solo1's movie reviewsThese are some movie reviews, culled from at least four different message boards over the last seven years. I've had to edit them a bit so they will make sense, and move a few things around. Ideally I'd have the date of each review, but I'm damned if I'm trawling through the bowels of the internet looking for them. Be warned, some of these reviews assume that you have seen the movie. Also, sometimes the reviews don't actually mention much about the movie at all. Don't ask why. It's just the way it is. Just click on the movie to jump straight to its review:
Apocalypto"Apocalypto", although an ideal name for a strongly-flavoured ice cream, is in fact Mel Gibsons's new movie about pre-colonisation Yucatan, using mostly unprofessional actors and conducted entirely through the native Mayan language. Before you start complaining about the subtitles: if you can't read, you have no place on this site. The opening quote seems to indicate that the central thrust of the narrative is to demonstrate that the Mayan civilisation was well on the way to ruin before the conquistadores ever showed up. In Gibson's defence, that is a part of the conquest of Mexico we rarely see - that the Aztecs had subjugated huge numbers of the outlying tribes, who were very close to realising that there were more of them than there were of the Aztecs. It was extremely lucky, if you want to use that word, that the Spaniards arrived more or less at the cusp of a civil war. The Spaniards were able to leverage themselves into a very tense political situation, eventually playing one side off against the other, with the alternating support of both. The natives were, in a way, to use one of the words from the subtitles, "fucked". This film shows us something like what ancient Aztec and Mayan civilisation must have actually looked like, and for that we should be truly thankful. Evidently, a lot of work has gone into realising this idea - everything seems authentic, and only the opening scenes are tarnished with sentimentality (of the humble mountain folk" variety). The bustling city scenes rival the Bexhill scenes from Children of Men in their ability to transport you to a different time and a different place effectively. Then, without ceremony, the movie turns into a jungle-based version of Rambo. Don't get me wrong; I like Rambo: First Blood - it's a great movie, but I've seen it already. As you may know from reading my posts, I like seeing things that I've never seen before, in movies, in real life, in books, whatever. How many times in movies have you seen someone jump off a waterfall, only for his pursuers to assume that their quest was at an end? Well there is a neat twist on this idea towards the end of this movie and it's great. A lovely idea. Anyway, forget about what Mel Gibson wants you to think about the political angle and watch the lovely visuals. There are hardly any lulls in the action, and it's much more watchable than I was expecting it to be. Go. Watch. Be happy. Ignore "moral". Back to list of moviesA Cock and Bull StoryI've just seen A Cock And Bull Story, directed by Michael Winterbottom, whose previous pornographic film 9 Songs was held with such derision by all who tried to watch it. A Cock And Bull Story is actually quite good. It comes from the same school of movies as Otto E Mezzo by Frederico Fellini, being as they are movies about the travails of making a movie, the result of which is the movie you're watching. Ha postmodern ha. Otto E Mezzo is alluded to directly through the score, and indirectly through some of the camera angles and situations. The movie is about the attempts of film director Michael Winterbottom to adapt the book "The Life of Tristram Shandy", which was written by Laurence Sterne in 1678, at least partly in Clonmel, where I live. It is regarded as the first post-modern novel, in the sense that it refers to itself on many occasions, and more or less unfilmable, as it jumps around quite a bit and makes little sense at times. In that spirit, Steve Coogan plays himself playing Tristam Shandy, bringing to the part all of his previous work, most notably Around the World in Eighty Days and the Alan Partridge series. Rob Brydon plays Rob Brydon playing Uncle Toby; Gillian Anderson plays Gillian Anderson playing the widow, and whose part is completely cut from the final film; Dylan Moran plays Dylan Moran playing the doctor; and so on. It's a genius of an idea, if not very original, and sometimes it looks like it's going to strangle itself on its own cleverness, but even when it doesn't work, it's still funny. Steve Coogan, checking the source material right after the scriptwriter has decided to add another character: "You'd think with a book this size it would have an index." Dylan Moran, in answer to Gillian Anderson's question about how much he drinks per day, at the preview of the movie: "Some?" I liked it a lot. Back to list of moviesStranger Than FictionThe main problem with this movie is that it was not written by Charlie Kaufman. This might seem like an odd thing to say, but it has all the hallmarks of a Charlie Kaufman script, but with little of his imagination