Film 2010

[New Carpet?]

Separado!

Gruff Rhys films and stars in an entertaining and slightly surreal search for his long-lost Welsh relatives based in Patagonia.

Soundtracked by his own back catalogue (mostly his two solo albums), full of amusing touches, such as donning the Power Rangers helmet that he used to wear at Super Furry Animals' gigs over the years, and smattered with loads of psychadelic effects, it shows Gruff touring southern Brazil and much of Argentina, playing live sets to intrigued and bemused locals along the way whilst trying to hunt for his distant uncle, obscure 70s Welsh-Argentine folk guitarist René Griffiths.

A very different kind of rockumentary, and far more interesting than any episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" will ever be. Good fun viewing.

7.8

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

The Expendables

Guns, fist fights, explosions, martial arts, birds, booze, knives, car chases, crappy one liners and a cast list to die for.

Arnie to Willis (talking about Stallone) "You have the job I hear he likes playing in the jungle"

Willis to Stallone as Arnie is leaving - "Whats his problem?"

Stallone to Willis " He wants to be president"

Proper MAN film. Do NOT, repeat DO NOT expect character, plot or people discussing ham in black and white in a french cafe.

10/10

 

[Acker79]

Salt
This was utterly ridiculous, and really quite predictable, but was also a lot of fun in that cheesy way.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Run Fatboy Run - Fun - 7.6

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - not as good as it should have been - 7.4

 

[herecomesaregular]

Run Fatboy Run - Fun - 7.6

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - not as good as it should have been - 7.4

i'd mark Fatboy as a 3 (ie not funny) and Dragon Tattoo as an 8 (very well acted, gruesome and it adds a differently slant on the well worn serial killer genre).

recent dvd watches:

Edge of Darkness - 6 (enjoyable tosh but dated and no surprises, Mel doing what he is good at but looking so old)

Shutter Island - 5 (mostly rubbish considering Leo and Scorcese are involved, improved in the last third but never felt real always felt like a movie. And a dreadful score).

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Each to their own mate. I liked Fatboy but maybe as its my impending marathon run made it funnier than it was. Dragon tattoo was a good film but not a great film imo. I tend to downgrade my marks after a few weeks or second viewings.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Lymelife

Bona fida 10 out of 10 from me. Loved this film. For fans of American Beauty, The Ice Storm, An Education, Squid and the Whale, 500 Days of Summer.... I wouldn't normally comment on "the acting" but "the acting" is brilliant in this.

Funny, moving, sharp.

And Emma Roberts

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

Lymelife

Bona fida 10 out of 10 from me. Loved this film. For fans of American Beauty, The Ice Storm, An Education, Squid and the Whale, 500 Days of Summer.... I wouldn't normally comment on "the acting" but "the acting" is brilliant in this.

Funny, moving, sharp.

And Emma Roberts

I'm a massive fan of 500 Days of Summer, and really liked An Education, will give it a watch - ta!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

WATCH AUGUST RUSH !. I will try Lymelife. 500 days of Summer is one of the greatest films of the last 5 years so if its half as good as that it will be worth it. Whats the sypnosis ?.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Lars and the Real Girl

I have been meaning to watch this for some time.

It is a film about a 30 year old guy who lives with his Brother and wife who cannot make a relationship with Women and orders a plastic woman from the internet.

He then takes her around the Town and to social functions in a wheelchair as his real life Girlfriend. This is a bitter sweet little gem. If you can get over the ridiculousness of the premise it is more a comment on humanity and acceptance. It becomes apparent his Mother died giving birth to Lars and he lived with his Father and Brother. There is a whole back catelogue of why Lars has become as he has if you look for it but it is the fact he is so loved and accepted within the community that they treat Bianca as if she were real as well ( because they love Lars so much ). In the background is a Real Girl interested in Lars and the film follows his path of moving away from the artificial girl to the real girl even with a moving ceremony for Bianca's funeral when the whole Town turns up. Its hard to explain but a great observation on human love, the complexities of the mind and social acceptance. Not for everyone but those who like something a bit different its worth a watch.

7.8

 

[Meade's Ball]

