October 2011

Quite a range of film watched this month, although I didn’t fancy the King’s Speech and can’t see myself changing my mind any time soon!

Little Fockers:

I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of this series on films, but thought I would go against my better judgement and watch the latest version.

In general I like Ben Stiller movies, and anything where he works with Owen Wilson should be a good thing, but in a word......NO!

Comedy – Rating:
1 out of 5 (funny, but encourages me to stick to my gut, hence I’m never watching the King’s Speech)

Pirates of the Caribbean – On Strangers Tides:

For a movie franchise based out of an amusement ride at Disneyland, I have to admit they have done well. The first film in the series was excellent, with a strong cast throughout, and when they wanted to make the 2^nd and 3^rd films, the producers did manage to squeeze an almost consistent storyline throughout them all. However with Orland Bloom replacing Davy Jones “at world’s end” there is just no workable way to make a fourth instalment (and I hear their planning a fifth).

Yes I’ll admit that Jonny Depp as Jack Sparrow is a great movie role, but a Pirates without Kiera Knightley just isn’t worth watching!

So with no Orlando and Kiera my expectations were pretty low, and then there’s Blackbeard.....whoever thought of casting Lovejoy in the role really does need shooting!

We end up with by far the worst of the Pirates series, but can be quite an enjoyable film if you can’t remember the first three.

Fantasy Adventure – Rating:
3 out of 5 (how long can Jonny Depp keep this franchise going)

Tangled:

Now this isn’t really my type of film, and I’m not 100% sure how it ended up on my Lovefilm list, but I thought I watch it for the amusement factor.

Now I shouldn’t have to explain the story of Rapunzel, but modern animation really does revitalise these classic tales. In general the film was fun with the horse being my favourite character. All-round good family entertainment.

Kid’s film – Rating:
4 out of 5

The Social Network:

Yes I use Facebook, but no I don’t want to watch a movie about it! Or at least I didn’t think I wanted to.

I had been putting off watching this for some time and I’ll be the first to admit that was a mistake. This film is brilliant!

Now I have no idea how truthful the movie is, or how realistic the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg is, but I don’t care.

Jesse Eisenberg is great all the way through and even Justin Timberlake’s performance makes me want to have a beer with Sean Parker.

If you use Facebook you simply have to see this movie, even if you avoid it and prefer Twitter it’s a must see........... hell if you own a computer (which is probably a given as your reading this blog) I can’t emphasise enough how much you need to check this out!

Biographic Drama – Rating:
5 out of 5

September 2011

It’s been a while since I updated this blog, as one article per movie is just too tricky to fit into my busy schedule!

So from now on I’m going to do a monthly update covering a summary of each of the movies I’ve watched, however I have a bit of catching up to do.

Luckily my LoveFilm subscription keeps a record of the movies I have rented, so at least I know where to start.

Season of the Witch:

Well there’s one big negative from the very start and that’s down to the fact that Nicholas Cage is playing an action hero, which I have never thought he does well. So this turns out to be another pretty average Cage film. The one positive about the film is Ron Pearlman, who delivers a typical performance in his typical role. General plotline is a little iffy and not the easiest to understand the point of the movie. So I come away with one thought, which is the way I’m generally left after a Cage film, wondering how much better could this have been with a different leading man!

Action and Adventure – Rating:
2 out of 5 (propped up by some good action scenes)

How do you Know:

Looking at the cast list everything looks promising, Owen Wilson – always funny, Jack Nicholson – never fails to deliver a great performance, Reese Witherspoon – truly beautiful and enjoyable to watch, and Paul Rudd – who I have to say is one of my favourite actors around today.

Well I have to say, it did deliver!

Although this was a pretty predictable chick flick, the bizarre characters and irregular storyline made for a very enjoyable film. In general very funny, with some outstanding lines from all the cast, with a highlight being when Rudd literally runs away from bad news!

RomCom – Rating:
4 out of 5

Sucker Punch:

Now this was at the very top of my LoveFilm list for some time. The trailers I had seen on TV looked impressive, with amazing action scenes and stunning cast members, however there was very little mention of the actual storyline which sheds a different light on the movie.

