Film 2010

[herecomesaregular]

Uncle S:

will look out for August Rush, thanks for the heads up.

I agree Lars is a good film, if you're in the right frame of mind, very enjoyable.

 

[Acker79]

The Karate Kid
Ok. Nothing special, a bit long, but not unbearably bad.

Dinner for Schmucks
Pretty funny. The titular dinner doesn't make up as much of the film as one might expect.

The Expendables
I was expecting a bit more, given how successful it was in america, but it appears as if the better bits were in the trailer.

Piranha 3D
Fine for what it was trying to be.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Waltz with Bashir - BRILLIANT.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I decided today with my cineworld pass burning through my pocket as it does at weekends to venture into town for a cheap showing of The Last Exorcism. During the trailer section, designed for people at least the age of the rating of the film they're about to see, was the ad for yet another Saw from beyond the grave. This led me to believe that what i was to see was not in fact the LAST exorcism. The Last of the Last Exorcisms may follow soon, i boringly thought.
Then the film started, and i didn't mind it overall. That's not a compliment, necessarily, but it generally had a couple of keep-watching strengths to it. Yes, it's yet another of those film-crew-shooting-a-documentary-and-accidentally-bumping-into-evil piece, but i am not completely against though in spite of the slight laziness of shaky camera meaning less graphics have to be paid for. This time a reverend who seems to have admitted he's without faith since the sickness of his child, decides to make a documentary about the exorcisms he has been paid to undertake over the years which were all fake. So for a good part of the film it's there to expose the price of religious belief in the hands of the egotistical showman with his eye on the financial prize, of what man will feign for profit and self-purpose.
The reverend opens the first letter he randomly collects from the PO Box he advertises his services via and heads on out to a backwater farm. The letterwriter has spoken the standard lines of their daughter posessed and beasts on their farm nightly slaughtered. We're then shown how Cotton, the holyman, goes about his showpiece business and the tricks of the trade, the girl seemingly then cured of the posession we've seen no real bits of. You can guess that we then slowly find out she probably has been entered by a demon, her body bending unnaturally and blood all over herself.
It wasn't scary. And it wasn't gory in any real scene. It was a 15, after all. And the girl with the devil inside her wasn't all insanely sexed up like the twisty-headed daemon in The Exorcist. But Patrick Fabian as Cotton really carried it through. A cracking performance of unshakeable believability. The film itself ventures into the ridiculous and i was a bit unchilled when it came to a close. It stole poorly from Rosemary's Baby and other southern american devilworship films, but i went along for some of the ride. I would have been happier with more shocks to the system and things with tales, but it wasn't as bad as i thought it'd be.

 

[brightonlass2009]

Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
Fantastic storyline, fantastic fun to watch, and lots of action. Really enjoyable. One of the few films I'm tempted to go and see again!
10/10

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

I decided today with my cineworld pass burning through my pocket as it does at weekends to venture into town for a cheap showing of The Last Exorcism. During the trailer section, designed for people at least the age of the rating of the film they're about to see, was the ad for yet another Saw from beyond the grave. This led me to believe that what i was to see was not in fact the LAST exorcism. The Last of the Last Exorcisms may follow soon, i boringly thought.
Then the film started, and i didn't mind it overall. That's not a compliment, necessarily, but it generally had a couple of keep-watching strengths to it. Yes, it's yet another of those film-crew-shooting-a-documentary-and-accidentally-bumping-into-evil piece, but i am not completely against though in spite of the slight laziness of shaky camera meaning less graphics have to be paid for. This time a reverend who seems to have admitted he's without faith since the sickness of his child, decides to make a documentary about the exorcisms he has been paid to undertake over the years which were all fake. So for a good part of the film it's there to expose the price of religious belief in the hands of the egotistical showman with his eye on the financial prize, of what man will feign for profit and self-purpose.
The reverend opens the first letter he randomly collects from the PO Box he advertises his services via and heads on out to a backwater farm. The letterwriter has spoken the standard lines of their daughter posessed and beasts on their farm nightly slaughtered. We're then shown how Cotton, the holyman, goes about his showpiece business and the tricks of the trade, the girl seemingly then cured of the posession we've seen no real bits of. You can guess that we then slowly find out she probably has been entered by a demon, her body bending unnaturally and blood all over herself.
It wasn't scary. And it wasn't gory in any real scene. It was a 15, after all. And the girl with the devil inside her wasn't all insanely sexed up like the twisty-headed daemon in The Exorcist. But Patrick Fabian as Cotton really carried it through. A cracking performance of unshakeable believability. The film itself ventures into the ridiculous and i was a bit unchilled when it came to a close. It stole poorly from Rosemary's Baby and other southern american devilworship films, but i went along for some of the ride. I would have been happier with more shocks to the system and things with tales, but it wasn't as bad as i thought it'd be.