and flair for the absurd. This movie has a Good Idea, but where that would act as a starting point for Kaufman, it seems to be the end-point for this movie. Will Ferrell, as ever, completely owns his part as the puppet at the heart of the story, whose actions are being narrated to him by an increasingly fidgety Emma Thompson. But that's it, really. That's the whole story; it doesn't go anywhere. There's no real bang or spark. The next time someone pitches a movie like this, give it to Charlie Kaufman! That is all. Back to list of moviesJackass: The MovieI think 'Jackass' is a very important cultural phenomenon, for many reasons. First of all, there is no doubt that there is some serious intellectual firepower gone into the production of the programme, with the likes of modern media auteur Spike Jonez involved in its inception, amongst others. Secondly, it is clearly anti-establishment, on two levels. On one level, most establishment types just don't get it. Why is this funny? It's a bunch of fools doing stupid things ... my taxes pay for this? This kind of reaction is always inherently amusing from the old and stupid, because the whole idea is to have fun. It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it is fun. It takes a certain freedom of spirit to see the fun of driving a bicycle at top speed into a brick wall, and that's before we start analysing the distancing effect of the observer on the events. On another level, the actual events depicted are always on the edge of human experience, and often illegal. As the top example, I give you the vomit omlette, as disgusting and off-putting a piece of video footage as I have ever seen anywhere in my life. And it takes a lot to put me off. I couldn't look at food for the best part of a day after that little treat. Thirdly, in a world that is jaded through big fake Hollywood explosions, and big real terrorist explosions, isn't it time we took a step back and had a laugh at ourselves? To get a kick out of the simple things in life, like a skate-boarding Oompa-Loompa, or throwing vegetables into a combine harvester, or getting a colonic irrigation while dressed as Santa Claus (in the Christmas special). Fourthly, as with all incredibly stupid shows, it can often act as a social satire (there's that word again - everyone duck!). The very first test reel pitched to MTV by Spike Jonez and Johnny "Knoxville" was footage of Johnny and a friend in his back yard testing all the non-lethal legally available methods of self-defence on him to see which was "the best". He gets tazered, maced, and in a hilarious sequence, stun gunned:
Classic. The mace won, by the way. Back to list of moviesSunshineFirstly, the traditional solo1 trailer mention. This week's award goes to Neil Gaiman's Stardust, which looks like it could be fantastic, but in danger of being completely ruined by the inclusion of Ricky Gervais by some Zeitgeist-obsessed casting director. And now to Sunshine. It's not a good sign of a movie if the best thing you can say about it is that the soundtrack rocks, which it does. It's rather like, when asked about the talents of a prospective employee, an employer is told, "He's very punctual". The effects are done well, and at the start it looks like it could shape up to be a really good movie, but we've already seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, and we don't need to see it again. It takes a very special director to put the fate of all of humanity at stake, and make the viewer not care, but that's the reality: you won't care. The actors are frequently wooden and difficult to identify with, the plot is difficult to understand sometimes, perhaps due to the odd editing (we are treated to drawn-out sequences of repairing the ship in slow motion, but when they get to a certain XYZ, no one bothers to say anything like "Oh we're here", they're just there), and the motivation of the characters is unclear. I am also told, by someone who would know, that the physics is all wrong. Not that it would matter in a movie that captured your attention and sucked you in, but it doesn't. It just rolls along doing its thing, occasionally demonstrating what it would like to be, but never succeeding. Back to list of moviesChildren of MenMake no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very good movie. The 'no babies' thing is really irrelevant - it's just an excuse for a chase movie in a future fascist version of the Britain we all know and love. And it's probably the most realistic vision of that future that I've ever seen. Senor Cuaron uses the same colour palette he did on his Harry Potter movie, but this time the material actually fits his talents. The script is tight - there is no "down time" in this movie. Go to the bathroom before you watch it. There is a wonderful sequence towards the end where Clive Owen has to go into a ruined hotel to rescue someone and then come out again. It looks as though it's done in one long take, and it's glorious: bodies crumple all around him, clamour, alarums, noises off, exit pursued by an entire division of the army. Bombs and bullets swooping and diving and screeching. And because of