So the film starts with the death of “babydoll’s” mother, which leaves her open to the abuse of her Stepfather. Although she tries to put an end to this abuse by shooting him, only to accidently kill her young sister she was trying to protect. The result of this being that she is sent to a mental institution, where she is subject to further abuse by the Porters and orderlies!

The only way to cope with the situation is to retreat to an alternate reality, which translates to her and the other patients now being Erotica dancers/strippers/hookers for the now “Pimp” head orderly, which in turn requires its own escapism when it’s the girl turn to “perform”.

Now this 3^rd level of reality is where the action happens! babydoll works with the other elite warrior chicks to conquer a series of demons and challenges in order to gather the items needed to escape the brothel..... mental asylum.

The real world story line is only ever seen when the actions scenes end badly, and this results in very uncomfortable viewing. You can’t ignore the base reality, which is very disturbing, this then makes watching the young girls dressed as strippers very awkward too. It’s a shame really, as the action scenes in the 3^rd level alternate reality is truly spectacular.

Although it works out kind of alright in the end, the lead character does end up getting a frontal lobotomy, which is never a good way to end a movie!

Fantasy Adventure – Rating:
2 out of 5 (uncomfortable watching)

Your Highness

This week I’ave been mostly watching Your Highness

And I have to say I was really looking forward to watching this as it seemed to have all the attributes of a quality but stupid action comedy. The film itself was very good, but I think they really missed a trick, as this could have been a true classic if they have taken the time to make it a little funnier, without the unnecessary crudeness.

Don’t get me wrong, I love pointless crude and disgusting humour as much as the next guy, but just think that some of it could have easily been replaced with funnier materials. This is definitely not a film for the kids! Natalie Portman sums it up as “an adult Princess Bride”. The film is spawned around the concepts of the 80’s classics such as Hawk the Slayer and Krull.

Basic storyline, is focus on the dashingly handsome James Franco as Prince Fabious who regularly rescues the kingdom from Evil and the dim-witted layabout Prince Thadeous played by the lead man and writer Danny McBride. Franco’s virgin bride to be Zooey Deschannel is kidnapped by Evil Wizard Leezar and McBride is forced to accompany Franco on his first ever quest. Along the way they are betrayed by their knights elite, then rescued, betrayed and then befriended by the feisty Natalie Portman. There’s a few different twists and turns along the way, but eventually Thadeous realises he could be a hero if he just got of his fat ass and tried. Ultimately Franco and McBride slay Leezar and rescue Zooey from “the fuckaning”

Likes number one, has to be Natalie Portman. I’ve always been a big fan of everything she does and I have to say this is some of her finest acting (especially with the lines she has to get through, watching the gag reel shows just how tricky some of the scenes were). She also looks stunning all the way through the movie, with the highlight being, Likes number two, where she strips down to a tiny bikini and dives into a lake. Likes number three, lots of stupid humour, Likes number four, the tribe of naked women using Paige Tyler as a man trap!

Dislikes number one, the writers/director/actors seemed unable to decide exactly how each character should talk, there is an attempt to use ye olde English for the majority of the script with badly added swearing and modernisations. Dislike number two, the fact that the scene with Natalie Portman stripping down is filmed from far too far away! Dislike number three, would be the whole Minotaur piece, I mean the dry humping was odd, but chopping of its penis and wearing it as a trophy is just plain creepy (it probably would have seemed more appropriate if the scene where Natalie suggested doing the same to McBride was left on the cutting room floor). Dislike number four, would be the crudeness of lot of the humour, the film would have been funnier if the writers of the jokes and one lines had tried to be fun rather than just disgusting. Dislike number five, has to be the very bizarre wise wizard scene, where they seemed to borrow the animatronics from Farscape but proceed to put the dirty mind of a sex maniac in control of the puppet! Dislike number six, would be the lack of explanation as to why “Julie” had the genitalia of an action man figure. The final dislike number seven has to be the mechanical bird. Now I can see why they did it as a reference to Clash of the Titans, but why oh why was it called Simon!

