that kids really understand and comprehend. Thankfully not told too often in a patronising way.

But the film is an animated comedy, leading to some really neat sequences, scaling a deep cavern of peanut brittle with a liquorice rope, an ice cream snowball fight that gets rather violent rather quickly, Gummi Bears attacking the wings of planes.

It's almost surreal in it's way, and that's what makes the film so , when it wants to it is willing to maybe alienate the kids with some risque jokes or some old references, but always manages to add a monkey doing things or some slightly low brow stuff to let the kids laugh too, which is nice, but infuriating at the same time.

the writer/directors of the film have previous credits in How I Met Your Mother and Clone High, two real gems of TV, the former a consistently risque yet fantastically funny show, the latter a very close to the bone piss take on high school TV dramas. And it's that even with a U rated film they can scale some slightly odd territory, and don't succumb to Dreamworks' horrible output of pop-culture quips and waste of time characters who add nothing but tedious one liners, even Mr. T's crazy athletic police officer has his own sub-plot, everyone gets time for development, and whilst it makes the film seem longer than it is, it means the writers genuinely care about what they are doing and want the audience to care too.

Lets face it, Pixar do it better and with less pandering or over exposed characters, but they are the pinnacle of animation studios, we can't expect the same output from anyone else, but when it's not entirely awful, it's rather nice to watch, as is the case with Cloudy.
7/10

Gamer:

Neveldine/Taylor, the brains behind the Crank series and full on frat boys with a budget return with a non-Crank film, one that has it's own plot, ideas, and, shock horror, is more serious than not.

In Game/Citizen Game/Gamer Gerard Butler plays Kable, a superstar around the world and prison inmate who participates in a televised championship series of video games where real people are controlled and used throughout, an FPS with real people basically.

There's little originality in the premise by any means, but you have to know that the duo aren't planning on breaking barriers with this film, it's a break from the manic crazy inventive Crank series that lets them simply tell a story with 3 acts over a 90 minute runtime, and they succeed with some interesting characters, excellent action, brilliant actors, Logan Lerman and Michael C. Hall both shine moreso, and overall it's a rather fun film, if a little dark.

In the end of the film there's a dance sequence/fight sequence with the bad guy lip synching Sammy Davis Jr.'s "I got you under my skin" and it's that level of silliness that does help some of the parodical elements, which includes a second real life video game called Society, basically Playstation Home or Second Life with real people, so naturally people pay to play as other people having lots of sex all the time. A character pops up named Rick Rape, he, well, he doesn't last long, thankfully not in 'that' way.

It's a shame that the film doesn't reach for the stars and be groundbreaking, but it's easy to see why the duo would want a bigger budget, lower hassle film to work on that's sure to gratify a broader audience than the controversial Crank series, and for what it does it's a well made piece of entertainment, and the Red cameras are used extremely well.

Having seen it twice I enjoyed it both times, the second time had no surround sound which did make it less of a film, but that only tells you how important audio truly is.

Still, it's a violent, sexual, silly film and rather enjoyable to watch.
9/10

Up next, Toy Story 3-D and Zombieland!

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

The Invention Of Lying:

Ricky Gervais returns for a second lead role in a rom-com American mainstream film, this time, unlike Ghost Town, he co-wrote and co-directed This Side OF The Truth, renamed The Invention Of Lying, and it's truly shocking. Ghost Town had some middle of the road reviews but the film itself was a wonderful, hysterical and ultimately beautifully emotional movie that was ridiculously well made in the beginning of a shitstorm of bad films that we're still in.

But this year he brings in the full force of disappointment, With an unknown co-writer/director and a high concept idea, a World that tells no lies, which is presented in *** narration from Gervais, where he badmouths opening credits and calls them unimportant, trying to be funny but not true at the same time. The whole concept is flawed as the film goes on, yes it's a world without lies, but why do people feel the need to blurt out their inner thoughts, they must have learnt self-control and restraint over the generations. Music and poetry makes little sense in the World either, it'd not really have anything interesting, and all the technology they have/all the history humanity has is confusing, without religion there'd be few wars, and thus not so much in the way of leaps in technology, so getting to where we are now without lying doesn't work.