the unreasonably high death count of the principal cast, you honestly have no idea if he's going to make it or not. There is real tension here. Welcome to Gaza City. Also, this is one of the few movies which knows how to end itself. How many times, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, have you seen wonderful movies with great ideas just peter out, or have gratingly inappropriate dénouements? Answer: many. This movie is a guide to all movie makers for how to END THE FUCKING THING PROPERLY! Seriously, you guys. There is special mention for the two trailers that were shown with my cinema's print of Children of Men. There The Grudge 2, the trailer for which was so screwed-up as to be almost unwatchable (good sign) and Smoking Aces, what seems to be, from the trailer, a punk-gangster robbery death movie, but which was wonderfully advertised at the start of said trailer as "From the makes of Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually." Funny stuff. Back to list of moviesGhost RiderIt's easy to see why Hollywood got on the comics bus. They say that 1% of all submitted scripts get considered for production, and that 1% of those scripts get made into movies, but with comic books they already have a workable story (and let's be honest, the average comic book plot is a much higher standard than the average movie plot) produced to the storyboard stage of the process. As Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller found out, it's almost too easy! But something went terribly wrong here; this is a terrible movie. It's unconvincingly acted, badly scripted and lazily directed. The only scenes that really pop are the ones with Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes trying to figure out what their relationship is. Yes, that's how bad this movie is - the Dawson's Creek scenes are the best. The sets look amateurish, the villains are one-dimensional, hackneyed and predictable. My first suggestion would be to completely excise all the "establishing" scenes - the entire first half hour. They are so badly cobbled together that you come out less attached to the main characters than if you were just thrown in at the deep end. God knows they repeat everything about his father and the girl so often you don't need to actually see any of it. Even the special effects are a bit ropy - yeah he's riding his flamey motorcycle up a skyscraper. Meh. Is there anything good in this movie? Nic Cage's performance - the script isn't his fault. Eva Mendes, surprisingly, manages to rescue her involvement in this story, not least with an entire wardrobe designed around the theme of décolletage. Sam Elliot is playing the same character he plays in every movie he's ever been - grizzled Western dude. If you think you might like this, wait for the DVD rental. Back to list of moviesPan's LabyrinthWell, it's very sad. I never considered the option of whether or not it's real, even when the Nazi couldn't see anything. He's on brain-bending drugs and probably drunk too. Also he's a Nazi. It's a nice idea that, like the Haitian in Heroes, one of the Nazi superpowers is that they kill imagination and fairy tales. He can't see it because he's a Nazi. That's all I took from it. (This idea is in Wim Wender's Faraway, So Close! too, in a wonderful sequence where a bunch of angels are physically paralysed in the presence of Nazis attending an art gallery opening). When the notion that it might not be real was introduced to me after watching it, the first thought I had was that the Spanish Civil War part was not real. That she was underground all the time. Why not? What's more ridiculous: what happened in Spain in the 1930s, or meeting a faun underground who tells you you're a lost princess? It is a genuinely close call. There are many themes: the theme already mentioned of how Nazis kill the imagination, and to a lesser extent, how growing up kills the magic in your life; also there is the theme of blindly following orders (otherwise known as the Nuremberg Defence). Nazis just blindly follow orders: little girls and doctors don't. Back to list of moviesSlitherFor those of you for whom originality is important, this movie will come as a terrible disappointment, having taken ideas and scenes (sometimes almost verbatim) from every science fiction and horror movie ever made. At times it becomes like a competition: Spot the Allusion. For the rest of us, who demand nothing more than a fun movie for our five euros (yes, X-Tra Vision in Clonmel are now charging five euro for a new rental - the cinema next door charges nine euro) will be happy. It's that guy from Firefly! It's that guy from Mallrats! It's that guy from every TV show ever made! And ... is that the priest lady from Battlestar Galactica? Why, yes. Yes it is! Star spotting over. Movie time. Zombies, caused by space worms. Fun and games, running, screaming, dying. Good, but not fantastic. I wanted more jokes and less pumping wounds. Back to list of movies300I don't know if it comes packaged with 300 all over the country, but in Clonmel, there was a trailer for the latest Tarantino / Rodriguez thing called Grindhouse, which looks like lots of fun - Rose McGowan with a shotgun instead of a leg. Sweet. 