So it may sound like I didn’t like the film, but in general I did. I laugh all the way through and enjoyed the wide variety of scenes and characters. I thought it was going to be funnier and was a little disappointed it didn’t quite reach my expectations. I would recommend watching it, but it’s definitely not one for the kids!!

Random pub talking point….do you feel awkward watching Leon?

Battle: Los Angeles

This week I’ave been mostly watching Battle: Los Angeles
And there isn’t really too much to say about it. I was forewarned by plenty of people that told me the movie wasn’t worth the two hours of my life, but my 9 & 11 year old nephews had assured me that it was brilliant and I just had to see it!

Basic storyline, is that NASA has spotted some asteroids heading to Earth that will crash land in the ocean….no wait just of the coast……hang on a minute maybe all across the world…..oh and actually only by major population areas…. And as there slowing down just before impact quite possibly there alien spaceships and not asteroids at all!!! Aliens then proceed to invade Earth destroying every military force in there way, but “we can’t let Los Angeles fall!”
Rather than dealing with the whole invasion the story focuses on a single platoon run by an out of favour and retiring Staff Sergeant Nantz, said platoon get sent in to the warzone to visit the local Police station and rescue any civilians. The Police station in question is in the alien beach head that will have the shit bombed out of it in the next 3 hours. The movie continues with several predictable fight scenes and some pretty poor aliens that may or may not have air support, and may or may not be dead. Luckily a vet (the lovely Bridget Moynahan) is on hand to help dissect a semi dead alien to help figure out exactly how best to actually kill one! Nantz (the already very decorated hero) becomes the hero (who’d have thought) and leads his team (in ever diminishing numbers) not only to the police station, but back to base on a bus and back again into the war zone (that didn’t get bombed) to destroy the Alien Commandship that controls the drone ships that have currently thwarted our air born military strikes, YAY!

Likes number one, Bridget Moynahan. Likes number two, the “We Were Soldiers” way that Nantz and the team restock and head back into the war zone lead by my favourite line of the movie “we already had breakfast”. Likes number three, “Frag Out!” and that’s about all there is good about the movie.
Dislikes number one, the film seemed to have very little point without really achieving anything all the way through. Dislike number two, let’s send a team in on foot until they get to their target and then we’ll send in a helicopter to collect the civilians….. if you’re going that way, why not just take them there on the helicopter in the first place!
So there’s not really that much to dislike about it, but then again there isn’t anything to like about it either, the whole thing is rather a non-event. If you are thinking about watching this, I would consider just dusting off your old copy of Independence Day and sitting back and enjoying a classic instead!
Random pub talking point….isn’t it lucky that Aliens only ever seem to invade when the human race have developed the technology/fire power to fight back! (here’s looking forward to Cowboys vs Aliens)