Meadey old bean. I do very much enjoy your musings, but do you think you could give them to us with the use of a few paragraphs rather than just one. Would make them a lot easier to enjoy.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Meadey old bean. I do very much enjoy your musings, but do you think you could give them to us with the use of a few paragraphs rather than just one. Would make them a lot easier to enjoy.

So really you want gaps inbetween the paragraphs to see where the change is?
I'll see what i can do.

Ok heregoes.
I never walk out of the cinema. Has happened only once to a plodding undramatic arty film that had people in hysterics rather than emotively fiddled with. But i did it again the day before yesterday. This time for Dinner For Schmucks. Blimey O'effingReilly what an incredibly unfunny "comedy". I shan't go on about it, but i lasted for about 45 minutes, hoping something even slightly amusing might happen. But it didn't. It just f***ing didn't.

Paul Rudd is a very small man. I reckon 5ft 4. IMDB says 5ft 10, but that's a lie. We know him from Friends of course as the smaller-than-Phoebe boyfriend of Phoebe, but recently his career has "taken off" with the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. In the first of those two he obviously befriended sad, sexless loser Steve Carell, and does the same in this bag of shitends. This time it's to invite him to a corporate shindig dinner ,in which the inhumanely business elite challenge each other to see who can bring the most absurd person with them. You can imagine how hilarious it would be to put some sticky-out teeth into Carell's unfunny mouth and make him love to paint the bodies of deceased mice. Hahahahah, oh Carell. He also keeps getting the time wrong and getting hit by cars. Oh oh oh dear dear dear lordylord. INVITE HIM TO THAT PARTY, RUDD! HE'S A BLOODY BUFFOON AND YOU WILL SO WIN THAT PROMOTION.

I walked out. 45 minutes of it. Admittedly, i'd got a text and thought i better reply to it urgently, so took that as my cue to leave. There were only about 10 people in the "theatre", but none of them really laughed either apart from one woman who seemed to laugh and say as to why: "hehehe he's painting a mouse to look like Jesus hehehe."
That annoyed me too.
I wanted to go out and tell the doorwoman why i was leaving, but she looked at me disinterestedly, as she should have done, and out into the drizzle i wandered. Alone and filled with an untender hate.
I give it 0 out of 0.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Cyrus - if you have the right sense of humour, and don't expect much to actually happen, then this is very funny in a cold-eyed-stare kind of way.

And Marisa Tomei is still looking hot at 45

8/10

Also, if anyone is going to the Odeon, here is a 40% voucher for any film:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/vou...9/?Source=NLVOUCHS&crmuserid=401557|60169082|

 

[Meade's Ball]

