Nine: 4/10 Some of the girls looked great, but this movie has painfully little plot, and hardly even an excuse to go from musical number to musical number. If you really liked how Chicago looked and want to see Daniel Day Lewis do an Italian accent, you have found your perfect movie.

Up in the Air: 10/10 A must see. Poignant, tight and effective. As someone who has been laid off in the last year, it was perhaps even better. The three leads nail their respective parts (someone who is in the Twilight movies can really act? amazing) and the director delivers yet again.

District 9...10/10
this imho is the best sci fi movie since Alien.

Very bold proclamation...but I won't argue.

Nine (2009). 2/10. Waste of time and money except for Penelope Cruz's lingerie dance scene.

Damn, haven't seen that in 20 years!

Sherlock Holmes - 8.5/10
What a great movie! Really entertaining and well done.

Avatar - 15/10

Yes you read that right, fifteen out of ten. I saw the trailer for this a while back and thought to myself "yea that looks alright, I could take it or leave it". Well my brother from Vancouver was down and he had already seen it (in 2D) and says to me that I have to go to it in 3D with him. So we get tickets a day in advance for it because its selling out like mad, and holy shit was it worth waiting in line twice for!

The movie had me enthralled and absolutely engaged the entire time, I can't remember the last time I was so engrossed in a movie like that. While watching it I remember thinking to myself that it was like reading a good book that you just can't put down. I hope to be in the city again in the next few weeks and I am going to see this in IMAX, unfortunately that one was sold out several days in advance so we had to watch the 3D in a regular theatre.

well, my thought is, the rest of the alien movies are sequels, the original Terminator wasn't near as good as Alien (though I like it) Predator wasn't (imho) as good as Terminator...
and all the sequels of these movies have a strong vibe of being a pissing contest of directors and effects companies just trying to out blockbuster each other rather than actually make a good movie with an interesting STORY (imagine that ??) and that's a problem for most of hollywood these days.
I can't remember if Blade Runner came out before or after Alien but I would put all three of them on the same plane of near perfection in a sci fi movie.

Star Wars franchise maybe good too, but ehh, I see them as focused more on a Jr. High School and lower audience...and all the superhero movies are just kinda eye candy pop culture fluff.

I haven't seen Avatar but the theme is totally derivative, Cameron really is just looking to win pissing contests for marketing and box office.

the CG in District 9 was really good, best I've seen in terms of mixing humans, mechs and alien life forms with CG and most likely a fair amount of physical effects so well I didn't find myself nit picking bad shadowing, washed out coloring on humans or CG characters etc. I mean I'm a fantasy/sci fi geek since Harryhausen movies like 7th Voyage of Sinbad and always look at the effects with a critical eye. I can't help it. this was (imho) better than LOTR and Jackson's King Kong was full of bad CG rendering and integration.

and the story was really great. the main character was really getting on my nerves at first but I was drawn in as it went on. and it wasn't just "aliens bad, must kill aliens- the end."

I too thought the mechs in D9 (as well as in Terminator: Salvation which I thought was VERY underrated) were outstandingly cool looking (also the 'computer-command' shots from within the suit were excellent) and realistic looking in a "looks like it fits in with the scenery" way. I'm also a fan of Harryhausen and the stop action stuff...Clash of the Titans (early 1980s?) comes to mind, another latter day copy of his style of animation. I would agree that D9 was right up there with Alien for originality and intensity (intensity of a different kind).

Paranormal Activity 9/10 for a scary movie.

This movie was more of an experience. I don't think it's possible to enjoy it unless you're alone with the lights off and no disturbances. This is what I always wanted to happen in one of the "reality" shows like Ghost Hunters.

Perfect Getaway 7/10

I really didn't expect to enjoy it but ended up satisfied. I wasn't really a fan of Timothy Olyphant until this movie. In this movie he reminded me of some of the crazier roles that Bill Paxton has played in the past.

Buster (7/10) is a cockney crime drama in a similar vein to McVicar, based on the story of Buster Edwards who was a minor player in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Phil Collins plays Buster in what must be for him a rare dramatic leading role. His cheerful, cheeky constitution is well suited to the part Buster, the so-called 'lucky thief'. Julie Walters plays his wife June and the film's best scenes come when the two flee to Mexico and she cannot bear how different it is from her dear old East End: it's hot! The food's too spicy! It doesn't rain! etc.

A Cock and Bull Story (8/10) is a kind of film inside a film inside another film starring comics Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. They play versions of themselves as well as characters in a period costume drama being shot at a huge country mansion.

The Rules of Attraction (6/10) is a, pseudo hip and cool (and shockingly amoral) college sex romp starring bullet-headed Dawson from Dawson's creek (James Van Der Beek) and long-dead Boone from Lost (Ian Somerhalder). There's plenty to look at from a technical standpoint because the film is at times wildly - and mostly successfully - innovative and experimental. That's fine up to a point but every film needs a way in - some sort of sympathetic or at least identifiable character - and this film doesn't have that. Every character's a dickhead. Also, it feels very dated - like a film from the 90s - even though it's only seven years old.

A Serious Man (?/10) is a film I don't think I can write about or rate out of ten until I see it again.

Dances with Blue Aliens... I mean Avatar.
6/10

Yes the visuals were stunning and it was probably the nicest looking movie I've seen in a long while BUT the story SUCKED. It was one of the most cliched movies that could have badly used an editor.

That said, if you are going to see it see it in theatre and in 3D because it is beautiful. If you normally hate 3D like me it's not bad at all. It's going to suck on DVD though.

Literally just finished watching District 9 about 10 minutes ago as a rental from Netflix...very pleasantly surprised. Outstanding movie; action, suspense, borderline grotesque, and touching all at the same time...was actually literally at the edge of my seat the entire time...haven't felt like that during a movie in a VERY long time, WOW!!

Had the same reaction...the word 'banal' comes to mind.

The Road 8/10

We had to drive almost to Atlanta to see this because our local theater "didn't get it". That's the response we received from a manager.
The film....very dark. Very, very dark. I liked it because I really love these movies. It is definitely not for those who thrive on comedic idiocy to get their thrills.
Followed the book rather well.

Paranormal Activity - 8/10

I was thinking the exact same thing when we watched it!

Would have been 10/10 if they had kept the film festival ending. The theatrical ending was OK at best, and I liked the alternate, but the film festival ending is easily my favorite!

Just watched Inglorious Basterds on blu-ray. It was even more incredible the second time I saw it. And it looked amazing on blu-ray. Seeing it a 2nd time solidified its status as my favorite movie of the year.

Avatar 9/10 for stunning visuals
7/10 for plotline

I really feel this needed separate votes for each area.

Visually it was astounding due to the extraordinary amount of detail it encompassed and the beauty of all the elements in it, specifically the flora and fauna of Pandora. I can't give it a 10 because I felt that something was lacking in that there was only the base or pandora, and little else. I needed a 3rd scenario to give the film more depth, otherwise it was always an us vs. them type of two-dimensional story (pun intended ha). I did see this in 3D and I agree with other posters it will not be the same on DVD.

Plotline....what can I say? It was supremely annoying that everything seemed to be similar to earth, visually, but with funky colours and extra appendages. The lead character Jake was interesting but I'd have liked more depth even though he was quite nice to look at and had the sexiest voice (sounds just like Patrick Swayze, seriously). The rather forced but necessary love story, the primal female character who was appealing for her boldness and daring but skimmed the surface in every other sense. The brutish and stereotyped Colonel, the predictable outcome of it all.

But I must say overall, the film struck a chord and I was overwhelmed by it, in both good and bad ways. It was both thrilling and depressing to me, oddly. Definitely a film to watch in 3D.

Yes Man - 7.5/10

Decently funny, overall I really enjoyed it. Makes me want to move back to the city and start having lots of fun again. I always enjoyed doing random stuff. Plus Zooey = WOW!!!

Yes Man - good story, though predictable, full of quirky little moments and not too much exaggeration from Jim Carrey. 7.5/10...I'd give it an 8 for the good feel of it but I think it's not quite there.

The Surrogates - loved the idea behind the movie. Sort of predictable again. Enjoyable to watch and I liked the ending. 7.5/10 again.

Moon - I seem to really love movies that are a little less spectacular and more pensive. That are not filled all the time with riveting action and endless yapping. This is one of those movies. Though I didn't love the acting, I thought it was pretty great. 8.5/10.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - awful, awful film. Only worth it to watch Javier Bardem do his sexy thing. All I get from this film is a stereotypical 'Spanish people are crazy' and 'Americans are dumb'. Hated that. Penelope Cruz was good at playing crazy. Can't believe she got an award for this though. This movie was about...nothing! 2/10.

Julie & Julia - no real story to this movie. Only worth watching for Meryl Streep doing a great job of her role as Julia Child. Also loved the details of mid-20th Century Paris. 5/10.

Changeling - despite the really difficult story, this was another quiet movie for me. Thoughtful. Painful. Some of it shocking. It made me sad particularly because it's based on true events. Angelina Jolie was ok in it. Visually interesting and a good storyline. 8/10

The Reader - The first part of this movie is touching, and beautifully filmed. I enjoyed the rest of it but the beginning is crucial to understand the whole. Great performance again from Kate Winslet. It was also not entirely predictable, and I was surprised towards the end. Overall it had a 'real' feeling to it. Also, who doesn't love Ralph Fiennes? 9/10. Possibly a full 10.

Avatar - 7/10. Here we have a $250 million hollywood movie about exploitation, colonialism and corporate greed cloaked in a shiny pretty exterior that will make a billion dollars for a few bigwigs. Don King would approve.

2012 - 7/10 My pastime is playing around with special effects and basement level cgi so I love disaster movies. They usually are pretty bad, but the special effects scenes are always worth viewing. This was the best disaster movie I've seen.

The Road - 6/10 The acting, directing were good. Production was fair. It was the story. I never read the book. I don't mind dark stories, but this one was pitch black.

New Moon - 5/10 Even though the vampire vs werewolf (or vampires in general) has worn itself out with me, I liked the first film. The second one seemed to have a tone of "lets make this one because we are supposed to".