Star Trek

This week I ‘ave been mostly watching Star Trek (and not the series from the 60’s)
Although the original series looks rather dated these days most people will admit it was pretty revolutionary at the time and has spawned several spin off series and movies each with varying levels of success.
It seemed for a long time that the movie franchise had taken the storylines as far as they could go and I’m pretty sure most people would have been happy with it ending at Star Trek: Nemesis with was to me one of the best films in the series after First Contact.
I’m not sure where the idea came from to re-invent the saga and take it back to the very beginning with an all new young cast and the hit & miss director J.J. Abrams, but I’m really glad they have.
And seemingly contradictory to how movie makers usually go about it, someone actually had the common sense to write a storyline that actually works and doesn’t take anything away for the previous films and sets things up nicely for future sequels to develop along their own lines. They did achieve this with a little dose of time travel, but the way they embraced it and showed all the knock on effects it does allow plenty of scope for development going forward.
Basic storyline starts in the future with Romulus being destroyed by a Super Nova that good old Spock was not able to prevent. One very angry Eric Bana gets drawn back through time and waits patiently for old man Spock to be pulled through the Blackhole after him so he can return the favour and destroy Vulcan. As a result of the time travel Kirk life takes a major turn becoming a bum rather than a Star Fleet officer. Many twists and turns get him back where he needs to be by the end of the movie.
Great action scenes all the way through with some excellent castings including former “Kyle Reese” Anton Yelchin as Chekov.
Likes number one has to be the pub scene starting with a very drunk Kirk trying to chat up the very sexy Uhura (Zoe Saldana), with a fight pack middle and ending with the line “you can whistle really loud!”
Like number two, and I’m jumping forward in the story, but Simon Pegg as Scotty is pure genius......”I love this ship”
Like number three, is the fact that you can already embrace the future with a quick trip to a public toilet, knowing full well that the Dyson Airblade even has a role on a Star Ship!
Like number four, the symptoms Kirk experiences while sneaking aboard the Enterprise ended with a great Cartman impression.
Like number four, is the classic Star Trek away mission selection process. Two of the main cast and a random dude.....hmmmm wondered what might happen to him :-)
Like number five, “Get out of the Chair”
I could go on talking about the quality action scenes and cinema photography throughout the movie, but should mention a few issues that I have.
Dislike number one, is the Drill! Random Pub talking point: How fucking long and strong would that drill have to be to reach from an orbiting space ship into the atmosphere of the planet? And how long would it take to reel back in when you’ve finished?
Dislike number two, has to be the ridiculous amount of Red Matter there is. If you only need to ignite a single drop of the stuff to create a blackhole, why would you feel the need to fly around with a ball the size of a giant angry bird toy I saw in Hamleys the other day!!
Dislike number three, sky dive from space......really!!! Not that I work for NASA, but I’m pretty sure that even the slightest imperfection in the hull of a space shuttle will result in a pretty large explosion, what exactly are those space suits made out of for you to be able to dive head first into the atmosphere?
Dislike number four, the Giant Red monster on the ice planet. The scene starts well with a Polar bear type creature chasing after Kirk, but then a slightly out of place looking creature crashes through the ice but decides the tiny human would be a more suitable meal then the Bear it’s already got in its chops. And how on earth did evolution think that stilts for legs would be good on sheet ice!

In general this is a very good action movie, with a well thought out cast and script. There is a nice element of humour with some good character twists from the original series.
I’m not a full Trekkie, but I have to say I have always enjoyed the movies, but feel you could happily enjoy this movie regardless of whether you have ever seen Start Trek before or not.
It’s another keeper for your Blu-Ray, DVD or iTunes stock!

Knight and Day

This week I ‘ave been mostly watching Knight and Day.

If anyone had the miss fortune to see Vanilla Sky, I imagine they would steer well clear of any other film starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in the lead roles. However this film is pretty special and I would highly recommend it to a wide variety of audiences.

Tom is renown for high octane action films and some of the crazier stunts in this film will satisfy any all action fan’s. It also has a massive amount of humour and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Cameron plays her usual slightly dippy but absolutely gorgeous female lead role embracing the feisty action side of her character.

Basic storyline, Tom is the FBI’s top agent gone rogue who selects Cameron as his “mule” through airport security which draws the two of them together for a worldwide cat and mouse action adventure with a variety of twists and turns along the way.

Likes number one, the first fight scene on the aeroplane while Miss Diaz freshens up in the bathroom is pretty special with Tom incapacitating or killing all the other agents on the plane (including pilots) all in the time it take a lady to use the loo!

Which leads directly to Likes number two, where he calmly explains the situation to her over a drink and casually strolls into the cockpit to land the plane!

Like number three, has to be the missing scenes. On several occasions they get into situations that are simply impossible even for the A-team trapped in a B&Q to escape! Fortunately Cameron usually gets drugged just before their captured and you get to see a superb glimpses of the escape action scene’s while leaving it pretty much to your imagination how they manage to arrive in a new country safe and sound and usually in a different outfit!

And again that leads nicely into Likes number four...... What am I wearing? A bikini we’re in the tropics! And how did I get in the bikini?

Likes number five, is the general comedy and quality lines. “No one follows us or I kill myself and then her” :-)

Likes number six, and this is not something I expected to be saying on this blog, but that has to be one of the top 5 all time best movie kisses I have ever seen, when Miss Diaz is a little “honest” from her truth serum and just doesn’t believe Tom’s happy to see her!