It's also flawed to the bone tonally, sometimes it's tying to be broad comedy, or witty comedy drama, or even emotional drama, and only succeeds in two scenes, an emotional death scene where Gervais goes all out, and a comedic flashback to his father, played by Barry from Eastenders, breaking into Stephen Merchant's house, who opens the door as he does that.

The cast is odd, Gervais is one note more than usual, Jennifer Garner is a crap as ever, and too focussed on plot-wise. Louis C.K. is a catch, he's ridiculously funny and holds his own in the film. Rob Lowe is the only other actor listed in the poster that has enough scenes to not call a cameo.
The cameos include, though: Tina Fey as Gervais' ex-assistant, dull. Jeffrey Tambour as Gervais' ex-boss at a movie studio, but nothing interesting. Jonah Hill as a depressed man, he does *** all. Edward Norton as a racist, violent cop, fun but unimportant. Philip Seymour Hoffman as a bartender, funny but not enough of him. Martin Starr as a waiter, too little.

The film has a Simpsons-esque feel to it with all the sign gags and visual humour, all of which fail, and this film is insanely disappointing, it's just so uninteresting, uninviting and worst of all, unfunny. Please please please Cemetery Junction, please be .
3/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Zombieland is probably a marmite film, in that you either love how silly it all is, and yet enjoy the wonderfully fleshed out human characters and the horrors they face, with some incredible style, more later, or you have no soul and call it generic trash or a broader and worse Shaun Of The Dead. To the haters I say this. *** you.

Ok, this is a review that I will be very passionate about, so if you're reading this and saw the film thinking it sucked, the cross at the top of this window, there's the door, don't let it hit you on the mangina as you exit, f****ng idiot, you have no idea what constitutes pure silly awesome entertainment, and somehow Zombieland offer Shoot 'Em Up style insanity of action with Crank's style of visuals, text interacting wonderfully with the environment, and the character development and dialogue from the best indie comedies of the last 20 years.

Zombieland focuses on Jesse Eisenberg, a college kid alone in the US as a zombie outbreak has whittled the population to none, until Woody Harrelson's trigger happy bad boy appears, and from there on in instead of a cumpulsive kid's zombie adventure it's a chalk and cheese road trip, using the towns they want to get to as their names so as not to get too close lest they need to kill one another later, as Harrelson hunts a Twinkie, and Eisenberg his family. That is until sisters Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin come into play, grifting their way to a new car and guns, eventually getting stuck with the male duo as they all head to LA, and to an amusement park that is supposedly zombie free.

In between the dialogue there are zombie attacks, cuts to backstories, one including Amber Heard as a sexy girl next door turned zombie, another with Mike White being conned out of $400, though we see him killed on the bog earlier on, poor guy gets it rough, and some fun stuff, including a 'Zombie Kill Of The Week' moment. Mixing four amazing actors with a fantastic script and some great songs makes this hour and a half film so fulfilling, you get the scares of horror, the gore of zombie films, wonderful wit mixed with some rather crass moments and some epic action.

One genius segment involves going to a certain celebrity's house and staying there, until he appears, allowing Harrelson and Stone to act in scenes from one of his films, hysterical stuff. Yes the Eisenberg virgin trying to find love story has been done to death, hell, he's had at least 4 films where that's his character's goal, but in a zombie film it really makes it more interesting, and I will say this, the film's ending is not what I expected, especially with a Custer's last stand type scenario, but more for a sequel I guess.

Zombieland is a painfully hysterical, genuinely well made film with some solid scary moments, cracking violence, great actors and lots of giggles between the big laughs, a must see, seriously, SEE THIS FRAKKING MOVIE!

10/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Up!

It's an awesomeee movie. Everyone should go see it

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gamertag: ameliadot

Just saw a free screening of Couples Retreat, out tomorrow in the UK:

Another year and another Vince Vaughn pic is released, subsequent classics include Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up,Fred Claus and Four Christmases. This year he's avoided going for another festive cheer comedy, and by festive cheer I mean lacking any warmth or humanity, and by comedy I mean Vince Vaughn spluttering American pop-culture quotes and fast food joints that only are in America to no avail.
Instead he's brought in heavyweights in the shape of Jason Bateman, Jon Faverau, Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, Jean Reno, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong and the ever awesome Peter Serafinowictz (Serowikz to the BBC announcer who fucked his name up the other day)

Couples Retreat sees four couples go to paradise to have relationship counseling even though only one couple want to do it, and they all find, shock horror, they might not be where they should in their relationships. So Faverau and his wife go cheating, Faizon Love and his 2 week 20 year old girlfriend split up, Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman contemplate what they are doing wrong and Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman argue and act like uptight twits.