It's rare i say i like things, what with me not being the hugest fan of things in front or around me, but Winter's Bone was really bloody good. I'd cycled a long way to see it. Further than i thought. I thought maybye 45 minutes, but took me an hour and a quarter to get to the dive it was on at. I'd read about the film and of course had seen it get glittering praise, but i suppose i wasn't expecting to be so drawn in as the story itself didn't sound the most appealing.
It all concerns one 17 year old girl in the Orzak Mountains of Missouri, a woodenly-constructed town high up in the frozen hills that seems to have been made and forgotten about, undeveloped, all roads in and out blocked off. She lives in a logged house caring for her younger brother and sister whilst their mother sits mutely, seemingly trapped in a nervous breakdown. The police visit to inform that their father has placed the family home as his bond for turning up for a court appearance. The father has gone missing for a while and the 17 year old, Ree, aged unfairly, has to find him in 7 days or lose everything.
It's largely her visiting various unruly places in the hills to find daddy, who has been long cooking meth, a seemingly popular ingredient for life there. It's haunting. The music is rare, but sometimes heartening as those there kill time strumming banjos in a Deliverance-style stereotype, and wailing beautifully. Everyone, by the gradual sound of it, is somehow related, but very few treat each with care or affection. The most feral of all is her father's brother, Teardrop, who warmly praises Ree by calling her smart enough to have always been afraid of him. Teardrop's eyes are as black as death, and his assistance to save the house was long-awaited.
So, we have Ree wandering through the mountains past crunched cars and steaming cans of brewing narcotics, talking, as they seem to do there, slightly biblically, to rough-edged people who just don't wish to help. Whilst her little brother and sister bounce joyously on the trampoline in their wintry garden, not yet quite old enough to be grown up before their time.
The tension keeps rising as the clock ticks toward eviction, or the local drug-dealing gang striking Ree dead to halt her wish to find a way out of an unsolvable situation.

It's really good and i highly recommend. Not every moment is dark, but it's a tough land and you'll likely come out thankful you don't live there. And admire Ree's extreme hardiness at all costs.

 

[Freddo]

Toy Story 3-
Finally went to see it on Friday and was not disappointed! Genuinely good plot and some great new characters, miles better than Toy Story 2 and probably better than the 1st. 10/10

Cyrus-
I was expecting a bit more to be honest. I'm a huge fan of Jonah Hill and his general awkwardness was hilarious as usual but that was about it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more had I not got my hopes up.
6/10

 

[Meade's Ball]

Cyrus-
I was expecting a bit more to be honest. I'm a huge fan of Jonah Hill and his general awkwardness was hilarious as usual but that was about it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more had I not got my hopes up.
6/10

You did have a middle-aged man caught wanking at the start by his ex-wife though (in the film, and not the cinema). Surely that would raise it a point.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Tamara Drewe - Always good to see a Brit Flick, and while watchable (especially the denim shorts scene!) was fairly forgettable fluff 6.4/10

La Haine (on DVD) - award winning 1990s film about Paris riots/racial tension - great cinematography and performances 8.4/10

 

[Freddo]

You did have a middle-aged man caught wanking at the start by his ex-wife though (in the film, and not the cinema). Surely that would raise it a point.

Yeah that was quality...maybe 6 is a little stingy. I'll give you 6.5/10

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Unthinkable

American converted Muslim has placed 3 nukes in America as a response to USA activities in the middle east. Said muslim is tortured to an inch of his life over the course of the film. Michael Sheen is very good in an unusual role for him. Samuel L Jackson plays the torturer well. A film that questions values and the importance of a single human life and the futlity or otherwise of torture. No answers, just left to you to make your own opinions which I doubt will be changed from watching the film. Mine weren't.

7.1

 

[Acker79]

Winter's Bone
I'd echo Meade's Ball's comments about this one. It's a very good film, touching, tough, and some impressive performances (the guy who played tear drop seemed so natural and so fitting in the role, and yet he is someone I imagine most people have seen in one film or tv show or another, and yet he managed to distance himself from those parts.

Grown Ups
I'm usually mildly amused by adam sandler, mildly amused by david spade, mildly amused by rob schneider, mildly amused by david spade, mildly amused by kevin james, occasionally mildly amused by chris rock, and when in adam sandler movies highly amused by steve buschemi. A bunch of mildly amusing guys in one film? I was expecting to find this mildly amusing, but must have been in the right mood because I found this hilarious (especially buschemi). Having said that, I had forgotten almost everything that made me laugh about it as soon as I walked out, and needed prompts from my cinema buddy to remember most of the lines that only a few minutes arlier had me in tears of laughter.