Ok so it's one of those long weekends in which i intend to see a film every day, a new one, that is, in general. So yesterday evening i found myself finishing work an hour earlier than normal as we do on Fridays before bank holiday weekends and having the chance to cycle close to home to a cinema i could visit for new fare. I went for Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. And in many ways i wish i hadn't. It wasn't completely lifeless as the screen never stops flashing and the visuals are meant to comicbookishly-fantasily impress, but it certainly lacked real heart and a neat cohesion to keep me caring and glued.
As most of you will know, it's the story of a young man, played in his usual semi-likeable helpless way by Michael Cera, who meets his true love and has to defeat 7 of her ex-boyfriends in a computerised battle to claim her heart for good. The battlescenes are lighthearted and flashy, the dead becoming signs of gained points and transforming into flicked coins to collect. But it seems like the film was put together just for those or of those. I remember thinking the same of Hot Fuzz, that last film of director Edgar Wright, being a series of very smug scenes that were untied and just individual adverts to show what could be done. In this, the true love was unreal and the characters were painedly arch and dour. The whole thing felt unconnected to me, no matter how sardonic i sometimes make myself out to seem.
I left uninspired and undazzled. Cera needs to get out of this role if he can. He didn't look youthful and haphazard, his nose pointed and uninnocent. I'm not sure what else he can do, but he'll have to get tired of it all himself surely.
I'd give it something out of 9. The young might like. I quite liked some of the music. There we go, something positive.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Now on to today, Saturday, where, not being a superfan, or just a regular fan, i chose to have a psychology session, and then fill a couple of hours to recover in the cinema. So i went to town, London town where everyone is everywhere and respites are few, and watched The Girl Who Played With Fire.
I'd watched the first part of this trilogy from the popular novels, and whilst not greatly attached to the possibility of where it would go, thought i might as well. It's a foreign film too, so i have to seem clever by seeing as many as i can. It was a bit bloody annoying though. The first one had 30 minutes or so of rape and torture and revenge, supposedly to introduce us to the girl with the dragon tattoo before she is forced into becoming an unhired private dickless dick. It was brutal and unsavoury. But the relationship developing between her and the actual investigative journalist seemed odd and watchful, so i wondered what would happen.
This time, however, they are not in the film together until the last two minutes, slyly in contact with occasional little messages and on his hacked-into computer screening. Nothing loving though. This was purely a little investigation drama, nothing outside of these cases that rather speedily combine being what it was all about. Sadly, it lost its path and by the end the cases seemed to be a little unsolved. Maybe it was a slight cliffhanger and onto the last part we'd go, but when the credits rolled i wondered who'd done what really. The villains all ended up relating to The Girl. gee whizz, can't she just solve a case without it all relating to the central partly-built character? What about the girls being dragged from eastern Europe for a violent protitution that we bore witness to that the journalist swore to protect? That whole illegal ring seemed to be going on still for all i knew, and didn't seem to matter any more.
Anyway, it was not terrible, but had me leaving with little more than a shrug and a wish i'd gone to the Withers instead. I suppose it was "standard", and i'm sure that's not a title anyone or thing likes to receive. Maybe part 3 will be thoroughly spectacular. There was a lesbian love-scene in it, for those that are still thrilled after Piranha 3D's light porning and want a bit more in the wankbank.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

The Last Exorcism. Rubbish – this style of film has already done to death by Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. Don’t bother if it gets released in the UK.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Gran Torino - 8.3 - An excellent film from Clint. Funny, realistic, sad and deep. I liked it, I liked it a lot.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Gran Torino 8.6

 

[Meade's Ball]

Ok so it's a Sunday and what else is there to do other than think of the past for while, eat a large breakfasts and disappear in and out of sleep for some time. That, of course, and maybe nip the cinema before the clouds burst and lock everyone in.
So i went to fill a couple of hours of my time with Anjelina Jolie as a class-A superspy in Salt. Salt is her name. Or surname. Evelyn her first. Anyone who has ever heard me talk of film will generally know i am not a fan of throwaway adventure tales, things like the A-Team and The Expendables and The Losers being generally disliked, but this i didn't honestly mind. And that, i suppose, is meant as a compliment. Now, the storyline was ludicrous and apolitical despite its Washington setting. The script was sometimes laughable and painfully straightforward. The acting was average, but actors such as Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor are competent back-up for the odd-faced Jolie. It was the action itself that seemed to moderately win me over. It had that correct concoction of rolling around, speeding vehicles being unrealistically leapt from and to, sprinting at full pace as gunshots flick perilously past and through clothing, and a brassy soundtrack that isn't uptodate and speaks gleefully of the very standard secret service films that director Philip Noyce helmed in the 90s - Patriot Games, Clear and Present Dangers, and The Saint.
I suppose what was good of it was that it didn't pretend to have any particular depth, barely had any humanisation of what were robots of political war, and i suppose not that deafening brutality that penis-enlarging macho-films carry. Reasonable nonsensical fun that a party-poop like me would normally wince all the way through.
Jolie looks weird though, with a very-difficult-to-analyse-or-understand face.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I ahve recently brought.

Capote - Philip Seymour Hoffman
This is it - Michael Jackson
Total Recall - Arnold Swarzenegger
Seraphin Falls - Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan
About Schimdt - Jack Nicholson
True Crimes - Clint Eastwood

Which one should I watch tonight ?.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I ahve recently brought.

Capote - Philip Seymour Hoffman
This is it - Michael Jackson
Total Recall - Arnold Swarzenegger
Seraphin Falls - Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan
About Schimdt - Jack Nicholson
True Crimes - Clint Eastwood

Which one should I watch tonight ?.

Well you're a true Eastwoodite, so that could guarantee you a good time. Otherwise, Total Recall is always hilarious and thrilling and obviously includes the smalltime badguy legend Michael Ironside.

 

[Don Quixote]

i'd mark Fatboy as a 3 (ie not funny) and Dragon Tattoo as an 8 (very well acted, gruesome and it adds a differently slant on the well worn serial killer genre).

recent dvd watches:

Edge of Darkness - 6 (enjoyable tosh but dated and no surprises, Mel doing what he is good at but looking so old)

Shutter Island - 5 (mostly rubbish considering Leo and Scorcese are involved, improved in the last third but never felt real always felt like a movie. And a dreadful score).

Mate, Martin Scorsese is probably the greatest director ever and Dicaprio is probably the best actor out there at the moment. Clueless.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Mate, Martin Scorsese is probably the greatest director ever and Dicaprio is probably the best actor out there at the moment. Clueless.

yeah, Gangs of New York is a classic mate they couldn't possibly make a dud together could they?!!