Being that it's Hollywood the 4 relationships all have happy endings, Faizon gets back together with his wife, Bell and Bateman get back together even after Bell willingly leaps out of a boat to swim away from Bateman, marking the end of their relationship, even Faverau and his wife, who always cheat on each other, love each other.

Why? Because that makes everyone happy right?
Well, when a film offers not one but two scenes where a kid defecates in a bathroom showroom toilet, and has said kid and his brother do the 'go and have this holiday' speech for the parents, you question why you are sitting in this shitty cinema watching a horrible film like this.

Even Jean Reno, Ken Jeong, John Michael Higgins and Sir Peter Serafinowicz can't save this film solid heavy hitters and funny people, well, Jean Reno is more awesome than funny, but still.
The film reeks of desperation, and once again it's all about Vince Vaughn mugging for screentime to get 'laughs' which, you'll be glad to hear, weren't embraced by the audience.

This truly is as painful an experience as Vaughn's Christmas themed films, if you find anything funny in this film then you, sir, are an idiot.

1/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

How does one summarise Life During Wartime for the uninitiated and sustain the shock of the original film's dark, twisted nature and taboo breaking subjects?

Todd Solondz has consistently made awkward, dark films that had amazingly funny moments that change tone to the dramatic, pushing melodramatic, so perfectly, and with Happiness he went all out, a child's attempts to masturbate all the way to the climax, his father's horrible fetish and how he goes about getting what he wants, a bright young woman who searches for happiness and ends up in a string of bad relationships, a poet who can't write as she's never been raped and a woman who murdered then cut up a doorman who raped her.

For a comedy drama it's particularly in depth and at times graphic, with many dark moments.

Fortunately this follow up doesn't go down those roads. The closest to a young boy and his dad talking about topics in a frank manner that is close to the bone if not past it is exchanged for a small conversation between Trish, now played by the wonderful Allison Janney, telling her young son Timmy, who was young in the first, now almost 13, about her date with a man getting her wet.

The film opens in a rather genius mode, almost shot for shot like the original, the opening titles with the white frames, the new Joy, a 40 year old married to an ex-con who reveals he still phones up random girls to get himself off, after giving Joy the same ashtray Jon Lovitz hands her in Happiness' opening sequence.

Hell, Lovitz's character offs himself in the first one but returns as a ghost, in the form of the magnificent Paul Reubans, to talk to Joy and try to convince her they are the perfect couple.

Ultimately though, Joy, who had a lot of the last film, is only handed a small segment of the 96 minute runtime, instead it's focussed on Trish moving on from Bill, now portrayed by Ciaran Hinds as a believable prison serving change from Dylan Baker's daring performance. Bill is out of prison and stalking the family to see what he is left to do, whilst Trish has found a new man, a sweet, kind but slightly older gentleman.

Timmy is gearing up for his Bar Mitzvah and suddenly learns his dad isn't dead like his mother told him, but actually still in prison, or he thinks he is even when he's just outside, and finds out what Bill did in the first film.

The film boils down to simple conversations, some very dark moments as always, and some out and out hysterical stuff, but given it's brief runtime in comparison to the 135 minute original the film seems slight, we go to places but it's more a Before Sunset glimpse than a Clerks II. full on here they are, and they are going on another journey. The acting is universally solid, never perfect, but never awful, the re-casting is odd but adds to the freedom Solondz gives the characters to change their lives instead of sticking in the rut of the original. Whilst the choice of Timmy looking oddly like Billy's friend Johnny, the first victim in the original, is rather distracting, to the point that a talk between College aged Billy, played by Linus from Fanboys, about Bonobos and incest seems rather, well, horrible.

For a film I was interested in from the get go but apprehensive about the approach, the tone and if Solondz would Crank 2 it and go for more taboos to break instead of character, I was relieved when it was all about real life people in situations, be it real or surreal, using humour and drama to perfection, it's a perfectly imperfect film that won't go down well in the mainstream, you need to see Happiness before seeing this film, and as there's still no distributor (A blank slate at the start of the film where it'd be) it'll be great to see the film get out to people.

