Monday, February 25, 2008

Black Christmas (2006)


Another remake, another slasher film, another pile of shite.

This one does have a few funny moments tho and they're clearly aiming to be funny, but overall the film is just shite, to be fair we even got a tad distracted during the middle, so watched the beginning and the end and pretty much knew all we needed to know about what was going on.

I don't feel I need to go back and watch the rest.

Black Christmas (2006) - 3/10

Pulse


Pulse is rubbish. I don't know what the Japanese original's like, but the remake, as to be expected, is rubbish.

Evil wi-fi, um.. ok..

There's a few creepy bits and it does have Kristen Bell in it (although her performance in Heroes was much better), but in general it boring as hell, like really really boring.


Pulse - 2/10


Sunday, February 17, 2008

Cloverfield


FUCKING AWESOME!!! And to be honest I'm surprised it's only got a 7.9 on imdb.

It's a monster movie, set in Manhatten, everything's shown from the persepctive of the "Average Joe" who's caught up in the middle of it all.

Utilising the 'camcorder generation' stylings, where the whole film is supposed to be POV from whichever character's filming at the time, it works brilliantly, draws you right into the action (distrurbingly so at one point) and keeps you there.

I'm not gonna go into details but needless to say by the time the credits rolled, and the lights went up, it seemed like everyone in the cinema had been left numb from the assault.

Sure there's a couple of cliches in there, but Cloverfield is an original, interesting and fucking intense take on the monster movie. This and The Host reign supreme at the mo.

FUCKING AWSEOME!!!


Cloverfield - 10/10

Arachnia


BAAAAAADDDDD! ZoneHorror does it again, with another brilliant piece of "horror cinema"

It's good to watch a low budget poorly made horror film once in a while, but this really is shite, couple of funny bits (there's supposed to be more), some nudity and some really really bad stop motion.

Arachnia - 2/10


Night at the Museum


Quite surprisingly, this was pretty good. Even Ricky Gervais was reasonably funny.

Premise is that because of a certain artifact, everything in the Museum of Natural History comes to life at night.

Cue Ben Stiller as the cliched divorced dad who needs some stability in his life (yes it's Liar Liar in a museum), cue three old duffers (Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobb) as the old guards. Cue various cameo related shenanigans.

It's bog standard family movie stuff, but it's pretty entertaining.


Night at the Museum - 7/10

An Inconvenient Truth


I can see why people have been seduced by this. Mr Gore certainly puts across a compelling argument and is as good at keynotes as the great Mr Jobs.

A lot of people think it's all stuff and nonsense, fair enough, I'm no scientist, but I admire Al Gore for trying to get this message across, how much good it'll do is a different matter though.

As far as this being a good film, well it's not a film really, it's a Keynote Presentation, a reasonably engaging and entertaining one, but a presentation nonetheless.


An Inconvenient Truth - 6/10

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby


Will Ferrell back to his old tricks as a simple shouty man. What happened to the Will Ferrell of Stranger Than Fiction eh?? Where is he?? Please Will come back!

Saying that, this ain't that bad, it's funny enough in places, Gary Cole is brilliant, and there were enough moments throughout to keep me watching until the end. Plus there's some pretty cool NASCAR stuff in there.

Sacha Baron Cohen, is fucking terrible, one of the most annoying performances I've seen, and as with other films from this camp, it's the supporting cast that keep the thing going.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Dead Silence


"From the makers of Saw...."
Well Saw's (and sequels) pretty mediocre, interesting concept but there's better films.

This is more standard horror fare, although sticking with the now near fetishistic (on the part of Wan and Whannell) subject of ventriloquist's dummies. There's a nursery rhyme (thank you Elm Street), and a creepy old lady. I can't remember who the lead guy is and I can't be arsed to check, he's not that great, Donnie Wahlberg is pretty good as usual, and the supporting cast, support.

The plot's pretty sketchy, as I say, it's standard horror fare. There's a couple of reasonably clever bits, the whole "You scream, You die" thing is a great idea, but again, executed in a half-hearted fashion, Including the 'explanation bit', which it doesn't need and clearly would've been better without. NB: Not all members of the audience are idiots.

I pretty much figured the twist (although itself is a bit weak), although was thrown off for a bit, it was confirmed at a certain point and then the rest of the film is pretty much rendered useless.


Enemy Of The State

Everyone and his mum is in this film, Will Smith, Jason Lee, Jake Busey, Lisa Bonet, Barry Pepper, Seth Green, Jack Black... it's like they gathered together all the 'new talent' at the time and threw them at Tony Scott.

EOTS is a pretty good, conspiracy thriller, all NSA and spy shit, with Mr. Smith caught up in the middle.

It's a bit far fetched in places (NB: rotating a 2d cctv video image.. uhuh), but it's an entertaining run about, and surprisingly relevant!!