Avatar - 10/10 I loved every aspect of this movie. One of the best I have seen.

13 Days - 9/10 I missed this when it came out. I thought it was a great production, I don't know how historically acurate it is.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 8/10. Very Terry Gilliam in the art direction and acting. Very reminescent of both Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits. Heath Ledger is great in his last role, and Christopher Plummer is good, although pretty unintelligible for most of the movie. Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Johnny Depp do excellent Heath Ledger impersonations in the alternate world through the mirror and Tom Waits is surprisingly good as the devil. You are never quite sure what is going to happen in this film, with Plummer as an immortal sideshow carnie, doing deals with the devil for his daughter's soul. Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) is excellent as Plummer's sidekick, and has some of the film's best lines. Not for everyone, but fans of Gilliam will be pleased.

Knowing 6/10. Nicholas Cage was predictable and quite manic as a single dad, whose son gets a letter from the past (via the plot device of a time capsule) covered in random numbers. Cage gets obsessed very early on (20 minutes into the movie and he's already at the "building a mountain of mashed potatoes in his living room" [Close Encounters reference for anyone who missed it] stage) and figures out that the numbers detail major losses of life over the past 50 years. Only 1 real creepy scene, (in the trailer when they figure out what "EE" means), and the ending is pretty goofy. Good beginning, but the ending doesnt' live up to the promise.

Avatar - 8/10

Absoloutely amazing CGI, go see it for that alone. A few plot points and preachyness bits that let it down, but i'm itching to go back and see it again and spot all the stuff i missed before.

I've watched a metric shit ton of movies since I last posted in this thread, but the one I had just finished watching some 20 minutes ago is The Wrestler. Twenty minutes later and I am still affected by the ending. Not too many movies do it to me. It may not be the best movie ever, but to me it was pretty much perfect on the emotional level.

Are you kidding? I remember going to watch this with no expectations and thinking it was pretty shit at first then it growing and growing on me until the FANTASTIC ending! I think I may have been still drunk from the previous day but I was absolutely agape at the ending of Knowing, and I stayed through the credits to properly digest it. I couldn't. I think I went and got more drunk (day off, probably).

Agreed, the Wrestler is not far off perfect, on that level, and on some others, too.

Sherlock Holmes 6/10 - (sort-of mild spoilers in here) I was quite severely, and unexpectedly, disappointed by this. I remember seeing trailers early in the summer and being very excited; it looked smart, funny and action-heavy and not totally stupid... It is funny to an extent, and some of the action is pretty good but it's not very smart (it should be smart above all things, I think) and the story really sucks. Holmes and Watson have been dumped into a stinking and overripe mad/evil-genius trying to take over the world plot in which there are plenty of chases and set-pieces but which doesn't seem to require Holmes's powers of deduction until the end. The hackneyed climax sees Holmes face off against enemy Lord Blackwood, and in that scene I counted three hoary old cliches that I presumed had been abandoned through overuse decades ago. For instance: we really shouldn't be seeing a character step unwittingly into a loop of rope which then tightens and drags him somewhere thus allowing his opponent to gain the advantage. There's a slight chance that I may have missed the point - some sort of spoof or parody was intended - but if so it was poorly executed. The whole film, and the final scene in particular, had a feel of artificiality that veered between a bit niggly and downright irritating. The performances were generally fine, although I'd like Rachel McAdams to have had more of a forceful presence - and, thinking about it, Blackwood is a really shit villain and a well played Professor Moriarty (played by whom? Paul Bettany perhaps) would have been a more appropriate rival.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 9/10. Having been severely underwhelmed by Sherlock at the cinema I came home and put on my ragged old 3rd or 4th generation VHS copy of this 70 year old Hollywood version starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. Most things that get called classic don't deserve it but this does. Everything is as it should be: Holmes is impetuous, brilliant, mercurial; Watson is bumbling, blundering, childlike in his simplicity and petulence but loyal as a dog. The plot involves something about a killer using a primitive Andean throwing weapon and Moriarty stealing the crown jewels, and it is pretty solid - but the real joy comes from watching the two leads racing around Hollywood's idea of 1890s London, which then gradually became the whole world's idea of the same.

Yes Man 6/10. This is Jim Carrey coasting. Everyone knows by now how good he can be: Lemony Snicket's and Eternal Sunshine are the two recent examples that showcase his formidable range. Exemplary performances taken from opposite ends of the scale. Yes Man is one of those flimsy, trite comedy films featuring Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers, The Hangover) in support that seem to have become popular over the last few years: aimed at young adults who laugh whether it's funny or not: nine times out of ten it's not. (It unnerves me no end hearing Carrey say fuck) The whole conceit (say yes to everything no matter what) is intriguing in an abstract don't think about it too long sort of way; as a premise for a film it's simply not up to snuff and seems also to be taken by the writers as a license write... well, to write a lot of bullshit and use it as a film. This would be sort-of ok if Jim Carrey was sometimes a bit mad, etc, but he's plays the most dull, miserable, dislikeable and downright boring protagonist I think I've ever watched in a proper film. (Except for Shrek.) He hardly ever does his Jim Carrey thing - the best we get is him making mad faces by sticking see-through tape all over his face. That said this is still a very very easy to watch film that requires no effort whatsoever. That's what some audiences want. And that's fine. (what is it about Bradley Cooper? He looks like a young, even eviler Ralph Fiennes. I want him to be the bad guy not the smarmy best friend).

Observe & Report 9/10 There's plenty of savage and close-to-the-bone comedy in this film from last year starring Seth Rogen. I really wish I'd seen it in a packed cinema so I could have heard people's laughs and gasps and so on. Rogen plays a different sort of character than in Pineapple Express and Knocked Up - he's the protagonist in this film but he's not as easily identifiable with and sympathetic because he's really a real loser - not a pretend loser like in those other films - he's a real loser, and mentally damaged, in this film. It's really hilarious in parts, it's surprising and pulls none of its punches and for these reasons I'm sure it will reward repeat viewings.

In Bruges 8/10 I really didn't think this would be for me but watched it anyway and was pleasantly surprised. The humour ranges from pretty broad and crass to absolutely inspired, to subtle and touching. There are more hits than misses. and Colin Farrell does his best with a badly written and fairly dislikeable character. Most of the parts involving the dwarf/midget are lousy - this compounded by disastrous acting from the dwarf himself but they aren't so bad as to spoil everything. The best thing about this film is Ralph Fiennes - so far unseen - on the other end of the telephone. But what I liked best about this film I think, is the immature and lighthearted attitude its characters take towards things like life, death, morality, firearms, revenge, honour and the like. They're gangsters but they go about their business as if they were schoolboys playing a game.

What Price Glory 8/10 is a comedy-drama set in WWI from 1952 directed by John Ford and starring James Cagney. I was never a fan of John Ford; he was known to be out of his element with this film and at odds with the studio and so unsurprisingly this is by quite a long way the worst James Cagney film I have seen so far. But he is my favourite actor of all time and I can happily sit through anything he's in. If some other actor played his role in this I probably wouldn't have considered watching it. The film is stagey and rough, it staggers between uneasy and unbalanced comedy and fearful mawk as the old Hollywood wartime situations and cliches you know from hundreds of other films get acted out yet again. Cagney is absolutely the keystone to it all - everything in the film centers on him and he's like a father to his troops, who are young, green and scared. I would certainly have been scared serving as a marine in the First World War but I couldn't hope for a better C.O. than Captain Flagg - aka James Cagney!

The Brothers Grimm 6/10 is a silly pantomime caper notable only for the fact that it manages to squander Matt Damon's talents which is something I haven't ever seen before;
Vanilla Sky 5/10 could be the most self important, self satisfied and self indulgent film I've ever seen. I love Tom Cruise but I fucking hate him in this and I hate Penelope Cruz as well, and Cameron Diaz and the entire rest of the cast. I can picture them all watching the rushes nodding to each other saying "yeah, we've done good work here, uh-huh, we're really onto something great guys". I DON'T CARE about their made-up privileged lives! And it's even made up in the context of the film! STREWTH!

Xmen 3, The Last Stand - 5/10

Pretty weak compared to the first two. Although it does have one of the best scenes ever: "Do you know who I am?!? I'm the Juggernaut bitch!".

Pulp Fiction. 11 out of 10. :D

1. Sexo, Pudor y Lagrimas (Mexican Movie) 9/10
2. What Happens in Vegas stay in Vegas( or something like that) 6/10
3. Coraline( I dont like animated films but this one rocked me out!) 9/10

"Pi" from 1998. Directed by Darren Aronofsys. A real brain bender, to say the least. This artsy as hell, Black & White Film shows one man's haunting numerical obsession.

I LOVED it and my spouse hated it. Oh well. I rent what I want and I want to see it all!!

(Just needed something totally trippy for a change....)

The best things about the following, according to me, were...

Brothers 7/10: Natalie Portman!
A Prophet 8/10: the most tense, fraught, real murder scene I've seen for ages. I had to glance briefly away without wanting to
Sideways 8/10: Thomas Haden Church (he's an infant! and a derelict!)
The Contract 4/10: not much was good about this but some things were amusing: the least convincing wilderness sets and night-effects since the 1950s; some of the most hacky dialogue since cinema began; Freeman and Cusack taking the bullshit caper so seriously and treating it with a dignity it absolutely does not deserve
The Bounty 10/10: Anthony Hopkins reaching the top of his game and Tevaite Vernette, the fairest maiden that sailed the seven seas.
Koyaanisqatsi 10/10: Its melancholy and hypnotic music and the fact like you feel like God watching the earth when you watch this.
Powaqqatsi 8/10: The shot of the kids on the little ferris wheel about two thirds through.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire 8/10: The practical effects, and the way the film broaches what was at the time a very serious and pertinent issue, in as accessible and universal a way possible.