And the HD will looks great, shot using Red cameras the depth and definition is remarkable, made me appreciate Solondz as a visual as well as witty writer/director.

If you can, I recommend seeing this film, it's funny, well made and rather brilliant in it's own way, just too darn short.
8/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Felt like watching some movies last night.

I ended up rewatching No Country For Old Men, still an amazing classic. Some of the scenes weren't as suspensful after seeing them already, but it's still a well-written, well-acted gem of a movie that I'm glad got all the accolades and awards it did.

9.5/10

Then I wanted to be spooked, so I rented Silent Hill, the movie based off of the video game series of the same name. To my dissapointment it was more of a psychological horror than a jumpy kind of horror movie, but the rest was okay. The cinematography, special effects, ambiance, and music were great, but the acting and the script needed a lot of work (lots of instances where people said really obvious stuff that got on my nerves). There are some scenes that really shock you and stick with you, though, and it gets way more intense at the end.

Overall I'd say a 6/10, mainly because it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.

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^ Check what Beck's up to now.

TMUnderground

AmeliaDot:

Up!

It's an awesomeee movie. Everyone should go see it

I think this is the only review in this thread I've read.


As to contributing, I watched the animated film "9" yesterday, and it wasn't bad, it was so cliché and cheesy, but what can expect from such a film, honestly. It wasn't a bad watch, but at some points I got to the point where I wished I was narcoleptic.

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I only wrote this because I hate you.

The Contrabulous Fabtrap... Erm, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam returns with a ridiculously entitled film of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, wherein Christopher Plummer is a man made immortal by Tom Waits' d, and beaten in a bet must give any 16 year old child to the D. He runs a small sideshow with friend Percy (Verne Troyer, also immortal it seems), his 15 year old daughter, Lily Cole, looking beautiful, and odd teenager Anton, Andrew Garfield. In the sideshow they offer people the chance to go through a mirror and into Parnassus' imagination, a weird brightly coloured CGI cartoon world that has all the delights you want, and the temptations placed by The D as well.

One day they see a man hanging under a bridge and bring him up, the man, Heath Ledger, has amnesia and is given the name George, until the papers fly by revealing he's front page news.

He works with the sideshow and rakes in money, but breaks rules, and ends up having a crush on Parnassus' daughter, who Anton has loved for ages, and it's a big ol' love triangle, as Parnassus is offered the chance to save his daughter by taking 5 souls before the D does. And so the film plays out.

Right there is about the first 45 minutes of the film, it takes time to understand what the hell is going on, so there it is, but surprisingly it doesn't annoy you, it's a wonder to enjoy the film play out, for a film where the trailers looked like abstract garbage it's a true delight to say the film in completion is absolutely hysterical, sometimes rather tense and almost consistently interesting, the film's final 15 minutes go on for a bit too long, but it's really interesting, especially when Heath Ledger goes through the mirror and becomes a new actor, a different face in his imagination.

The film is annoyingly actually, it held my attention and appreciation throughout, though the CGI was off putting, the acting was hit and miss but the actors made the characters interesting and not simply one note, the direction is masterful and some of the designs are disturbingly surreal.

Overall Imaginarium is a real treat, a funny, smart and imaginative film that you should catch when possible.
9/10

Ong Bak: the Beginning

Tony Jaa returns to his breakthrough performance in Ong Bak by making the sequel, entitled Ong Bak: The Beginning...

In this film we see Tony Jaa as a kid learning to fight so that he can kill the people who killed his parents, and learn about life along the way. From the same people who did the first they return with a lush looking sequel which has absolutely 0 originality in the plot and dialogue, subtitles badly coloured with white sometimes impossible to see because of the image behind it, fight sequences that are for the most part slow and uninviting and worst of all, there looks to be a lot more CGI in use this time, ruining the whole point of the original's gritty, simple, cheap style.