Devil
I appreciate that they were trying to not go through the usual motions of hollywood horror, but this just didn't work for me. The basic plot is that five people are in trapped lift and one of them is the devil. I guessed who the moment I saw them. It just wasn't a very good film, and apparently it's the first of a trilogy "The Night Chronicles" about the supernatural in surburbia.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Date Night

Carrell is a good comedian but this was lame

Poor 4.8

Cop Out

Willis is a good action star but this was lame

Dissapointing 5.2

 

[New Carpet?]

Metropolis

The 1927 classic recut with loads of extra archive footage that was unearthed in a Buenos Aires archive in 2008, more in the line of how Director Fritz Lang envisaged the masterpiece. It was obvious which pieces were cut, as the shot was smaller and picture quality much grainier, but that was good to see as you could gauge why most of these filler scenes were removed from the final edit. I'd never seen it before, and was blown away by how influential that film has become.

8.4


I'm Still Here

A very different kind of Rockumentary sees Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix retire from acting in order to start up a serious hip-hop career. It's since been unleaked that this was all staged, which is no surprise given the cameo appearances of various actors and rock stars. But even if it wasn't, and this turns out to be the final piece of work of note that Joaquin Phoenix appears in (unless the unlikely rap career actually does take off), this is one great piece of viewing.

8.5

 

[herecomesaregular]

It's rare i say i like things, what with me not being the hugest fan of things in front or around me, but Winter's Bone was really bloody good. I'd cycled a long way to see it. Further than i thought. I thought maybye 45 minutes, but took me an hour and a quarter to get to the dive it was on at. I'd read about the film and of course had seen it get glittering praise, but i suppose i wasn't expecting to be so drawn in as the story itself didn't sound the most appealing.
It all concerns one 17 year old girl in the Orzak Mountains of Missouri, a woodenly-constructed town high up in the frozen hills that seems to have been made and forgotten about, undeveloped, all roads in and out blocked off. She lives in a logged house caring for her younger brother and sister whilst their mother sits mutely, seemingly trapped in a nervous breakdown. The police visit to inform that their father has placed the family home as his bond for turning up for a court appearance. The father has gone missing for a while and the 17 year old, Ree, aged unfairly, has to find him in 7 days or lose everything.
It's largely her visiting various unruly places in the hills to find daddy, who has been long cooking meth, a seemingly popular ingredient for life there. It's haunting. The music is rare, but sometimes heartening as those there kill time strumming banjos in a Deliverance-style stereotype, and wailing beautifully. Everyone, by the gradual sound of it, is somehow related, but very few treat each with care or affection. The most feral of all is her father's brother, Teardrop, who warmly praises Ree by calling her smart enough to have always been afraid of him. Teardrop's eyes are as black as death, and his assistance to save the house was long-awaited.
So, we have Ree wandering through the mountains past crunched cars and steaming cans of brewing narcotics, talking, as they seem to do there, slightly biblically, to rough-edged people who just don't wish to help. Whilst her little brother and sister bounce joyously on the trampoline in their wintry garden, not yet quite old enough to be grown up before their time.
The tension keeps rising as the clock ticks toward eviction, or the local drug-dealing gang striking Ree dead to halt her wish to find a way out of an unsolvable situation.

It's really good and i highly recommend. Not every moment is dark, but it's a tough land and you'll likely come out thankful you don't live there. And admire Ree's extreme hardiness at all costs.

while i'm interested in people's film reviews, you tend to write a synopsis rather than a review. i don't want to know the plot thanks!

i thought it was an excellent story but not an enjoyable film, full of evil, spiteful characters, not one to watch if you're on a downer! my mate and i both agreed that it was let down by hard to follow dialogue (partly regional dialect i guess, plus a bit mumbly). i had to really concentrate to follow what they were saying a lot of the time. and a little humour now and again would have gone a long way.

i'd still recommend it though as it is an unusual community to spotlight. great acting all round made the characters very believable. hillbilly women are mighty scarey!

7/10

 

[Nibble]

I too saw I'm Still Here on Thurs gone. Some very good moments and an interesting premise but for me it started to get very muddled and baggy about 3 quarters in. Some great laugh out loud scenes and Puff Diddlybop did a terrific turn. Well worth a watch despite some failings. 3/5

 

[CHAPPERS]

The Other Guys - BULLSHIT.