I'm hoping to just slip this in somewhere without making a lot of noise. I have actually been very unwilling to state my simple reactions to the movie called, "Avatar," as it feels downright dangerous and socially problematic to do so within both my real-life and online acquaintances. Yes. It does. Well then, in any event, the story itself struck me as a simplistic predictable comic-book melodrama and, as far as CGI... It just looked like a multi-million-dollar video game to me. Another step forward for "realistic" (whatever that means) cartoons I guess but...a walk in the woods is a lot more amazing and visually spectacular to me than all this expensive artificiality. So there you have it. Sorry about that, friends. As far as I can see, it's just another big-corporation-mass-media product with a token politically-correct storyline.

*

Adding my rating here:

3/10

The Hangover Blu-ray edition:

Quick recap: Movie about a bachelor party gone wrong in vegas. 3 guys wake up not remembering the previous night and with the groom missing. It's really fun not knowing what happened and seeing the characters start to remember the night. Reminds me a bit of "dude, where's my car?"

I saw this at the cinema when it came out and it was funny but not like everyone said. So seeing it once again by myself made me see what the movie was: A great story but not overly hilarious. I still rate this pretty high for what it is.

Official after 2 viewing rating: 8/10

(500) Days of Summer.

I actually watched it twice yesterday. Once for the first time by myself and another time with my sis. Very, very good movie. Not your average, cookie cutter romantic comedy, which I loved. Great acting, great soundtrack and great dialogue. I'm buying this one.

Daybreakers.

Eh. I didn't really like it. The trailer was more interesting than the movie. Several points in the film were flat out unnecessary and some of the acting was very spotty. It was okay. Wouldn't watch it again.

Art, nice to see you here again. I agree with the real world being amazing. I still reminisce about the first walk in 2000 on the frozen waterfalls of Goðafoss in the northern part of Iceland and the fjords of eastern Iceland.

I just watched it again, and until I can see floating mountains in person, it's a nice fantasy to see on screen instead of in text in some sci-fi book.

Thanks for the greeting, Cynthetiq. It's nice being seen here again.

(Art closes his eyes and sees floating mountains in his imagination. Art opens his eyes and sees floating mountains in his imagination. The floating mountains Art sees in his imagination are quite impressive and memorable to him and they are also free - with a zero carbon footprint to boot!)

I don't agree that Avatar's story is politically correct. Only ostensibly and insincerely so. The 'noble savage' ideology is really old-fashioned and I felt a little patronised to be presented with that sort of thing, without irony, in a cinema in the 21st Century. There's a big discussion about avatar elsewhere in Entertainment, I didn't read or contribute to that but I expect this sort of thing's discussed in more depth there.

Yes, oliver9184. I thoroughly agree with what you're saying here. The Noble Savage is a cliche.

Its Complicated.... 6/10 (surprising because I dislike both Meryl Streep & Steve Martin)

The plot is right out of the 1950's/60's. There is way too much Streep/Baldwin interaction and not enough Streep/Martin interaction to really explain the plot. Just not enough plot development... the movie is too short for what it wants you to accept. John Krasinski as Harley almost steals the show with an hilarious performance. The movie wins for showing that it's possible for older people with less than perfect bodies to still enjoy sex, and have passionate relationships.

Overall, worth seeing by men, probably a real treat for women.

I agree that John Krasinski as Harley just about stole the show in "It's Complicated"...but then there's Meryl. Despite the fact that this is not Academy Award material, I must say that Meryl Streep delivers exceptional acting as always...whether it be a drama or a romantic comedy as this is, she is always worthy of an Academy Award. She's a natural in a myriad of diverse roles.

Steve Martin, whom I loved in Father Of The Bride, just wasn't doing it for me...lack of chemistry with Streep perhaps. It was a real disappointment for me when Meryl Streep Spoiler: chose him instead of Alec Baldwin at the end but then I thought, hey wait, Alec Baldwin may have had more chemistry with Streep but his character was a real schmuck...not unlike John Edwards...casting the old out for the new. Then he has the audacity to return for "old times"....grrr. Spoiler: So the writers got it right in the end at least. And there were many hilarious moments...one scene almost convinced me to go out and smoke some grass.

Starship Troopers - 10/10
I love love love this movie!! This is probably the 15th time I have seen this and I still want to watch it again! I don't know what it is about it that is so great, I just can't get enough. It is a real shame the next two are so horrible. And I have also read the book and really enjoyed that as well. To all that have not read it, go do so now!

Taken - 8/10
Really cool movie, Liam Neeson kicks so much ass in this its scary! Go see this!

Avatar (in IMAX) 10/10
Second time seeing it, and it was still amazing. I don't give a damn if the story has been told 10 times before, an enjoyable story is an enjoyable story. The only thing I really did not like about it, and it was cringeworthly, was the main characters "ra-ra" speech near the end. I really did not like that part.

Conan the Barbarian - 3/10 (on the serious scale), 7/10 (on the B-movie scale)
Hilarious!! Hilariously bad!! Oh Arnie so so so cheesy!!

Conan the Destroyer - 4/10 (on the serious scale), 8.5/10 (on the B-movie scale)
Hilarious!!! Ultra cheese!!! Super-fantastic-mega-cheese!! The "sorcery" in this film is so amazing I wanted to shit my pants!! Arnie has some freakishly huge muscles in this, it is no wonder he won all those contests. Gah so awesome!!

Lost Season 5 - 7/10
Okay not really a movie, but its my post I will do what I want! I was not that impressed with this season, the last few episodes were decent but other than that they were too all over the bloody place. If I was watching this on TV and had to wait a week between them I would have been ticked and just given up.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - 8/10
One of the best braindead comedies every made. It set the stage for Keanu's acting. I don't think it ever got any better.

A Bridge Too Far - 8.5/10
I watched this in two sittings as it is really long. I really enjoyed it, anyone who likes war movies should see this. It really shows the brutality of it all.

Troy (extended blu-ray) - 8/10
I know lots of people did not like this movie, but I do. I like the swordplay, and its even better in the extended edition. Its about 40 min extra of pure fight scenes. If you like the movie and don't have it on blu-ray then get it!

Adaptation 7/10 felt a little dated on second viewing and certainly not a classic as I had vaguely thought previously. Nic Cage tries hard in two roles but often feels much less natural than in other roles. Donald Kaufman isn't quite as funny as I remembered and Charlie can get irritating. Both their hairs are exactly like pubic hair. I really dislike Meryl Streep in this but both Chris Cooper and Brian Cox are very good. This is definately worth watching if you haven't ever seen it before but don't expect to be floored by the cleverest movie ever made.

The Machinist 8/10 really pissed me off for the majority of its length because of how dour, and serious, and humourless (and so well-suited to Christian Bale) it is - and I was getting ready with a 5 or 6 out of 10 score - but it completely pays off in the last 15 minutes. The box said it's like Fight Club and Memento, both of which I know I should like but don't, so I wasn't expecting to feel rewarded afterwards. It was totally rewarding and I kept thinking about it all day, so it's totally recommended. It would be a 9 if it wasn't such a slog to get through.

Rob Roy 9/10 was something I had on VHS for years but never watched, so I stuck it on this week and I totally loved it. It's like a cut-price (but still studio Hollywood) Braveheart with guns. Liam Neeson is a duller-witted but strong as an ox William Wallace, and is wronged by a much better bunch of baddies than there are in Braveheart: Tim Roth is a revelation, wringing every drop of dastardly out of his role and John Hurt camps it up outrageously whilst managing to stay credible. These two have some lines that are far, far better than you'd expect from a film like this and pretty much all of the dialogue is superb - very rare for a period piece. There's an offhand, flippant quality about this film that was brilliant and feels much more immediate and real than Braveheart's earnest, almost endless and ultimately rather insincere pomp. If more people had seen it I think this would be almost as classic and well-loved as Prince of Thieves.

The Electric Cowboy 7/10 is another that had been glaring at me from the shelf for a long time. It's a modern semi-Western from 1979 starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Redford is a former champion Rodeo cowboy gone to seed, sold out and pissed up, whoring himself to advertise a breakfast cereal. He's required by his employers to ride a prize racehorse out onto a stage at Las Vegas for PR purposes but instead rides off into the desert because he's had enough of sucking corporate schlong. Redford may not have much range (imagine him as a baddie!) but he has massive personality and magnetism. This film would probably have bored me stupid without Redford in it, but I was glued and solely because of him I cared about what happened to his character and the horse.

The Watchmen 7/10

thought it would be better. high expectations killed the cat.

Edge of Darkness - 3/10
I think that is the name of it. Anyway, it's bad, bad, bad. I thought it would never end. It seemed to last for 3 hours,dragged with so much unnecessary jibberish, and I never cared about Mel or any other character. And the ending was not for me. Mel and Bruce need to give up making films and stick to the golf course.

Edge of Darkness 8/10 has been slagged off by some critics but not me. It's a very old fashioned and conservative film but the story engrosses and Mel Gibson is perfect playing this sort of character. The extent of my knowledge about this film, and my sole reason for watching it, was that Gisbon starred and I was entirely satisfied. (Grancey: The ending definately was for me! Spoiler: A tear came to my eye!)

Youth In Revolt 7/10 was able to dispell slightly, and probably temporarily, my for Michael Cera. Here he's being slightly daring taking on two roles: main character, and a physical manifestation of main character's id. As expected the id gets him into all sorts of trouble and scrapes and shit we wish we had the balls to do when we were younger.

Jumper 5/10 is a turkey that leads me to think, sadly, that Hayden Christensen, has no future outside of Star Wars. I liked him as angry Anakin Skywalker and I liked him a lot in Shattered Glass. There's a particularly narrow niche of indignant, infantile, pseudo-righteous frustration that he does very well indeed but little of that is displayed in this surprisingly earnest, but brainless, bunkum.

The Eiger Sanction 7/10 is a mid seventies Clint Eastwood (directed by and starring) film in which he stars as a spy-turned-professor: a pair of spectacles is all that's needed, and just like Indiana Jones all the hot young students want a piece of him (but he doesn't pick on students or drunks. Which, he says, is why he didn't "boff that little quiff".) Climbing fans will point to this film for its spectacular and real-life mountaineering scenes but these take an hour and a half to get to and the film's pretty slow until then.