The sequel tries too hard to be a serious drama with action, involving a kid fighting a f****ng crocodile, and it's ultimately a very boring, mundane, plain action drama with no elegance or interest, a complete and utter disappointment from Tony Jaa, who should do more modern day based action films, get away from the misplaced period settings most action titles abuse nowadays.
3/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Saw Zombieland over the weekend, and was disappointed. I liked the character interaction and dialogue, but would have preferred more zombies in my zombie movie.


And saw Jennifer's Body a few weeks ago with my sister, who loves Diablo Cody almost as much as I do-- I adored it, thought it was very well done and amusing and clever and even scary, but I haven't heard anyone else react positively to it, so maybe I was just in a really mood.

squidproquo:

Saw Zombieland over the weekend, and was disappointed. I liked the character interaction and dialogue, but would have preferred more zombies in my zombie movie.

Finally someone who speaks sense. It was a road trip movie with a couple of zombies in it for measure..

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Paranormal Activity:

Blair Witch rocked the movie scene a decade ago, no budget camcorder horror about the power of suggestion that got everyone riled up. Then it subsided until 2007's [Rec] and subsequent, and shameless, English language remake Quarantine, add to that Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead, and forthcoming [Rec 2] (Quarantine 2: Quarantiner is out next year) and the also forthcoming The Fourth Kind and camcorder/true life horror is having another renaissance.

With this a no budget film form Sundance has been building buzz in recent months, about a couple who have a haunting in the house, using a camera to view it. Starting off normally, man turns on camera, abuses the camera by forcing it into conversation, awkwardly throws expositionary dialogue down and has two bad actors with no chemistry failing to make the one dimensional characters real like the film suggests, or even make the humour or scares work, it's a tired formula that you've seen time and time again, and here it's no different, it's painful, dull and slow.

Unlike the subtle trailer, the film goes for loud noises as jump scares to suggest forces of in the house, or if you're like me, loud noises outside that you just ignore. Or door movement that's clearly oh so freaking sinister.

I don't believe in the mumbo jumbo about ghosts 'n ghouls, demons and psychics, so maybe that's why the film didn't freak me out, send shivers down my spine or engage me at any point. Hell, from the beginning I knew which character I wanted to die, and which one was going to, they were not one and the same.

Horror is tough to do right, I recently caught Saw, a film people claimed to have revolutionised the horror genre. They don't notice it's purely a thriler, and the same is the case here, with it's tone it's slightly creepy, well, supposedly, but it's not about a horror stance, it's a thrill based film.

Alas it didn't work for me, but maybe you'll enjoy it. Anyway, horror still sucks as a whole, with only ambassador Raimi firing on all cylinders this year.
1/10

The Fantastic Mr. Fox:

So here it is.

After years of work, and since Wes mentioned about Life Aquatic's stop motion fish that he wanted to work on a full feature in the style, he made it.

Filmed in the heart of the story, England, and featuring actual British actors as the humans, and Americans/Canadians for animals, we have Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, as written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Now, to comprehend this film through my terms you need to understand where I'm coming from.

I've grown up from 10 to 19 on Anderson's portfolio, Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling, Bottle Rocket, and as such have become one with his quirky, smart witty style of comedy, alongside Noah Baumbach, who I first became familiar with through Life Aquatic during a second viewing at 3 am, where the film really becomes pertinent. And subsequently second viewing of The Squid and The Whale made me adore that film, you can watch it again and again and each time focus one one character/team, brilliant. Margot at the Wedding was not the disaster everyone proclaimed, it was just even darker and leftfield than Squid.

So I'm up to snuff on these most awesome of indie movie makers, so imagine my surprise when I read the end credits and find it's not Anderson alone, ala Darjeeling, but with Baumbach that he co-wrote Mr. Fox, a film that is odd in all the wrong ways.

Yes the film looks great, has a homely charm indeed, but the characters are completely hollow and soulless, and with George Clooney and Meryl Streep's voices clearly too slick and American for the image, the film doesn't work on the vocal level. What about in humour? It's gonna be surreal, odd and yet human, right? No. No, instead of funny but true family problems we get 'cuss' as a running gag to replace ***, *** and hell. To be fair it offers one of the film's two gags, in clustercuss.

But the only other gag is that Badger, Bill Murray in a very small role, has a mac behind him with post-its on it. That's it.