300 might as well have been called Grindhouse - that's what the Thermopylae section was all about - Persians throwing themselves into the Spartan war machine and being crushed, stabbed, kicked, shield-bashed, strangled, lanced, blithely made into a wall, decapitated, skewered, and perhaps most hurtful of all, dismissed as unequal to the task of defeating even females. All the iconic images from Frank Miller's (how come it took movies so long to catch up with this guy?) original comic book are there: Xerxes on his spectacular throne; the writhing oracle; the arrow-studded shields; the Persian army being forced off the edge of a cliff; and it's always nice to see a phalanx in action ... wonderful stuff. It drags a bit when they go back to Sparta to follow Leonidas's wife's efforts to garner support for his actions in the council. But I suppose that's like complaining about the quiet bits of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; the whole point is to give your brain a rest so that when you do get back to Thermopylae, you will be ready. And you will need to be ready, because, as Pink Floyd said in "Sheep": "Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream." Gird your loins; prepare your loved ones. 300 is in town. In other news, I have got to get me an oracle. Back to list of moviesCasino RoyaleLe Parkour on a building site in Uganda! That's something I've never seen before. Although every Bond movie seems to swing by the Bahamas for a while. And why not? This one's a bit different from the rest of the Bond movies, but then again, the last Casino Royale movie was completely different from the rest of the Bond movies, so that works. Daniel Craig plays it pretty straight, with none of Roger Moore's chronic smart-aleckry or Sean Connery's relaxed charm. There's no relaxed charm here - he's permanently tense, like he's waiting for something to happen. It works quite well in the fight scenes, and the chase scenes, but when something a little bit more sympathetic is called for, it just doesn't work. But the rest of it does. With other Bond movies it shares that rather odd characteristic where you're not 100% what's going on, exactly, at any point, or why exactly they are in this particular location, or exactly how many bad guys there are, or what they are doing, or why. Although this would ruin other movies, in Bond movies, it doesn't really matter. The plot is an after-thought to the action sequences, which rock. Things you need to know: Wicker Man (2006)Like most remakes, watching this movie reminds of just how great the original is, and there is no way in hell Ellen Burstyn even approaches the quotidian insanity of Christopher Lee. Mmm .. Christopher Lee. I might as well admit I have no idea what it would be like to watch this movie without having seen the original, so if you haven't seen The Wicker Man (1973), then this will be no good to you, because I will be speaking mainly about the differences. The first difference is bees. Bees are all over the place in this movie. And they are all over the island. And Nicolas Cage's character has an allergy to bees. So I wonder what's going to happen there. The second difference is the manner in which religion is dealt with. In the original Wicker Man, the pagan religion of the Summerisle is allegorically linked with Edward Woodward's character's Christianity, sometimes contrasting, and sometimes revealed to be pretty much the same thing, the difference being nothing more than hundreds of years of bureaucracy. The whole point of the original was how pagan beliefs are more or less the same as the beliefs of religious people everywhere: an atavistic, sacrificial, brutal insanity. In this new movie, it seems as though the paganism and religious commentary are shoehorned in, with an almost disdainful reluctance, in order to further the horror-story aspect. The scenes of paganism seem rushed, badly explained, and badly-executed. All that would be forgiveable, if annoying. But director Neil La Bute (for 'tis he) seems to hate women. His debut, In the Company of Men was so misogynistic it was actually uncomfortable to watch, and the point of the thing escaped me. So it is with this movie, where every act of violence against women is calculated by the narrative to elicit either whoops of encouragement, or at least a smile. Whenever a man is the victim of violence, the story demands pity. There is also the rather quaint implication that a matriarchal society would subjugate men to such an extent that they would lose the power of speech and generally fail at being human. Which is bullshit. The last difference is in the curious flatness of the performances. In the original, all the actors involved were really throwing themselves into the parts - even unto the two Swedish actresses having a fair stab at Scottish accents. In this, it seems as though the actors just don't care - they're reading dialogue out and moving around. Now maybe LaBute is doing a Kubrick and intentionally draining the life out of his actors to produce an intended effect, but I doubt it. And even