Kalifornia 5/10 is a thoroughly stupid and unpleasant "thriller" from the early 90s starring Brad Pitt as a thigh-slapping lank-haired beer-swilling serial-killing yokel and the endlessly dislikeable Juliette Lewis as his childlike, babbling, pitifully retarded girlfriend. David Duchovny and some stuck-up bitch decide to take a road trip across America stopping at sites of famous serial killings (why not!), and unwisely take along aforementioned actual killers (ironic!)

The Bank Job 8/10 is a surprisingly good British crime thriller starring Jason Statham and lots of other British people you'll recognise but not know the names of if you watch British TV. The story is bigger and wider than is usual for the crime caper (sub-) genre, and is based on a real life incident that happened in 1970 but was instantly hushed-up because of supposed National Defense reasons and/or MI5 involvement. Some of the dialogue is pretty awful and some of the content is very dark considering how light the tone of the film is, but the photography's unusually nice for a film of this sort and there's some good action.

Syriana 8/10 is a big, complex and detailed geopolitical thriller with four or five different interlinking stories and a big ensemble cast that includes George Clooney and Matt Damon. It's like Traffic but about oil instead of cocaine, and it was written and directed by the writer of Traffic. It's fiction but based on the memoirs of a real ex-CIA man who was based somewhere in the Middle East.

The Mosquito Coast 6/10 apparently is the only Harrison Ford film to have made a loss at the B.O. He was never one of my favourites and as of 2010 he's a complete joke but back in 1986 he was probably at the peak of his stardom. He's acceptable and believable in this story of a genius but unreasonable and unhinged father who tires of the USA and takes his family to live in the jungles of Honduras - he couldn't have gotten any bigger, acting wise, in the role without becoming ridiculous but this film needs a monster and I think in 1986 there were actors who could have made it work, and made the film work better: Jack Nicholson (who turned it down), Michael Douglas, Jon Voight? Anyway as it is with Ford it doesn't really do the novel justice though River Phoenix is great as Ford's son.

The Wolfman 6/10 had some very good moments but something was not right somewhere deep in the story mechanics. It's only about an hour and a half but I felt extraordinarily restless in all of the non-action and non-Anthony Hopkins scenes. I couldn't care a jot for the female lead or her relationship with Del Toro and I'm not really sure that I was supposed to considering the scant amount of attention she and it got. The film had a troubled pre and post production so I expect a lot of romantic stuff may have been cut. The best scenes in this film are when the American werewolf is in London but it doesn't come close to the classic film An American Werewolf in London.

Crazy Heart - 2/10

For me, current films have been falling flat lately. I really hated this one. The performance by Jeff Bridges was boring and Maggie G. was also lacking in interest. However, Colin Farrell who I am really not fond of, had an amazing performance. If he had starred and not Jeff Bridges the film would have had a little umph.

The Devil Wears Prada 5/10 is a female-targeted fashion-based comedy/drama with Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt. It has an Ugly Betty-ish setup wherein an unfashionable woman lands a job at a very fashion-conscious establishment. Hathaway isn't good looking or charismatic enough to enthrall me by herself, and has a voice and mannerisms that irritate me, Streep might as well be asleep inside this role so the only thing left - if you don't know or care about fashion - is Emily Blunt, who's good but not in it enough.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona 9/10 is another arguably female-targeted comedy/drama, this time with the far better-looking and better-generallyScarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. It's a very laid back, liberal and effortlessly smart comedy set in Spain with loads of lovely Spanish Guitar music, wine-drinking and bedroom shenanigans with physically sublime females. Javier Bardem comes close to being the ultimate alpha-male in this, using nothing but innate charm and wit, without a shred of machismo. I can't remember when I wanted to be someone more than I did him in this film, and not just for the obvious reasons.

Into the Wild 9/10 is the true story of Chris McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp (Emile Hirsch), who after graduating college decides to give his entire savings to Oxfam, leave behind his family, friends and unwanted 'things', and go (indirectly) Into The Wild. Hirsch is an absolute revelation in this role, and he immediately brings to mind River Phoenix or a Beach-era DiCaprio. He and the gorgeous location photography are what makes this film great not good, and almost all the supporting cast is also strong.

Mission: Impossible III 7/10

Pom Poko 7/10

Trick 'R Treat 6/10

Kingdom of Heaven 6/10 (extended Director's Cut)

Naqoyqqatsi 1/10 I cannot remember ever being more disappointed by a film. I know Koyaanisqatsi like the back of my hand, and I love it dearly; and I found Powaqqatsi, whilst not AS strong, to be powerful and just as watchable. Naqoyqqatsi is a disaster. At first I thought there was something wrong with the DVD player or the disc. There's all sorts of lamentable CGI nonsense throughout, and the 'real' shots have almost all been treated with some sort of horrible process, like a shitty photoshop effect, fucking up the colours or the contrast. It's like what you can do, but wouldn't for any good reason, when you film things on your camera phone's camera.

Paper Heart: 9.5/10 - Very well done. Yeah, just very well done, and it was a great movie.

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The very reasons I will not be watching it.

Død snø (Dead Snow)
Død snø (2009)

9/10

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3...816x9large.jpg
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/6...azi550x324.jpg

Basically its a Norwegian "Evil Dead" with Nazi Zombies. If ya like Evil Dead, Nazi Zombies, blood and gore, and/or Norwegians you will like this movie.



Its on Netflix instant watch, so go fucking watch it right now. :thumbsup:

So I Married an Axe Murderer 6/10 is very tepid comedy with Mike Myers from 1993. I don't think I laughed once, but you might if you like Mike Myers or are more easily amused than I. Some nice San Francisco locations.

Back to the Future 10/10 - I'm not sure why but I wasn't fully aware of how perfect this film is so it only had a 9 in my head until I watched it again. I didn't realise just how clever the script is and all sorts of subtle stuff with the camerawork and sound had me rewinding and marvelling. The part where George and Lorraine finally get the ball rolling at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and save Marty from non-existence, is phenomenal. Jaws notwithstanding Back to the Future's better than anything Steven Spielberg ever directed.

Taxidermia 7/10 was, as I'd been led to believe by a previous post in this thread, like nothing I'd ever seen before. I have absolutely no idea what to make of it, though I'm pretty sure there was a point, i.e. there were legitimate artistic intentions and it wasn't just being contraversial for controversy's sake. A man's penis emitting fire like a flamethrower is just one of the outrageous treats the film contains.

Clash of the Titans 5/10 is a very dull ancient Greek adventure in the style of the far more fun Jason and the Argonauts.

Heartbreak Ridge 7/10 is a standard Clint Eastwood vehicle from 1986 in which he plays a grizzled Gunnery Sergeant in the Marines who makes proper soliders out of a unit of slackers, then takes them to invade Grenada and saves the day. Clint scowls, says "fuck" more than usual and does a lot of fighting. Mario van Peebles also features.

Man on Wire 8/10 is about the guy who tightrope walked betwixt the two WTC towers in the 1970s. It's an absorbing story but why on earth didn't they film him doing it?

Jesus' Son 7/10 is a worthy road movie starring Billy Crudup as a good-hearted drifter who gets involved in drugs, damaged girls, Jack Black and caring for the elderly all over the Midwest. It's disjointed and non-linear, and quite difficult to watch but Crudup is great and there's an excellent cameo by Dennis Hopper who has the line, "talk into my bullet hole and tell me that I'm fine".

The Boss of it All 6/10 is a tedious and pretentious "comedy" (speech marks definately necessary) from Lars Von Trier, whose other films Breaking the Waves, Dogville and Dancer in the Dark I like a lot. An actor gets hired to pretend to be the boss of a company for some reason I didn't pay attention to. If you work in middle management, or are Danish, or both; or if you care about things like companies taking each other over, you might get something out of this.

Ong Bak 2 - 7/10

I loved the first On Bak, this one had pretty much nothing to do with it in any way. The filming was really really strange as well, whoever did it took the whole slowdown and zoom in on something thing way too far.

But the last 40 minutes or so were 100% fighting, and serious fighting! Tony Jaa must kill at least 100 people in this time. Oh Snap!

Surrogates - 0/5. A movie has to be pretty damn bad for me to give it 0 stars. I didn't even finish watching it. It was boring, the acting sucked, the plot was non-existant. Horrible.

Carriers - 1/5. Chris Pine is hot, which is the only thing going for this movie. Generic movie about a killer virus and the people trying to escape it, but not nearly as good as similar films.

The Damned United - 4/5. Based on a true story of an English soccer manager in the 70's. Lead character is played by Michael Sheen, whom I love. Good acting, engaging story. If you are a soccer/football fan, it's a must.

Munich - 8/10

I liked it, lots of action and parts where I was on the edge of my seat.

Moon - 9/10

Great flick, and it seems to be fairly unheard of. For a movie with only 1 actor throughout most of it, it kept me entertained though, admittedly, some parts were pretty slow.

The Crazies. 100% suck. Save your money.

Alice in Wondering: a continuation of the classic children’s story, but now Alice has aged 8 years and decides, in her delusional state of mind, to escape reality and travel back to Wonderland. Wonderland is not as wonderful as it once was due to a series of events that occurred during Alice’s departure as a young girl, but this is all lost in memory to the present Alice, who assumes this is all a dream. Adventures and battle ensue throughout the 120 minutes movie and I was disappointed with the ending.

Rating: 7.5/10

Alice in Wonderland:

I'd say that Jove's review sums up a lot of it for me, but I think I liked the movie better. I've never actually read the books, so I don't have major issues with this movie "corrupting" the purpose of the books or anything like that. The art direction and costuming in this movie are simply magnificent. I'd say it's almost worth the price of the ticket to see Alice's wardrobe change throughout the movie, especially the plate armor she wears at the end of the flick. The girl didn't do a whole lot for me for the rest of the movie, but when she put that shit on...wow.

It wasn't a wholly coherent or perfectly conceived movie, but it certainly cleared my entertainment threshold for the two hours I was watching it.

8/10

The Hurt Locker - 4/10
It wasn't anything original, it had no plot, I never connected with any of the characters. I felt like I was there, but it was just going about a normal day for the bomb disposal team. The sound was good, but that is because my sound system makes up for a lot (I feel the helicopters and explosions). I watched it right before the Oscars and have no idea how it won. It should be a rental at best.

