Saturday, December 29, 2007

Mr. & Mrs. Smith


A breath of fresh air, blowing away the musty stench of Knocked Up, the Smiths breeze in and kick ass in this slightly slow in places, but ultimately entertaining romp. (shit word, but apt)

The chemistry between our two protagonists clearly shows why they ended up getting together of screen, Vince Vaughn is not completely irritating, and one scene is pretty funny, some of the stunts are awesome (see: car chase) and all in all it's a bloody entertaining film.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - 7/10 (almost 8)

Knocked Up


  • YAWN!
  • BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIINNNNGGG!!!
  • Can someone PLEASE tell Seth Rogan to STFU!!
  • Annoying snorty laugh
  • Just not funny
  • Far too long
  • boring 'dramatic' scenes
  • who gives a shit about any of the characters in this abortion of a film (topical pun)
  • make it stop!
Wanna know why it got 3/10?? Jonah's line about pube shaving, but I'd suggest just go through the Memorable Quotes on imdb rather than watch this shit awful film.

Changed my mind...

Knocked Up - 2/10

1408


1408, yet another film based on a Steven King story, starts off pretty well, a little slow, but pretty low key, introduces Mike Enslin (John Cusack), our main character, well. Mike's a writer (really Steve? Wouldn't have expected that!!), one that's not doing too hot, events have turned him from "serious" writer to a guy who writes books about various haunted places, in this instance hotels.

And so leads us to room 1408 at the Dolphin hotel in New York and Mike, ever the skeptic, settles in for the night, despite the warnings from the motherfucking hotel manager, played by Sam L Jackson (see what I did there?!).

Still, going ok, a little slow, but we're getting to the meat now, shit starts going down and Mike begins to wig out.

Now it starts to flounder.

Mike seems to lose it a little too quickly, one minute he's just starting to get rattled, the next he's a gibbering wreck, but so far the 'scares' are still pretty low key, the whole thing is taking place in the hotel room and starting to give a nice sense of claustrophobia and creepyness. ("Hotels are a naturally creepy place")

Then the set pieces kick in and it all goes overboard, jumps about and by the end of the film I was left disappointed. 1408 is a film that pretends to know what makes an interesting horror film then descends into overacting and The Haunting territory, shite. And as for 'scares', well there's one near the end as the decent build up doesn't last long enough.

1408 - 5/10

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Departed


Marty finally one his Oscar for this his 42nd directed work and an adaptation from a Hong Kong masterpiece.

The Departed, is an absolute mess, it really only makes any vague sense to me because I've got all three Infernal Affairs films on DVD (and they're hard to follow!). The editing is all over the place, some scenes feel like they've been cut short and left with lines missing that would take them to their natural conclusion, other parts just plain suck.

The performances however are astounding, on all parts.. well except possibly Martin Sheen, but then his character's not as developed as it could be, and to be fair, the performances are the only thing that kept me watching.

The story, whilst still quite complex, has lost some of the subtleties and well... good aspects of it's Hong Kong predecessor, and has been made more of a traditional thriller... maybe cos we're all dumb? :/

Best Picture this ain't, several outstanding acting turns though.


Scream


Ahhh Wes Craven, one of the godfathers of horror, bringining us such 'classics' as Last House on The Left, A Nightmare On Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes.

Ahhh Kevin Williamson, bringing us such classics as Dawson's Creek...um...

I'm not really a huge fan of Wes Craven, Elm St is ok but generally laughable, I preferred the remake of The Hills Have Eyes (ok flame me) and I think I'm just a few years too late to really enjoy his work.

Scream however is pretty much a masterpiece.

The opening sequence is AWESOME, in fact it is truly one of those sequences that you forget how good it is. The whole premise of the film is pretty solid, Kevin Williamson, must've just looked at all the horror stuff that had been released, realised how formulaic it had all become and then a light bulb lit up above his head.

Scream successfully plays both to and against the 'horror formula' in beautiful fashion and the ultimate twist was pretty damn good.

Scream 2 was ok, Scream 3 was a pile of steaming shite.

Scream - 9/10

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Lady In The Water


The reviews for this when it came out, sucked.

Partly in fact because of the film critic character and his fate. I've kinda put off watching this because of those reviews, while, The Sixth Sense is a classic and Unbreakable is awesome, Signs was weak, and in my view The Village was a pile of shite.

So, while it looked intriguing, I really wasn't sure. Once again, Sky movies has come to the rescue (Scream's on after and I haven't seen that in ages!!).

Lady In The Water is basically a fairy tale, magical creatures, a heavy moral message, fantasy stuff, all set within an apartment complex. Our lead protagonist is Cleveland Heep, the complex manager/janitor.. supervisor (that's the one), played brilliantly by Paul Giamatti, and I mean BRILLIANTLY!

Bryce Dallas Howard is the Lady from the title, and all manner of other characters inhabit the complex. They're all pretty standard character cliches, but I think it serves it's purpose.
The film is pretty predictable, I could see which were going to be the key characters from the outset (although 1 caught me out, I'll let you worry about which), but it's an entertaining film none the less.

Not a masterpiece and not his best by any means, but well worth a look.