Who the film is made for is confusing as it's too wordy and complex for younger kids, not enough action and adventure for older kids, nothing vulgar for the teens and not smart enough for adults, they take their gags that aren't funny and instead of being patronising with them, run them into the ground or spell them out. It's not right, it's not what solid filmmaking and humour is about.

And the worst part about this film? It's 87 minutes and the film starts off feeling like it's going to have a lot of goings on, then about 2 reels in the main plot has been underway for ages, and the main plot is Mr. Fox wants to eat more chickens and feel rich, then he pisses off the farmers and puts all animals in the ***. And that's it, there's some unfunny, odd grenade and shooting sequences, but that's all the action, and the scope is so narrow it's almost no need to be animated, coulda just used real animals and got the same lack of emotions out of it.

I say this as an aficionado, the film is awful, truly awful, and it's sad that this is the case.
Avoid.
2/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

EthanRunt:

Ong Bak: the Beginning

Tony Jaa returns to his breakthrough performance in Ong Bak by making the sequel, entitled Ong Bak: The Beginning...

In this film we see Tony Jaa as a kid learning to fight so that he can kill the people who killed his parents, and learn about life along the way. From the same people who did the first they return with a lush looking sequel which has absolutely 0 originality in the plot and dialogue, subtitles badly coloured with white sometimes impossible to see because of the image behind it, fight sequences that are for the most part slow and uninviting and worst of all, there looks to be a lot more CGI in use this time, ruining the whole point of the original's gritty, simple, cheap style.

The sequel tries too hard to be a serious drama with action, involving a kid fighting a f****ng crocodile, and it's ultimately a very boring, mundane, plain action drama with no elegance or interest, a complete and utter disappointment from Tony Jaa, who should do more modern day based action films, get away from the misplaced period settings most action titles abuse nowadays.
3/10

Being a big martial arts enthusiast along with this movie being on of the few martial arts movies to have Muay Thai in it (my fravourite fighting style) along with quite a lot of Krabi Krabong with the looks of the trailer so you'd think this movie would be right up my street. Well sorry it isn't I don't know there's some thing about this movie that just doesn't feel right, possibly the fact that they've went back in history rather then staying in the modern. I enjoyed the first Ong Bak even though it had it's fualts... the story was not original it was a pointless stupid story and Ping(Jaa) was just not a likeable character at all, however it easily made up for these fualts with action scene that were out of this world and stunts that were peformed with no wires or special effects and also... He flying knee's some one out of a window..... yes it's that awsome and no wires or CGI were used for that, the real actor when through a real window, probably made out of weak glass but he still went through it.

The protector/warrior king while having an equally stupid plot was also awsome... there's a scene were he takes on some thing close to 50 men straight after each other breaking just about every limb in the bodies. There was a few CGI scenes here and there for obvious saftey reasons ( Jumping up and kicking some one out of an helicopter) but the stunts are all completely real.

This movie however... there's some thing about it that just doesn't sit right with me, possibly the added speceffects that take away the whole charm of the previous movies.

I probably will watch this, but I wont pay to see it.... wait for my freind to buy it and watch it at his. Tony Jaa needs to start doing some Westernised movies.

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"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

I absolutely agree, the weaker plots but main focus on Tony's amazing talents helped the first two films to be genuinely entertaining films, this one just messed it up by not having much action at all.

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Forest Gump: Well I finally got round to seeing as apparntley everybody's suppsoes to see it atleast once in there life. Rather hard to take seriosuly but still humurous and entertaining. Gets a bit repetative the way Jenny phases in and out of the picture every 20 minutes but aside from that i enjoyed it 7/10

I went and saw Paranormal Activity and Law Abiding Citizen over the weekend.

I liked PA a lot, wasn't extraordinarily scary, and certainly not the scariest movie ever as some are saying, but I was still impressed with the film considering the budget. Quite a few very impressive tricks pulled, and it had its scares. I never jumped, but I definitely had some sweaty palms. I'd recommend it.

8/10

Law Abiding Citizen seemed like an extended episode of CSI: but with a lot more cursing and blood. It was acted very well by Butler and Foxx, and had lots of amusing and entertaining moments that made it different from just another caper case. I liked that for a film that was just under 2 hours, it was always well paced. If this film taught me anything, it's that I will never answer my cell phone near a window. Ever.