I could easily go on, but they should gather by now that I really like this movie and could gladly watch it again and again. It good simple fun with a crazy action scene’s... what more could you want.

The only part that I thought was taking it to far would be Dislike number one, picture a bull fighter replacing his cape with a red motorbike.... No!

I already have this downloaded to my iTunes and would highly recommend buying it rather than hiring it, as you will happily watching it again and again.

Transformers 3 - The Dark Side of the Moon

This week I ‘ave been mostly watching Transformers 3 – The Dark Side of the Moon (But not in 3D)

Although I’m up on technology I haven’t quite bought in to the whole 3D cinema experience. I am however quite taken in by Sky 3D football but don’t want to invest in a new TV until the next generation of 3D TV’s are released without the need for glasses!

Sorry.... off on a tangent there, I should probably explain that this is kind of how my thought process works so I could break into some random topic out of the blue!

So Transformers 3, I have to say individually not a bad movie at all, however as the 3^rd instalment to a major Hollywood Blockbuster I thought the storyline was shocking! I mean do the movie producers, writers and directors ever think to plan in advance how a storyline could be developed on the off chance they could spin a sequel when they decide to bring a new comic based franchise to the big screen?

It’s not just T3 that has this issue, but I will try to remain focused for today. I just don’t understand the thought process. I mean even if the belief in today’s market that a major movie release may fail at the box office, surely someone has their fingers crossed that if there might possibly one day be the chance to write a sequel, maybe they should invest some time storyboarding possible plot lines to tie future movies together! But obviously not.

So Transformers 1 has a pretty standard storyline about an all powerful “All Spark” that was lost thousands of years ago and the mighty Megatron crash landed at the polar ice cap some time after.

Random pub talking point...... is space colder than Ice?

So regardless of the outcome of the first film let’s look at the storyline for Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Fallen!

Decepticons remember that they’ve been to earth before and built a giant machine to harvest “Energon” by destroying the Sun, our local Star (remember this part for later)

So they rescue Megatron from the crushing depths of the ocean and revive him with some random bits and pieces of “the little one” (remember this part too)

He then proceeds to pop back to Cybertron for a quick chat with the Fallen (not that he needed instructions previously) they decide that with the All Spark gone that it’s knowledge and power have been “transformed” and absorbed into the human child.

They need to find him to figure out the location of the Tomb of the Primes (even though the All Spark was probably lost a long time before the machine was built, otherwise why would they have needed the bloody machine in the first place!)

Decepticons decide to redesign the Pyramids and the fallen pops over from Cybertron for a visit now he feels safe because Optimus Prime is out of the picture (although previously he was happy to take on all six of his Prime Brothers)

Optimus gets revived by the Matrix of Leadership (because we know this can’t be done with just any old spare parts!) He then proceeds to clean up as usual leaving Megatron to run and hide.

So that finally brings us to the plot of Transformers 3 the Dark side of the Moon (great Pink Floyd album by the way) and probably the point that most of you are thinking I should have started this article ..... sorry.

Storyline at the start of the movie is that back in the day, the Autobots had a super duper, all singing, all dancing new piece of tech that would finally turn the tide of the War. The ship carrying the Tech gets shot down and is lost forever, but somehow manages to travel the vast void of space to crash land on the Moon (in the early 70’s).

Storyline be the end of the movie however is that the great scientist and former leader of the Autobots “Sentinel Prime” decide a long time ago that if you can’t beat them join them, and as such thought the best way to transport the components of an Inter Galactic Space Bridge (as used by the former Decepticon Jetfire in T2) would be to use a ship and not an Inter Galactic Space Bridge (which is kind of like typing an email, printing it out, putting it in an envelope and posting it second class). Once on Earth, Sentinel Prime would team up with Megatron and use the bridge to transport Cybertron (the whole actual planet) closer to Earth to facilitate the use of human slave labour to rebuild the planet (Did no one think to check how we humans tend to use Giant Machines to build stuff as our opposable thumbs aren’t exactly designed for large scale metal work projects) But the Decepticons first had to trick Optimus to use the matrix of leadership to revive Sentinel Prime because we know from early that wouldn’t work with just any random bits of a Decepticon!!!