if it were true, LaBute is no Kubrick. So much potential. So little realisation of that potential. Sad times. Back to list of moviesThe Constant GardenerThe feel-good romp of the year! Ralph Fiennes plays a British Diplomat posted in Kenya who loves mucking about in his garden. His wife, played by Rachel Weisz uncovers a conspiracy involving pharmaceutical companies - with hilarious consequences! Will Ferrell, radiant as ever, plays the bumbling CEO of Deathchem Inc, who in a particularly amusing scene, can't tell the difference between malaria and TB. And look out for a cameo from Ben Stiller as a doctor who accidentally unplugs an AIDS victim's machine! Highly recommended, but not for any of the reasons above. Back to list of moviesLady in the WaterAs with many bad movies, there's nothing wrong with the central idea - fairy tale lady needs certain conditions to save universe; characters drive plot through provision of such conditions. However, the whole thing just seems very laboured, and there is the suspicion that some scenes are private jokes known only to Shamalangadingdong and whoever the joke is directed towards. In particular, the way a film critic character is ridiculed and then dealt with viciously seems to rely more on how Shamalangadingdong feels about film critics than actually going to the bother of identifying with a target audience. Which leads me to the next question: who is this movie aimed at? Children will get bored at the long, dialogue-heavy, ponderous sections. Adults will marvel at the lack of character motivation and almost comically-inept narrative technique. Maybe that's the central flaw in this movie - the way it's written makes it extremely difficult to identify with any of the characters with whom this movie would require you to identify in order to derive any enjoyment therefrom. Back to list of moviesOld BoyThe first part of this Korean movie resembles something written by Kafka and directed by Terry Gilliam. The second part more resembles an episode of Cold Case directed by Quentin Tarantino. I was going to say that there are jaw-droppingly spectacular scenes in it, which there are, but it would be more true to say that it's really a succession of jaw-droppingly spectacular scenes connected by some genuinely disturbing exposition. The central drive behind the story is following the main character, Dae Su, in his mission to discover why he was locked in a room for fifteen years. That answer, and how it plays out, is easily the most disturbing thing I have EVER seen in a movie, so prepare yourself for a sincere OMG moment. I'm not going to say what it is, because it would ruin the stomach-churning for you, and I don't want to do that. You probably wouldn't believe me anyway. Perhaps surprisingly for a movie whose impact depends on the ending, it bears repeated viewings very well. It might be something to do with the wonderful soundtrack, and the generally professional cinematography, or that it's just a bloody good movie, bloody well made. Back to list of moviesSpiderman 3Surely, in a superhero movie, the main focus of the thing should be on the trials and tribulations of the hero, the things he gets up to, the bad guys he has to face down, and so on? These are the only things my wife said during the movie:
That last comment was concerning the editor of the Bugle trying desperately to be calm about Ted Raimi's dumb-ass advertising ideas, not about anything involving Spiderman or the bad guys. And that's the problem: the best bits are, without a doubt, the newspaper editor and Bruce Campbell, in a movie which is supposed to be about Spiderman's wrestle with the dark side of his powers. And even with that as the premise, we don't see much of it, because in the middle of when it could be getting interesting, he more or less hands the dark powers over to someone else. Grr. It was amusing to see that "dark Spiderman" was distinguishable from "good Spiderman" by being a little more emo. If we are to take anything from this movie, let it be that EMO = EVIL. In short: more of the same. Just rent out Spiderman 2 and watch that instead. You'll have missed nothing. Back to list of moviesTrue CrimeClint Eastwood's in it! How bad can it be, right? Well, it's not terrible, but it's not great either. Clint Eastwood is clearly too old to play even the role of a has-been hack, but to his credit, the character is really not a nice person at all, and is willing to sacrifice his family life with his wife and daughter ("speed zoo!" is probably the most heartbreaking scene in the film) to write a career-saving story. He is shown hitting on women who are fifty years younger than him, and who, instead of the expected "Ew", actually entertain his advances. It's a jolt of non-realism that takes you out of the movie when you need to be in it. Having said that, this is a well-acted but fairly predictable thriller, the entire action of which takes place over the course of the one 24-hour period. A man is about to be killed by the state for a murder he did not commit, and one crusading journalist and failed human being is going to stop it. That's it. Sometimes it's almost like a