8.5/10

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^ Check what Beck's up to now.

TMUnderground

Capitalism: A Love Story -

Going in to the BFI's LFF Surprise Film knowing the film from the night prior's paid for screenings people saw, I was prepared to witness another Michael Moore documentary, a man I've been a fan of since I started really getting into cinema, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko and Roger & Me are truly amazing and re-watchable documentaries, however Fahrenheit 9/11 was easily his worst, a multi-tonged approach to a subject the public was already more on Moore's side than ambivalent to and unfocussed so much that it jumped around on ideas that led nowhere to prove points that had limited impact.

Alas Capitalism, a film which was worked on as Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 is like the original, a multi-tonged unfocussed approach to the banking crash that we're all anti-banks with already, and sadly whilst it's hysterical at times, it's also rather dull, overlong by at least 40 minutes and gives no resolution or attempts to break through to important people like Charlton Heston in Columbine. Instead Moore has times where he's recognised, and criticised for his films, and gets no where, slowly.

Do we care about people being thrown out of the house when only tears and religion are used to go into peoples' psyche, and how many American flags do you need to see in one film?

Sadly Moore's latest is exactly like this review, half-hearted and uninterested in it's subject matter, in fact distracted by everything else, and boring like ***.

5/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

Currently watching Mortal Kombat Annihilation... The film is so bad it defies logic... it's so bad it's almost for the wrong reasons... I would tell you the plot but it's so bat *** bonkers that your brain would explode from the explanation. I guess the most entertainment I'm getting from this movie is guessing when it's Tony Jaa or Robin Shou playing Lui Kang (he was Shou's stunt double), saying out loud Shou, Jaa, Shou, Jaa ever time I think it's each one of them... funny times.

The action in this movie is... okay which isn't much of a compliment. For a movie to have a story line this stupid with acting this bad the action shouldn't just be okay... it should be brilliant action for a movie this bad, it should be excellent any way , it's based on a game with that has Raiden, Jax, Sub-zero, Kung Loa, Scorpion... a thong wearing fatty (Shoa Kahn).

What's worse is the villains... there straight out of a episode of Power Rangers... I swear they stole them.

Edit: Also if you look closely Raiden keeps changing from some stupid *** to Ray Park back to another stupid ***.

Edit 2: Just watching the dragon fight at the end... come the *** on... that's the worse special effect's I've ever seen... they run well below 16 fps and they look look horrid and clunky... I could have done better then that.

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"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

Sovvolf:

What's worse is the villains... there straight out of a episode of Power Rangers... I swear they stole them.

Hey I like the Power Rangers.

Anyways, I agree, MK:Annihalation is a terrible movie, unlike the first MK, which was an awesome movie.

I recently watched Yes Man and let me just say it was a great movie.

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"If you can't make it , at least make it look ." - Bill Gates

A Christmas Carol (IMAX 3D):

Robert Zemeckis returns once more for the third of his mo-cap films, first was the rather brilliantly sweet and simple Polar Express, second was the dry but exciting Beowulf, now he's employed Jim Carrery to play about 1000 characters who all don't sound English by any means, so fit in perfectly with the shoddy accents from the people of London, specifically the children. Think Chev Chelios as a kid in Crank 2, THAT level of painful accents.

Again the film looks stunning, and Zemeckis pretty much throws virtual cameras around like they cost nothing. Probably because they cost nothing. But he clearly wants to show off the worlds that have been built for the film so much by giving us every angle in less time than we can monitor, in IMAX 3D the film will not be for those who suffer from extreme vertigo, Liza Minelli, nor anyone with severe motion sickness, you pretty much whizz around London at the start, after an opening segment.

The film kindly opens with the book being turned to the opening, and we, from there, see Jacob Marley's corpse and Scrooge with the undertakers. From there we begin the story as traditionally as possible, sneering, bah humbug, the same dialogue as it once was, rather authentic.

As we meet Marley's ghost we start to see where Zemeckis' version has it's own ideas, rather dry and traditional in Victorian London, when the spirits come in, the humour is being attempted to rise, in the case of Marley his jaw detaches and he smacks it up and down to talk for a bit. It's as funny as it sounds, maybe less so if I described it well enough. The Christmas Past spirit is a candle with a flame the face of Jim Carrey, sporting a soft Irish accent, that sometimes sounds a tad too Canadian, just before the two go oot and aboot the 'shadows of the past'.