I haven't seen Up In The Air, but that looks like it would be twice the movie this was. And I can't see why anybody would want to watch Precious.

I watched District 9 last weekend and would say 7/10. I wish the aliens were more alien, and I think it should have been more Half-Life video game style filming.

Alice in Wonderland:

The movie was done well and for the most part entertaining. As a big fan of American McGee's Alice, I had seen on a few forums that Tim Burton had bought the rights and was going to make a movie of it.

I must say though, if this is Tim's version of the game, he never played or saw it. I was disappointed in this aspect. I think the plot lines and action would have been far better.

Once the movie started and the scenes leading up to Alice being in Wonderland made me think of Wizard of OZ and that the people in Alice's life were going to be characters in Wonderland. I think THAT would have made a good storyline, if done right.
This wasn't a bad movie and they in a way left it open for a sequel, which if done right could be interesting but in all honesty, I think it would be hard to do.

The 3D versions at our cinema were sold out all weekend but the 2D was selling only half full. I saw it in 2 D and didn't see many places 3D would have added to the movie that much except as a sales ploy. But 3D seems to be the trend now to get people into the cinemas.

Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham were good as ever. The actress playing the White Queen seemed a good fit and Alice herself was surprisingly good. The scenery for the most part was very colorful and light, not the usual dark we get from Burton.

Great kids movie... so so for adults.

9.5/10 for kids 7.5 maybe 8/10 for adults.

The movie version of American McGee's Alice got stuck in dev-hell and died a quiet death, sadly.

The premise of the Burton version and the American McGee version are essentially identical (older Alice returns to fucked up wonderland to save it from evil Red Queen), but Burton never claimed to be using American McGee's vision as a direct inspiration or source material for his movie.

I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't recommend paying theatre prices to see it (I used a free pass). I have, for some reason, never seen the original dispite being a Romero fan. The entire time I couldn't help but think that Romero probably did it better.

Spoiler: The car wash scene was pretty good though and one of the few actually nerve racking scenes in the movie.

6/10

Solaris (1972)

I've been meaning to watch this one for a while now, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's telling of how too many sci-fi films today rely on bombastic plots and special effects. This a film of psychological discovery and conflict, and it is brilliantly pulled off. It's a tradition of film that seems to have gotten lost in the 70s and 80s, perhaps with the advent of Star Wars and subsequent space operas. It's a pity, as I'd like to see more of this in current films. It makes me want to see Moon now.

I give it a 4.5 out of 5 (or 9/10).

It would have received full marks except some of the special effects weren't as seamlessly executed as I've come to expect with current films. I was more lenient than I would be with actual current films that fail to pull effects off without breaking my suspension of disbelief and engagement with the film. That said, Solaris stands the test of time and casts a shadow over many films being made today.

The value in this film is in its cinematography, sense of timing, and the soundtrack. It's absolutely beautiful.

The United States of Leland 6/10 is a teenage crime/drama from 2003 starring Ryan Gosling (my reason for watching it), Don Cheadle and Kevin Spacey. At the start a heinous crime is done but not seen and much of the story is told in flashback as Leland (Gosling) recounts events to a teacher (Cheadle) in his detention centre. A whole host of other figures including his father (Spacey) are involved but don't seem to have any bearing on what happens. This is a very confusing film yet it isn't at all compelling. By the end I didn't really care why the guy had done what he did, which seemed to be the point. Gosling seems to be going for quite a soporific, Donnie Darko-inspired performance here and because of it his character's utterly inscrutable, but not in a good or enigmatic way. I saw him in The Believer a while ago and I wanted more of that level-headed teenage determination and antagonism, but Leland is, and remains, a disappointing blank.

Back to the Future Part II 8/10 isn't perfect like its prequel but isn't as bad as some people and critics (me included) have said in the past. The characters' unconvincing aging and the lack of Crispin Glover as George McFly are my two biggest irks but they're get-overable and the film is a lot of fun anyway. Thomas F Wilson as Biff and future son Griff is arguably even better than in Part I and has more to do and more priceless lines ("who you calling Butthead, Butthead"). The hoverboard sequences still look ace even though we're now only five years off the actual "Future" of Back to the Future. However, I feel that in lieu of Glover returning as George, more of this film should have been set in the Future, with more sci-fi tropes and conventions being riffed on (just like Western stuff was sent up in Part III) and the "Future" Hill Valley being expanded - you only really see the town square and Marty's house - a future school complete with future Strickland would have been brilliant.

Beautiful Girls 7/10 is a minimumweight drama/comedy consisting of nothing but inconsequential gender-battling and sex talk from 1996 and starring Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Natalie Portman and some other people. Ridiculous actors you haven't seen or heard of for years are in it, like Michael Rapaport, Noah Emmerich, Annabeth Gish, Rosie O'Donnell and David Arquette. This is so 90s. At one remarkably prescient point Portman (character aged 13) says to Hutton, of herself in future years, "I'll be hot."

Mrs Doubtfire 10/10 is the film where you can see Robin Williams touch the outer edges of both ends of his acting talent - at one end crazy-voiced ad-libbing madness and at the other utterly sickening simpering self-righteous mawkishness. If you watch enough Williams films in general, and if you watch this film in particular enough times you may eventually come to appreciate both though I'll admit his syrupy side is an acquired taste that sometimes needs watching through cringing eyes and split fingers. This film has plenty for everyone and I'd recommend it even if I wasn't a Williams aficionado: Pierce Brosnan, pre-bond, is perfect and Sally Field is such a totally hateful stuckup bitch that you get a helping hand onto Williams' side whenever she's on screen. Even the kids are ok. The whole thing builds to an amazing screwball setpiece in a restaurant where Williams has to be both characters at once!

Killer Nun 4/10 is a "nunsploitation" (word not made up by me) film from 1978 which I only watched because I'm going to try and get all 72 of the Video Nasties watched, uncut, before the 30th anniversary of the Video Recordings Act 1984 (it was a UK law which required the censorship or banning of said Nasties). Most of the films on the list are said to have little or no artistic quality but I'm not going to let that stop me. You can have old fashioned sex and violence without artistic quality! Killer Nun has no artistic quality and very little sex and violence. A nun working in a mental institution (Anita Ekberg) gets sick of being a nun and decides to try drugs, sex, alcohol, smoking and violence instead. But she doesn't try very much of any of them, and never seems to enjoy herself. She's not even hot. Don't watch this film.

Night Train Murders 5/10 is another Nasty. You can usually tell by their titles. This one combines sex and violence in a way that would be distressing if it was at all convincing. Also not worth watching though there are some nice shots of 1970s Munich, and the tragi-comical sight of a Santa getting robbed.

Sweet Home Alabama 6/10 is a Reese Witherspoon romcom vehicle from 2002. Josh Lucas stars as Matthew McConaughey (old flame from back home) and "grade-A Hollywood cunt" Patrick Dempsey is the new rich smarmy city fiance. Reese has to go back to Alabama (swamps/civil war/RUN, FORREST!) to get a divorce from Lucas so that she can marry Dempsey in New York and presumably never go back home ever again. Because she hates it down in Alabama, the way they're all so backward (they're not - they like blacks and gays now) and she even hates the way they talk so southern and they're so dirty and have babies now (Melanie Lynskey/bathtub/Kate Winslet/New Zealand!) and they probably all still slap their thighs and holler n hoot and play the fucking banjo. The supposed-to-be-humble house of her parents, which is actually a MASSIVE set (with all the things on one side so the camera can go on the other!), seems even bigger than the Tara-style plantation house she pretended she was living in to her potential mother-in-law, the mayor of New York City. I wouldn't even consider watching this without Reese and (as I knew it would) her charm and likeability kept the whole leaky tub afloat. It's excellent when she gets pissed in the set that's just a bar that's just a shack on the edge of a swamp and the whole town's there and she rages at them for being such country bumpkins. I'd love to have Reese rage at me and me have to bundle her into my pickup and apologise for her to everyone and drive her home because she's too drunk to do so and not take advantage of her even though I could because she's still my wife because I still haven't signed those papers.

Inglorious Basterds 8/10

Oh. My. Goodness. What a great flick. I had no idea! My history books are all wrong. But seriously, I will be re-watching this one many times.


The Last House on the Left 7/10

Very Tense. One of the tensest movies I've ever seen. I had to leave the room, and listen from the hallway for some of the scenes. Very well done, I took some points off because I could only watch it in 5 to 10 minute segments.

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Show's how much I know. I've watched this a couple of times, and had no idea that Matt Damon was in it. I also give it a 6/10, as I enjoyed the setting, and the flick was entertaining. I didn't expect something along the lines of "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "In the heat of the night" and it didn't disappoint.

2012 - 6/10

I was expecting more disaster. The bits with disaster were B gold!! So cheesy I was glued to the screen wondering if they were actually so bold as to do such a thing!! The rest was just over drawn out mush that I had absolutely no care about. Could have been so much more.

---------- Post added at 05:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------

Daybreakers - 5/10

Really disappointing. It had some potential but just did not live up to it. Some of the crap they threw in there to make you jump was just irritating and horribly loud.

2012 - 3/5. Woody Harrelson was awesome. I love John Cusack. I like disaster movies, even though they are never "good". I'm glad I didn't pay to see this in the theater, but it was a fun rental.

Alice In Wonderland - 2/5. I wanted to like this, I really did. I usually like Tim Burton's movies and I love Johnny Depp. Visually it was excellent, but other than that...meh. I thought the girl that played Alice did a horrendous job, Depp's switch between accents (Scottish one minute and "mad" the next) made no sense at all, and I couldn't figure out if Anne Hathaway was doing a bad job or if her character was just supposed to be annoying. The only parts I really liked were scenes with Helena Bonham Carter.

Shutter Island - 3/5. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. A bit long. No quibbles about the acting.

"The Last King of Scotland" -- 4.5/5

An astonishingly well-acted adaptation of the novel of the same name. Forrest Whittaker actually made me *feel* as if I was in the presence of Idi Amin. As the movie progressed and became increasingly unsettling and then openly violent, the tension was nearly unbearable. This is not primarily an action film. It is a tragic drama that is laced with suspense.