drawn-out episode of Murder She Wrote, and the entire movie hinges on a chance photograph, towards the end, of the victim, a deus ex machina riding in to save the day. Thankfully, in Million Dollar Baby, he had the balls to follow the story where it was going. The best thing about this movie is unquestionably James Woods, who steals every scene he's in. I was expecting more from Dennis Leary, who more or less melts into the background in an uncharacteristically understated way. Back to list of moviesPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's ChestWoo! Johnny Depp, pirates, three ships in the sunset, huge squid, heart in a box, sunny island madness, three men in a wheel, whatever. You have to wonder, though, at what point exactly the producers realised that these movies were going to be about Johnny Depp. The first movie was obviously designed as an Orlando Bloom / Keira Knightley joint, but it didn't work out that way, as all anyone could remember afterwards was how cool Captain Jack Sparrow was. I imagine that realisation was similar to the mental brick that hit the producers of The Simpsons when they realised that their show wasn't about Bart at all, but about Homer. This situation is wonderfully parodied in the first episode of the second season of Extras, which shows Orlando Bloom as almost terminally jealous of the success of Johnny Depp at his expense. Yeah, anyway, the movie is fun, if you like that sort of thing, even if it's a bit difficult to follow sometimes. In other news, I would totally do that black chick with the weird accent in that shack in the swamp. She's like a goth-death-metal goddess. Rawr. Back to list of moviesShaun of the DeadThis is the dual work of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. It's funny, but not as funny as their previous incarnation, a TV series on Channel 4 called Spaced. It was arguably the funniest series ever. The fact that it lasted only two seasons tells you everything you need to know about how good it is. Other celebrated appearances by Simon Pegg include an episode of I'm Alan Partridge as an advertising feature film-maker, and the "Paedogeddon" episode of Brass Eye. If you can get your hands on that episode of Brass Eye, you will be doing yourself a favour. The humour is even more edgy than South Park. On the surface, zombie movies seem to be about how small bands of survivors cope (and reveal their true characters) when their entire world is wiped out in an afternoon. This is much fun, of course, and spawns wonderful conversations about what you would do should the zombie apocalypse present itself tomorrow. However, there is also the undercurrent, most obvious in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) that zombies are a lot closer to us than we would like to think. It is very much in this spirit that our hero goes about his daily business on the first day of the zombie apocalypse without noticing anything unusual at all. But, being Simon Pegg, it's just very very funny. This movie, like every movie made this year, stars Bill Nighy. Back to list of moviesTeam America: World PoliceTrey Parker and Matt Stone have been consistently churning out the best social satire and anti-establishment comedy programmes in the world (that I am aware of - maybe there's some underground stuff going on in China). The Simpsons is a great great show, but it's on a network, at prime time, and so has to work within certain parameters. In many ways, The Simpsons, while masquerading as anti-establishment, is actually very pro-establishment. For instance, Marge is always in the home, doing wifey things. Any times she leaves to get a job or do anything else which she should be more than capable of doing, she is either forced back into the home, or returns of her own free will, as though it was a mother's fate to remain tied to a kitchen sink.South Park, on the other hand, has one of its leading characters mothered by a crack-whore. Here endeth the lesson. Occasionally they wander into the world of movies, acting in (and despite the lack of credit, surely writing a goodly portion of) the wonderful BASEketball, and eventually getting around to South Park: The Musical, which managed to mock all mainstream musicals, while featuring some catchy tunes in its own right. As for Team America: World Police, any movie which mocks George Bush, Osama Bin Laden and Michael Moore in equal measure gets my vote, and this is a movie where knowledge of big names will help the laughs. Matt Damon is depicted as having a two-word vocabulary, and Alec Baldwin is a self-obsessed, but dumb, peace-pusher. The opening scene tells you everything you need to know - a puppet show pulls back to reveal an entire puppet Paris, which is soon utterly destroyed by the American strike force. As the French people stare in horror at the desolation of their city, one of the American 'world police' says: "It's OK, everyone, we have saved you!" As the movie progresses, we are treated to scenes of two puppets having sex and a puppet throwing up a volume of semi-digested beer surely greater than the volume of the puppet. The good news is that the good guys win. Back