Sentinel Prime revived makes his first objective to open a small bridge to allow some 200 reinforcements (many of which appeared to be buried on the moon) to travel to Earth the old fashion way rather than just fly there themselves as that would just be silly!

New army of Decepticons in place, they decide to take over Chicago (mainly because that’s where Sam’s new pointless hotty girlfriend works alongside a secret society of Decepticon worshippers)

Some note worthy additions to the plot line is that only 35 people in the world (by world I mean America) were aware of the true purpose of the Space race and the existence of the crash landed spaceship full of gigantic robots, but of cause not one of those 35 happened to be the President of the USA or anyone that was involved in the whole Giant Robot in the Hoover Dam (built in the 30’s) Conspiracy or Sector 7!!! Or if they did know, they maybe couldn’t put two and two together :-)

So that kind of covers my thoughts around the general storyline, and means we can move on to my likes and dislikes about the movie itself.

Likes number one, nice intro to the new hotty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, however her character seemed a bit pointless with her only really contribution being helping Megatron out of the dumps and convincing him to kill Sentinel Prime and take charge once again, although part of me wishes the scene would have ended with a nice Megatron style finger flick catapulting the hotty actress across the screen.

Likes number two, would have to be the new Ferrari 458 Italia Autobot “Dino”, although it did look a little out of place amongst his more America flavoured colleagues.

And that kind of covers the Likes, apart from saying that on its own it was a pretty good individual movie, it just needed some more forethought.

So on to my Dislikes, which you can no doubt presume by now may go on for a bit, so I’ll do my best to summaries.

Dislike number one, is that many of the scenes had been done before and I swear if I showed you some of the city based fight scenes you would struggle to know which of the 3 movies you were watching.

Dislike number two, is apparent across all 3 movies, in that for advance robots they don’t seem to possess a great deal of technology (other than big guns) and maybe they should invest in some mobile phones and GPS trackers, as for some reason they only seem to be able to communicate when in earshot of each other and don’t seem to be able to track the whereabouts of each other or the enemy! They clearly appear on our Radar in T1 and on Sonar in T2, but when the Decepticons have a city wide defensive perimeter in place around Chicago that can shoot down all incoming planes, there not able to notice a giant blue & red truck accompanied by a bright yellow Camaro sneaking up the road!

Dislike number three, would have to be the general lack of consistency in how much effort it takes to kill an Autobot/Decepticon and I’m not referring to the fact that half a dozen Autobots seem to be able to survive almost anything when outnumbered 20 to 1, but the fact that one clean shot or stab to the head means instance death (occasionally) but a million other rounds of rockets, lasers, punches and kicks literally have no effect.

OMG I nearly forgot a major dislike, we’ll call it number four, the scene with Sam’s parents in the RV with matching outfits, I mean why god, why?

A more serious Dislike is number five, is the whole collapsing building scene, in which the half destroyed building tips over and gently comes to rest against its neighbour rather than just collapsing in on itself.

Dislike number six, I always thought Soundwave was the decepticon in the first movie that latched on to our communications satellite and don’t remember any episode of the cartoon that he ever rode around on a giant snake like drilling machine!

The final Dislike number seven is the scene where Starscream destroys the Autobot ship shortly after takeoff. Now the reason I was annoyed by this is that it seemed too obvious and predictable. What I was hoping in vain for was that the ship would take off containing all the Autobots and make a quick detour to the moon, where using the Matrix of Leaderhsip Optimus would revive the remaining Autobots in the crash landed “Ark” (fingers crossed Grimlock and Co would be involved) then when Sentinel Prime opened the space bridge to Cybertron the Autobot squad with enhanced numbers would come charging through for an almighty battle royal with the Decpeticons, but what do I know!

And I think that covers it!

Although weirdly even with all the flaws and general disappointment with the Plot, I actually quite enjoyed it and look forward to a 2^nd viewing on Blu-Ray in the future!