I was surprised at the depth of my emotional reaction to the film. This was a great story about gripping, real events, and it was translated superbly into film. Highly recommended, folks!

Savinkov, I absolutely loved "The Last King of Scotland." And I agree, Forest Whitaker was amazing. He's a very good actor. I don't think he gets enough credit.

Agreed in full. What an actor!

That film was sufficiently intense that I could only watch the second half of it in 5-10 minutes chunks at a time. Garrigan was like a canary nesting amidst the jaws of Amin's crocodile. [-shiver-] It takes a truly exceptional film to hit me that way.

Alice in Wonderland.....8

I didn't want to see this, but I owed some friends and this is what they chose. And I really liked it. I thought they tried to make Alice a little too sexy, but whatever.

The Devil Wears Prada - 9 - I was very shocked by how deeply and quickly I became involved. This movie has plot twists in all the places I expected, but most of them were unexpected and it was funny at all the right times. Good Movie.

Yes, I agree that Forest Whittaker was good in The Last King... and deserved his Oscar. Also, I never felt such huge relief on behalf of a character as I did with McAvoy's at the end of that film. It was very powerful.

Fans of that film might be interested in checking out Yaphet Kotto's earlier efforts, playing the same naughty but endlessly convivial dictator in Raid on Entebbe which was a not very good TV movie from 1976. I doubt if Whittaker could laugh at a child as well as Kotto does here. Skip to about 2:50:



Uncommon Valor 5/10 is a war film in which Gene Hackman and a band of ex-military men go back to Vietnam after the war's end to try to find his son and other POW/MIAs. It's from the 80s and John Milius had a hand in it, so it's not subtle. The plot's as perfunctory as that of a videogame from the early 1990s. It's like Rambo crossed with the A Team but less good than either.

Videodrome 6/10 is a queasy and uneasy body-horror film from one of that subgenre's most prolific practitioners, David Cronenberg, and starring James Woods. The effects shots are impressive for their age but the story that is their pretext is pretty much bullshit which makes little sense and becomes more absurd the more you think about it. Both Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly) and Woods (Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador) were doing better stuff around the time they made Videodrome.

Shutter Island 8/10 is very good. Some minor plotting issues and contrivances towards the end stop it short of being great but the opening is one of the best I can think of thanks to a bravura helicopter shot and the placing of music which I had assumed was original but is in fact a part of Symphony No. 3 by Krzysztof Penderecki. Acting is excellent across the board but hats off inparticular to Leonardo DiCaprio (of course: he's never turned in a performance that wasn't excellent), Max Von Sydow and Ted Levine, who only has a bit-part but it's a part you'll remember.

Beautiful Creatures 2/10 is a genuinely dreadful British crime/drama/pseudo comedy film from 2000 that feels at least ten years older. Like a lot of British movies in the wake of Trainspotting and Lock Stock it desperately wants to be hip and sexy and off-beat. Almost the entire cast of this film does bad acting and Rachel Weisz - my only reason for watching it - is no exception but she stands out because she was well on her way to becoming a star at the time.

The Fountain 10/10 also stars Rachel Weisz, and Hugh Jackman, both of whom give career-best performances, and my words can't do it justice.

Donnie Darko 7/10 is an odd one. You tend only to remember the good stuff, of which there's plenty in this film, and not the boring bits in between - of which there's even more. But the good bits are very good - Donnie's "you're goddamn right I will" to his little sister; arguing with Kitty; Seth Rogen's school bully; Elizabeth Darko managing to be super-hot without even trying or even being in the film very much.

Birdy 5/10 is some sort of a drama about a guy (Matthew Modine) that got drafted and, shellshocked after getting blown up (or shot, I don't remember), has decided to act like a bird. His childhood friend (Nicholas Cage) visits him in hospital and the story of their lives up to that point is told in flashback. Cage is great - his oldfashioned style of delivery fits the period perfectly - but the film is really fucking boring and I completely fail to identify with either a boy who's obsessed with birds, or a man who thinks he is a bird.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 9/10. I had been wondering recently what the deal was with Enron, having been too young to properly understand or care when the story broke, and this film informed me perfectly.

The Spirit 4/10: I can't be bothered to write anything about this.

The Lost Weekend 7/10 is a film about alcoholism from 1945. I had heard about this film. I thought it was going to be a comedy in which a guy gets monumentally drunk over a weekend, whilst trying to write a novel. It's from Billy Wilder after all, who's known mainly for comedy. This isn't a comedy and it doesn't make you feel good about drinking too much, which is exactly what I was doing whilst watching it. It isn't like Withnail and I or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In this film alcohol is treated like any other addictive drug and could perhaps more accurately be compared to Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm.

JCVD 7/10 stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as a fictional version of himself who becomes involved with a bank robbery in his home-land of Belgium. It's a neat idea and he comes across well but the super-broad exaggeratedly-Gallic (so it seemed to me) acting of the rest of the cast grates after only a short while.

Lolita 8/10 is a 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's staggering and brilliant novel of the same name. It's a comedy about a sympathetic paedophile. I imagine it's the only such comedy; though it isn't the only adaptation of the book - there was one starring Jeremy Irons in 1997. It isn't particularly funny and of course it pales compared to the source but it's always a pleasure to hear James Mason's diction and Peter Sellers is sufficiently amusing as Clare Quilty. It's on the long side at two and a half hours but it gets better as it goes along and events reach their tragic, galling but totally inevitable conclusion.

The Road - I haven't seen a movie this haunting and emotionally gripping in a long long long time. If you want to see a post-apocalypse story actually done right watch, or read, this.... Only wish I had an opportunity to read the book before I saw this.

Alice In Wonderland - 6.5/10
It was entertaining. It was paced well and not too long. It was not necessary to see in 3D or IMAX for that matter. The costumes were nice, but not as good as a previous reviewer stated. I really liked the Cheshire Cat. The curiosity of meeting the characters and understanding their quirks was lost though, which is what made the original story such a trip. In the end, it was just another run of the mill adventure story with familiar characters placed into roles they weren't really suited for.

Ninja Assasin 8/10

Bloodiest movie I've ever seen...and there's nija's, total win!

sherlock holmes 6-10,
daybreakers ,just another vamp movie,shit's getting boring.

Ninja Assassin. Really really bad movie. So maybe a 4/10. But on the B side of things, Really AWESOME movie ... 9/10.

Hot Tub Time Machine - 8/10

I feel like this is the first stupid comedy in a long time that actually did things right. The jokes were great, and the story was cliche but happy. It does help that I went in with pretty low expectations, so coming out I was quite pleased. This movie gets my seal of approval.

Spoiler: Every scene involving the bellhop's arm was absolutely hysterical.

How To Train Your Dragon - 9.5/10
-0.5 points for modeling the dragon after Stitch. Everything else... awesome. See it in IMAX 3D if you can. It's more than just a kid's movie.

9

I can't put my finger on it but it just wasn't captivating. 6.5/10

Whiteout - ugh. You know a movie will suck when the opening scene is a close-up on Kate Beckinsale's ass leaning forward to turn on the shower then followed by a "steamy glass shower cabin" shower scene for at least 4 minutes.

3/10 for her ass alone. Damn.

Little Caesar 7/10 is, along with The Public Enemy (9/10) and Scarface (7/10), one of the three films that kick-started the gangster genre soon after sound first came to the movies. Here urbane, sophisticated and generaly non-gangster Edward G Robinson plays Rico Bandello, the callous lowlife loosely based upon Al Capone with "a chip on his shoulder the size of Chicago". He's not as watchable as Cagney, more so than Muni but more classic Hollywood gangste than either. His voice was surely the inspiration for Chief Wiggum.

Chronos 6/10 is a "non-verbal/non-narrative" time-lapse photography film made by Koyaanisqatsi photographer Ron Fricke. It, and its music, pales by comparison to that film but there are some effective moments. It was made for Imax and it's score would be higher had I seen it there instead of on my little oldfashioned TV.

Carnal Knowledge 7/10 is a sex-drama/comedy from 1971. Except for in The Shining, which sort of doesn't count, I haven't ever seen Jack Nicholson loose it so brilliantly as here. I know that everyone already knows it but he is amazing. At one point Art Garfunkel tells him "you can't make fucking your life's work." Forty years later I think Jack would beg to differ. And he precedes his iconic "Here's Johnny!" line from The Shining, saying "Here's Bobbie!" instead, but delivering it in exactly the same way.

Teeth 7/10 is a film I had heard of and been drawn to for some time but was too scared to watch. It's about a girl who has two sets of teeth: one in her mouth and one between her legs. She's in high school and starts off as an advocate of sexual abstinence, then starts hanging out with a boy she likes and gets a little curious about her body. The vagina dentata is as ancient and primal and universal a fear as the incubus/succubus legends and my fear was that this film would explicitly render the horror in a completely sober and "realistic" way - that may have made a better film but it's not something I could have easily watched. But I heard by accident that Teeth plays for laughs most of the time and is pretty much just a throwaway teen horror/comedy. It turned out to be true: there are plenty of laughs, the horror is absurd and/or funny and the film's tone is light.

Taken 5/10 is a silly, brainless thriller starring Liam Neeson as a loving father who has to find his daughter, who has been kidnapped by some dangerous Europeans. Luckily Neeson's career in the CIA (or whatever) prepared him for just such an eventuality as this, and he comes to Paris to kick Albanian criminal ass and rescue his little girl. Empire said it more effectively than I can: "If you took Commando and replaced all its humour (intentional or otherwise) with snarling hatred, you’d end up with Taken - a risible male-re-empowerment fantasy set in a world where a fatal headshot and rescue from a life of inter-racial rape is the best way to win back your daughter’s heart."

Perrier's Bounty 9/10. If you liked In Bruges, and it seems like most people did, you'll like this film which I hadn't heard of before I entered the cinema. It's laugh out loud funny, fast-moving and really poignant. With its amused and detatched narration it's like an Irish Big Lebowski. Cillian Murphy, who I've not seen lead a film before, is a revelation, totally believable and much more likeable than Colin Farrell's manchild in In Bruges, and the rest of the cast - including Jim Broadbent and Brendan Gleason - is excellent. There are large holes and larger coincidences in the story but they don't matter because the film skates over them so fast.