to list of moviesStardustBased on the wonderful Neil Gaiman fairy tale, this is about a guy who promises a girl that he'll get her the heart of a shooting star as a gift. But soft! What light from yonder window breaks? The star is a girl! And so he has to drag this girl all the way back to the wall separating the magical kingdom from his little English village. Along the way they have to contend with princes duelling for the right of succession, three witches determined to be young and pretty forever, a slave-driving hag, Ricky Gervais and a flaming pirate queen. It's a bit like The Princess Bride, to be honest, so if you liked that movie, you'll probably like this one: a guy and a girl ostensibly unimpressed with each other travel across a magical land having amusing, episodic adventures with cameo stars, and fall in love on the way. In other words it's charming, but not in a terribly sentimental way. Back to list of movies3:10 to YumaA great old-fashioned Western about escorting Russell Crowe to a train which will take him to jail, and all the fun and games that happen along the way. Christian Bale has been secured by the railroad company to make sure that this happens, and as the party dwindles it becomes clear that Bale's character will be the only one left to do that job. If you like Westerns, this one has all the features of most of the good Westerns that I have seen, like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Searchers and The Magnificent Seven:
Bloody hell. They really are all the same! I'm going to make a Western right now. Back to list of movies30 Days of NightI really liked the comic book by Steve Niles. It's very simple, the central premise to which is this single great idea: If vampires hate the sun so much, how come they don't hang around the North Pole more often, where it's night all the time for some parts of the year? So with such a simple idea, I reasoned, how could they possibly screw up the movie? But screw it up they do. Not in a monumental, glorious fashion either; the failure is quiet, and creeps up on you. There comes a time, a scene, a single line, in every bad movie where you realise that it's a bad movie, and unless something drastic happens soon, it's going to stay a bad movie. For me, this realisation hit when the vampires started speaking some weird clicky-screamy language which required subtitles. Firstly, why would vampires need their own language? They're not a separate species, they're humans who have been altered in a weird way. Secondly, in the comic, an important plot point was revealed through some overheard conversation between vampires. In fact, sometimes the movie veers off completely. In the comic, the vampires in Barrow are on some kind of rogue mission with which they hope to impress their boss (vampires always seem to have some sort of strict feudal hierarchy), and that creates more plot points. In the movie, there is no vampire boss, but they still have the extra plot points that only make sense if there's someone else giving the orders. In the comic, they hide out in someone's basement like a storm cellar, and they stay there, and that's cool. In the movie, they hide out in an attic, and then they move to the general store, and then they decide to go to this big metal building that looks like a mosque, the purpose of which is never explained, but it seems to have a trash compactor. It could have been so much simpler and easier, like the comic, and I have no idea why they felt the need to make it so much more complicated. Maybe they had to fill out the running time - I don't know. In any case, it seems to be not so much a terrible movie as a failed opportunity. Back to list of moviesInto the WildThis movie is about a well-off young man who just decided to up and live on his own in Alaska. As he has no survival skills to speak of, this is as stupid and short-lived a move as that state's campaign for Vice President. So, in order to make the story less depressing, it concentrates on his journey to Alaska, the people he meets (who seem to be universally charmed by him) and the things he does (all of which seem to be pointless). Because he is the hero of the movie, however, the narrative has no choice but to deceive the audience into identifying with him. In this, it does a very good job. In fact, the whole thing is just a well-directed, well-acted piece of film. Even the soundtrack, put together by Eddie Vedder, which had huge suckage potential, works very well with the subject matter. You may be wondering what the point of this movie is. Maybe, like There Will Be Blood, it's not really supposed to have a point other than to be a example of how to make good movies. I'm not sure myself, but I know that I would watch it again, and recommend it to friends. However, there are many implied lessons:
RamboConfusingly, this is the fourth movie in the series, the first of which had the official title "First Blood". Sylvester Stallone seems to be re-visiting his old franchises one at a time, for in short order we have had Rocky IV and now this new Rambo movie. Back to list of movies
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