Christmas Present is Jim Carrey as Brian Blessed, he laughs a lot, is very beardy and booming, and clearly needed the presents of someone with a voice like Blessed, as Carrey cannot sustain the bass to really excel in the vocal department here, however the final scenes are perhaps the most disturbing in a kids film this side of Jar Jar.

Christmas Future is the point I mark on the map wherein the film goes downhill. Before the spirits went into the flashback moments rather quickly, a little introduction and conversation, then BLAM, Scrooge is shown things, here Scrooge is chased down streets by the shadow spirit on a shadow horse and cart and shrunk until he fits through pipes, and for no reason smashes against 10 icicles as he falls off a roof, THEN gets to a flashback, that's 5 minutes of runtime that could have been cut and the film would feel better, especially since it's duties to be as traditional in the dialogue as possible make such an extended action sequence seem rather hysterical, like a parody in itself of an American remake.

Of course the tale of Tiny Tim is well done, if a little heavy handed at points, but Gary Oldman as the face of Tim and the face and voice of Bob Cratchit is great, he doesn't overplay, he just delivers a simple character who is always in the background until the final 15 minutes. Colin Firth, though high in the credits, has about 3 scenes, all are adequate, but there's nothing for him here. Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig underplays the Cockney, and during a dance sequence looks far too cartoony, then again he never looked all that real in Roger Rabbit either.

Whilst the detail is great on some textures and Scrooge's face, many Londoners look rather bland and quickly rendered, which is disconcerting when many kids with limited expressions play on the roads. The music is rather festive without being too overbearing.

It's a nice happy film, with some moments and sequences, but the final act kills off some of the quality from the previous two.

7/10

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

What puzzles me is... why get an American to do the job of playing all the characters that are British characters. I mean you really have to be exceptional to pull of the British accent as much to fool the audience.. the same with the American. I can think of about 2 people who can do a convincing American accent Daniel Day Lewis (I had to look this guy up before I know he was British) and Gary Oldman (He's just simply talented) as for British... Renie Zelwiger (or however you spell the damn thing... I mean I did manage to watch Bridget Jones diary and I like with Danny boy had to look up if she was British or not) and Brad Pitt... the Pikish accent was bang on... if you guys can name more then be my guest.

You know who I think could play a brilliant Scrooge?... Ray Winston.... he can play a real basterd... I mean watch Nil by Mouth and you know what I mean by basterd. As for the other characters... why not just hire different actors?... why does this have to be Jim's one man show, this isn't an attack on Jim I think he "CAN" play very interesting characters but he "CAN'T" do a British accent, Hey it's nothing to be ashamed about... *** Van *** couldn't do it, Jason Stathem can't do an American accent, some people can and some can't.

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"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

I watched The Pianist a few months ago, I had no idea it was so . It's one of my favourites, perfect movie. Also, I've just seen 2 finnish war-movies about the winterwar, great movies. Not sure what they're called in english though. Both directed by Åke Lindman.

MrJazzy:

I watched The Pianist a few months ago, I had no idea it was so . It's one of my favourites, perfect movie. Also, I've just seen 2 finnish war-movies about the winterwar, great movies. Not sure what they're called in english though. Both directed by Åke Lindman.

Sounds like a porno. I saw paranormal activity last weekend. It sucked. I booed at the end(get it booed...ghosts say boo...nevermind).

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"If you can't make it , at least make it look ." - Bill Gates

Jason Statham has never done an American Accent, Jason Statham has done a Jason Statham accent.

But I agree, Jim Carrey seems to be mostly for needing a big name in the film, and whilst his voice work can be sometimes, Horton Hears A Who for example, here where the film is trying hard to be traditional, too much comedy and odd voices is rather off-putting. And yet most American critics seem to praise Carrey's accent, maybe they've not heard real English people speak before.

I'd nominate Michael Caine as Scrooge, he pulled it off once before, in my mind's eye he's the only Scrooge.

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Last three films seen on the big screen:
Law Abiding Citizen - 5/10
2012 - 5/10
A Serious Man - 6/10

M'eh I was always an Albert Finney man my self.

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"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.