Layer Cake 7/10 is a British crime film from 2004 starring Daniel Craig and Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). It's a slickly made and easy to watch film that suffers by way of a disinteresting and unsympathetic lead character (Craig) and an ending which is so egregious and hollow it feels like the film just slapped you and said "fuck you for watching this".

Bug 8/10 is a very interesting horror film from 2006 starring Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon. For a long, long time you sit watching, wondering where the fuck it's going. It takes ages to set itself up but it all pays off and it's refreshing to see that in a film that's not thirty years old. Not a surprise when you consider it's adapted from a play and the director's none other than William Friedkin. The two leads are impeccable in demanding roles and give tremendous performances.

Shutter Island - 9/10. Being a bit generous here, but I had an awesome time watching it. Very memorable scenes in there.

She's Just Not That Into You - 7.5/10. Had low expectations going in, but it had it's moments.

She's Out of My League - 5/10

Some funny moments. I went with friends so I enjoyed it more than I would alone. I just realize this movie is the dude version of Twilight.

Synecdoche, New York - WTF/10
I really have no idea what to think of this movie. Bizarre doesn't even begin to describe it.

Thank you 1000x for summing up my feelings about the end of Layer Cake so well. That is precisely what the ending does, and I haven't the first clue why they chose to pull that shit. It is a pretty obnoxious ending to an otherwise great ride.

I want to add an addendum the morning after watching this. Even after reading the Wikipedia article that explains some of the themes in the movie, I am still confused.

I can't believe I am saying this, but....

Hot Tub Time Machine- 8/10.

This was a fuckin' funny movie! It's worth it for Rob Corddry's performance alone. But Crispin Glover, in a bit part, is also a scene-stealer. It's not really the most original screenplay, but it is way, way funnier than any movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine" has any right to be.

Better off Dead 7/10 is a high school comedy from 1987 starring John Cusack. If I had to pick my favourite genre of films it would be high school comedies. The 1980s was the decade of the high school comedy; the bar was set impossibly high early on by Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The rest of the decade's films in the genre are usually fairly poor but always easy to watch for the first time and there's likely to be a high count of good-looking fitties in them. Aside from this they have a charm and naivity absent from contemporary adolescent films. John Cusack currently stars in Hot Tub Time Machine, in which he's whisked back in time to the 1980s to relive his youth at a ski resort; in this film he's doing it for the first time, for real. The comedy is really, really broad and goofy to the extent of surreality (stop-motion dancing burgers) and there's as many misses than hits, as well as jokes about suicide which are in questionable taste and feel quite at odds with the film's light overall tone. Cusack is likeable and affable as ever; all of the other characters are not much more than ridiculous, cartoonish stereotypes.

Gran Torino 6/10 - the fact that a hundred and something IMDB voters have collectively rated this as an 8.4 scoring top 250 film astonishes me. Is the IMDB's readership (ergo the film-watching population of the world) really that obtuse? Or have I missed the point? It could just be that I'm wrong. It feels churlish to accuse a Clint Eastwood film of being unsubtle but this film is obvious and cynical to the extent of being patronising. And cynical too - in my opinion as blatantly cynical and manipulative as that old offender Forrest Gump. I know that Eastwood is Eastwood and I do generally like him and what he does. Here he's playing almost a parody of himself, glowering and grunting like the proverbial bear with a bee in its honey. Or mouth or whatever. All of the other elements of the story feel completely artificial. Never have I seen criminality rendered so unconvincingly (or acted so poorly) as here. Every single supporting actor is doing soap-opera standard acting. Watch the kid Eastwood befriends in the last scene that he's in (banging the cellar door). Garbage. It seems that Eastwood himself is pretty much untouchable these days (as an actor at least) but watching him in Gran Torino makes one realise how similar he was to this in A Fistful of Dollars almost fifty years ago, and how little his acting has evolved (it hasn't needed to I suppose). I like him a lot as a comic actor but living-legend status aside, I think he's just as limited as John Wayne was.

S.F.W. 5/10 is a heavy-handed, unpleasant, anarchic and ill-dated media satire from 1994 starring Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon. The premise is: convenience-store shoppers are held hostage by mysterious criminals who film their captives and force a TV station to broadcast it live. Stephen Dorff is charismatic and could be likeable if his character wasn't an empty-headed oaf. Witherspoon (my reason for watching this) is more real, and more likeable, and cuter, but isn't in it enough.

Bringing Out the Dead 6/10 is a drama from everybody's favourite film director, Martin Scorsese, from 1999 and starring Nicolas Cage. There's no way this should be boring considering the talent of those two names but somehow it is. Cage plays a semi-alcoholic paramedic scooping up broken human detritus from the mean streets (!) of New York City and dumping it into hospitals. But you can't watch Nic Cage get so spectacularly drunk as in Leaving Las Vegas then have him be a tiny bit drunk here. We know how drunk he can be and what a splendid thing that is now, so him drinking little bits of gin here and there like a pussy just doesn't convince.

Clash of the Titans 6/10 is a mess of a film, but is watchable because it's avoided the two things that would have crippled it: being too long and taking itself too seriously. You go to this sort of film to see massive monsters rather than good performances: that's a good thing because this film features possibly the most massive monster ever filmed, and performances that are completely blank, unmemorable, inconsequential and zero effort ones. Of the rest only Mads Mikkelsen is worth a mention. His looks and voice remind me somewhat of Peter Stormare and Stellan Skarsgård; excellently he'll next be in the megaviolent Viking movie Valhalla Rising. Watching Sam Worthington in the lead is like watching someone trying (not very hard) to be Russell Crowe - but someone who's only been told about Russell Crowe and hasn't ever actually seen him in action. He's like whatever the opposite of an actor is (?) - a hole in the screen perhaps, or an animated figure that nobody has animated. Worse than Orlando Bloom even. Colin Farrell or Eric Bana or even Gerard Butler should have played the part. And yes, those three only came to mind because of Alexander, Troy and 300. I saw this in 2D because I had heard that the 3D version is absolutely awful.

Kick-Ass -/10 isn't zero out of ten but I don't know what score to give it. I didn't like it but I think that's my fault rather than the film's. When I first heard about this film I knew it wasn't for me but I still went to watch it at 0020am, drunk, alone and pissed off about something unrelated. I stayed until about 2/3 through. Something about this whole concept and how popular it is really irritates me and I haven't yet been able to properly articulate it. I know I'll be in a minority. What it comes down to is this: I don't like comics and it bugs me how popular they are, and how the medium as a whole has been accepted as having the potential for almost as valid literary merit as regular prose does. (The term "graphic novel" lends credence to this idea.) I have to reconcile this admittedly reactionary viewpoint with the fact that I like some comic-derived films a lot: if there were no comics there would be no Spider-Man 2. Back to Kick-Ass: I absolutely cannot identify even slightly with a character who aspires to superheroism. A hero should be reluctant. Idea behind this film MIGHT work if its action took place in something like the real world - something closer to the Dark Knight or Watchmen - but Kick-Ass creates for itself a jokey and heavily stylised film world more like Batman Returns, in which violent slaughter is funny, there are no lawcourts and you'd expect to have superheroes show up when crime happens. Maybe (probably) this is the point and it's postmodern, and it's very clever, and I don't get it because I only read proper books and think comics are for children and slow-witted adults.

"Little Big Man", starring a very young Dustin Hoffman as Jack Crabb the mule skinner, based on a true story of a hapless guy raised by the Sioux Indians (Human Beings) and how Jack happens to survive at Little Big Horn. Not to mention all his bizarre adventures in between. It's the clearest view of how the US Government treated the American Indians back when our country was still forming.

This is one of my favorite Top Ten Movies of All Time. I give it a 9 outta 10. Every time I see it, I see something new and insightful, that I didn't catch the last time I watched this.

Cheif Dan George as Grandfather is incredible. What a great, great film!!

The theatre closest to where I stay most of the time when I am in Calgary only seems to play 3d movies now, so having said that I did not have a choice to watch either of the below movies in 2d. 3d movies also cost a whopping $15.50!!! Ouch!!

How to Train A Dragon - 9/10
At least I think this is what it was called. What an excellent movie! The lass who I went to see this with agrees full hearted with me. Some very funny moments, some intense moments, some tear jerkers, so knee slappers... all around excellent! And in 3D it was great! I think I am going to stick to watching these animated movies in 3D as I am fairly certain then are all rendered that way anyways, and not horribly converted like most live-action movies are. I recommend all to see this!

Clash of the Titans - 3/10

What a horrible movie!! First off I was ticked when there was no 2D option for this film, I knew right off the bat that it was only going to take away from the visuals as the movie was not actually filmed in 3d. How right I was. But even 2d would not have made this movie any better, there was 0 acting, and even the monsters were not that great. Medusa had horrible special effects, as well as most every other monster in it. I believe that the only thing I enjoyed in this movie was Hades.
After having seen the trailer for this I really wanted to see it, have not been let down by a movie like this in a long time. I suppose thats what I get for not checking RT first. I also loved the music in the trailer, I thought that was a really cool song, but 0 of the music was inspiring during the actual film.

"I do love the smell of the hunt... and the taste of the shunt!"

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iCDag7rZLq...0/Shunting.jpg

Society 9/10 is a horror/comedy from 1989 (released 1992) made by Brian Yuzna, who was partly responsible for the remarkable Reanimator films. Anyone who's into horror and/or prosthetic effects should make this a priority. The first hour is not garbage but neither is it particularly compelling; that this film gets 9/10 regardless is indicative of how amazing the third act is. I remember seeing this late at night as a youngster and it's probably one of the films that got me into films. This film is famous/infamous for its shunting scene and, to be honest, there's not really much else to write home about. The buildup is slow to the point of being agonizing and not really very interesting but when you get to that scene it's totally worth it. It absolutely lives up to my memories, unlike most fondly remembered and disappointingly revisited films and shows. I don't think there's anything else like it in existence - probably Braindead comes closest but the tone and intent is completely different. You see a man actually turned inside out. If that wasn't enough there's also a scorching hot fitty in it by the name of Heidi Kozak (I WANT TO GO TO THERE!) who reminds me of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times, and who features in an admirably gratuitous sex scene in which she - yes! - gets 'em out.

Jurassic Park 8/10
The Lost World: Jurassic Park 8/10
Jurassic Park III 6/10

Until recently I had held that The Lost World was slightly better than its prequel: now, having watched them all in a row in a mostly sober state, I have to reconsider. The trailer/cliff setpiece from The Lost World had been what I valued the most; upon revisiting it feels surprisingly artificial and not nearly as thrilling as I remember. Upon reflection the T-Rex and jeep sequence out of Jurassic Park is better. Cast-wise, Jeff Goldblum is (again) the only standout and has the best lines ("where you're going is the only place where the geese chase you"); the rest of the cast are as good as they need to be, which is not very, because the dinosaurs are what you came for. The dinosaurs in The Lost World are even better than the prequel and the sequel. Look at the baby T-rex sequences - that's staggering puppetry/robotics. Jurassic Park has a better character cast I think (Wayne Knight, more Attenborough, Samuel L Jackson constantly smoking -and in big closeup!), but I really like the scope and epicness of The Lost World: specifically the dino-safari sequence. The plot's horrible and there's loads of bullshit to service it (the little girl can do gymnastics, remember that for later) but it's not nearly as bad as JPIII, which made me burst out laughing when it transpired that the rators can literally talk to each other, and are cleverer than primates. The only good thing about that film is William H Macy being a sneaky son of a bitch and the entire cast clearly not taking anything at all seriously; the dinos seem slightly less accomplished than before.

Colors 7/10 is a uniform-police "drama" (for want of a better describer) from 1988 starring Robert Duvall and Sean Penn. They're part of the LAPD's C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) division which was tasked with stemming the flow of gang related violence in the bad areas of Los Angeles. Duvall is wise and weary, and has a liberal touchy-feely approach to policing; his new partner Penn (surely the model for Robert Patrick's T1000) just wants to take anyone and everyone down, like some sort of fucking rabid dog. Crimes, such as murders, happen, they get investigated and eventually the film ends.

Local Hero 8/10 is the sort of thing that used to be described in the TV listings as an "offbeat comedy. Peter Riegert (Animal House, The Mask) is a young oil executive from Texas charged with buying a tiny coastal Scottish village, so that it can be turned into an oil refinary. He's helped by gangling local company man and Peter Capaldi and hindered by the savvy villagers, in a film that's reminiscent of Whisky Galore! and an all-round easy to watch and very pleasant experience. Burt Lancaster is excellent as the company head and astronomy buff.

Miami Blues 7/10 is unusual in that its protagonist (Alec Baldwin) is an utter dickhead and has no redeeming qualities whatever. His whore-turned-fiance, Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a dummy with a thick old southern accent who's inexplicably loyal to him no matter what he does. Fred Ward (who out-acts everyone else in this film) is a cop whose gun, badge and teeth are stolen by Baldwin and who must recover said items quickly, because Baldwin is impersonating him and fucking shit up all over town (Miami). All of that makes the film sound like a bag of shit but for some reason it's not - it's fun and watchable. I don't know why. Also: the cumulative badness of both leads' hair in this film has never, to my knowledge, been exceeded.

The Lives of Others 8/10 is a detailed procedural detailing the East German Stasi's (state security/secret police) operations in East Berlin in the 1980s. It seems that the GDR was the closest that reality ever got to Orwell's 1984 - people get spied on, indicted, vanished, etc. A bad time is had by all, it's compelling and the ending is excellent.

Narrow Margin 5/10 is dull thriller mostly set aboard a train in which Gene Hackman must escort a witness to safety, all the way from Canada or Alaska to Los Angeles. Films that take place on trains should be towering pillars of suspense and tension and excellence (Runaway Train, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Transsiberian), thanks to their confined and claustrophobic nature, but this film doesn't realise that and squanders its dramatically ideal setting. Hackman, as ever, goes through the motions of being Gene Hackman with slightly more humility and action than usual; the actor playing the silly bitch he's protecting gives us no opportunity to care about her - which would/could have been the emotional keystone to the whole affair.

Zombieland: Not bad. The son wanted to see it and I was happily surprised by the movie. It was decently paced, it had Bill "Fucking" Murray in a bit role and some relatively good humor. I enjoyed it as escapist entertainment that allowed me to watch and not have to overthink or think at all for that matter.... 8.5/10

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans: It was Nicolas Cage being Nicolas cage. He sold the role well, played a very good drugged out police officer and Eva Mendes was very easy on the eyes. 2 problems with this movie though: the director had to add some freaking iguana/croc to the movie that made no sense (I'm assuming there was some "hidden" meaning to it, I could live with the "his soul is dancing bit... but iguanas and a croc????) and Val Kilmer's role was too small (I'm a Val Kilmer fan and found the interactions Cage and he had were very good but not enough of them, on the other hand where exactly in the movie would Val have fit in?) I truly liked the movie but the whole iguana/croc thing really lowers the score. 7/10

Gabriel: It was a new take and quite well acted and written. The pacing was excellent, this director know how to move the movie in a very appetizing way. I found the acting surprisingly good for an action film. By far the best of the 3 rated in this post. If you are religious, I think you will truly be inspired. If you aren't but can take the movie for what it is (and it in NO way pushes any religion) you should enjoy it just as much. I cannot say enough about this movie without giving any of it away and if I did that would be a crime. Just go see it and thank me later. 9.5/10

Tiptoes is a 2003 film starring Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman and Matthew McConaughey. It's...very...um...interesting. I don't want to say too much about the plot, but suffice it to say that this is not your usual Hollywood pablum. The acting is mostly excellent, except for McConaughey, who absolutely phoned this one in. Beckinsale is better than you'd expect from eye-candy and Oldman delivers a top-notch, absolutely believabe performance. Also features Patricia Arquette and Peter Dinklage as a Marxist biker. Watching him chewing up the scenery is one of the highlights of this film.

This movie is one of those that's well worth seeing once, but ultimately is only interesting for its subject matter, and for Peter Dinklage's scene stealing. (BTW, if you know who Dinklage is, then you have an idea what the subject is.) If McConaughey had given a better effort, this could have been a very good film, but he didn't and the film suffers for it. 6/10

oh, and if you dont mind a few commercial interruptions, you can watch it on-line here: Tiptoes - Crackle

The Box: What started out as a short from Tales From the Darkside turned into a massive mess. It was a pathetic excuse for a movie. The only thing worse than the plot was the acting, Cameron Diaz looked haggard and had such a forced fake Southern accent it was sad. This by far was the worst waste of time I've had in a long time. I can only say the best thing about this movie was it ended.

I got this movie because I recently had seen the short version on TFTD and it was a good story. I figured they took that and added to it and possibly made it better.

-10/10

"28 Days Later" - 7/10
"28 Weeks Later" - 7/10
"A Haunting In Connecticut" - 7/10

I'm a horror movie fiend. If I'm scared to walk through the house at night after watching, then it was a good movie.

"Inglorious Basterds" - 4/10

Was simply not impressed. But it wasn't that horrible. Violence was good. But I was bored through most of the movie.

I went on a movie spree the last few days.

Terminator 3 - 7/10
I did not really like this the first time I saw it, its been about 3 years since my last viewing. I really enjoyed it though, it was just a fun time where I could turn off my brain and enjoy the destruction. The CGI was actually pretty decent in it, much better than most of the crap in modern movies.

Terminator 4 - 7.5/10
This movie had some great aspects, and some horrible ones. But man did it sound awesome on my sound system and Blu Ray!

Spinal Tap - 9.5/10
The only reason this did not get a 10 is because I did not want it to end. What a great movie! I highly recommend this to everyone on the planet! Probably my 5th or so viewing and it just gets better each time.

Pitch Black - 5.5/10
I really liked this when it came out, but I have no idea why! Such horrible acting, everything was pretty horrible in this. I always thought Vin was huge too, but watching this again he does not look that big... strange... maybe The Rock and Arnie have swayed my perspective.

Planet Hulk - 6.5/10
Pretty decent, a little slow at times and not enough Hulk Smash. But overall I recommend this to anyone who likes Marvel cartoons

Hulk vs. Wolverine - 9/10
Excellent! Pretty short at like 40 min or something, but just fantastic. Pure Hulk and Wolverine ass kicking!

Bucket List - 8/10
Kinda makes me want to start living my life now. Kind of a tear jerker though, I am such a sap.

The Transporter - 7/10
The first one is really cheesy, but it was much better than I remember it being.

Crank 2 - 8.5/10
I hated the first one, but this one I had fun throughout! I don't know if its because I had my cheese had on for the night, or if its because it took itself less serious and just had fun, but man was this a good time. I will definitely be watching this one again.

Same for me. What the fuck was this movie! not good!

"The Blind Side" - 6.5 / 10.

Was hoping it would be more of a chick flick. It was good, but not great, even though I adore Sandra Bullock.

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus - 7/10
Saw it on my flight to Japan. Unique little movie. You don't see many like it these days. Not sure how profound the plot is, but it certainly takes you places. Heath Ledger is good in his final performance, but the way that they worked around his death is totally distracting. Johnny Depp looks convincingly like him, BUT he acts too much like Captain Jack Sparrow. Jude Law's part is kinda pathetic. Colin Farrel, amazingly enough, does the best job, but he looks nowhere near like Ledger.

Clash of the titans. 5/10

Too much formulaic action. Too little epicness. Too little character development. Too little plot exposition. Too many camera angles to set up 3D, and too little epic cinematography. And why the fuck does Perseus have a buzz cut?

Seriously, all these new 3D movies are seriously pissing me off with their "look at man leaping off the screen into your face" shots. Avatar showed what an immersive 3d experience should be like. All these movies with singular 3D shots are just pathetic.

Sadly, no one has done epic lately better than Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay. Can some decent director please put their hand up?