or the sheer bullshitness of her taking him in (yes I know it's christmas eve etc

but taking in strays just doesn't strike me as that big of a deal, esp. since Kiera's character had a good reason to feel a kinship with Brody's character, even if at the time it may have been inexplicable to her.

I would like your take on some of the paradoxes; you likely noted things that I missed. 

fair enough, that and the sudden romanticim came across as too contrived for me. And I dont buy the kinship since upon their first meeting in the future, all he did was fix their car once.

Regarding paradox stuff, cant recall all bits specifically but the fact the he learns that he helps cure the kid but then also learns how to cure the kid in the future. If he had to learn how to cure the kid by going to the future, how could Keira have known that he helped cure him (as it hadnt happened yet) ? 

King Kong - Is it overlong and self indulgent ? Yes.

Is it Fun ? Sort of.

I actually enjoyed the first third more than the middle which went on far too long for my liking and with some very dodgy CGI. The 3 tyro fight was pretty well executed though. I also like the last third but felt that parts of it were too sentimental and romanticised. The effects work was probably at its best here too.

Naomi Watts again delivers (she is by far my favorite actress going around), putting in arguably the best blue screen performance to date.

Could have cut out the Jimmy character in its entirety without losing anything except a crap reference to Heart of Darkness.

6.5/10


Le Samourai - A bit too simple and lean to call great but there's no denying the understated brilliance of Jean Pierre Melville's crime/gangster classic. A man in complete control of the material, Melville strips down the crime film to its bare essentials with great attention to detail. Well worth a watch.

7.5/10 

While paradox is very difficult to avoid in Time Travel stories, that would qualify as a gaping plot whole you could drive a truck through. I saw
the movie when it first came out on DVD, but from what I can recall you are most likely right about the sequence disorder. 

HT's homonymicaly impaired. 

Dark Water - not a big fan of the original, I only saw this because of Connelly and because my brother wanted to see it. Competently acted and surprisingly retains most of the plot and structure of the original. Despite not being a fan of Hideo Nakata's film, it was definitely much better than this, stronger drama and tighter direction.

5/10


Layer Cake - dull attempt to make another movie, although slightly harderedged, in the Lock Stock vein. Daniel Craig is quite good (finally understood whyhe was chosen for Bond) and its photographed nicely, but the script is all continuous exposition of new subplots and characters pretty much the whole way through, so much so that it doesnt leave room for much else. Sienna Miller looks hot too.

5.5/10


Whirlpool - classified as a noir, this is actually a so-so melodrama by Otto Preminger. The acting ranges from decent to bad throughout the film, as does the script. Suffers from the same issues that plagued Hitch's Spellbound as it treads similar psychoanalysis territory.

5/10


Domino - This must have crossed the "so bad it's good" line very early on because I kept watching even though it had a trainwreck of a script and the zenith of MTV type direction that just assualted your senses. Tony Scott's a hack, but this was even beyond his abilities, he must have had some help to direct something like this.

Still, it's sort of entertaining for a while till it just keeps going on and on (it's over 2 hrs, which is ar too long fo rsomething like this).

4/10 

I saw the original a few years back... I think there's some pondering of social trends there, like how kids are left alone so much nowadays (same in ring, parents are never around and kids just watch tv)... And then there's the whole theme of the mother abandoning the baby. With the elevator and the filthy water and all. Dunno, maybe I'm reading into things too much. 

you're right, they are definitely there, and I was surprised they kind of ported those over to the remake too since it was marketed as a horror film there which it isnt really. 

From Russia With Love - dont know why this is regarded as one of the best along with Goldfinger, I found it exceptionally tacky and boring.

3/10


Audition - Probably best to see this without any knowledge of the plot (although the cover gives a lot away) but suffice to say it finishes up completely different to where it started. There are not so subtle hints along the way as to where this is headed, but none of them still prepare you for the impact when it arrives. Havent seen any other stuff by Takeshi Miike but this was quite impressive. Dont know how well it would work a scond time around though.

7/10 

From Russia With Love - dont know why this is regarded as one of the best along with Goldfinger...

Well, people who like From Russia With Love (such as myself) like it becuase it's the least gadgety, gimmicky, and science-fictiony of the Bond movies (For Your Eyes Only is another one.) It feels more like an actual espionage film -- no death satellites, no world held hostage, etc.

I actually don't think Goldfinger is as good as people think -- it's got a good theme song, Pussy Galore, Oddjob, and the "i expect you to die" scene, but aside from that, Bond is a fairly unimpressive superagent and spends most of the movie letting his female friends die, and being goldfinger's prisoner. 

the timothy dalton bond movies?

I always liked those - way better than normal bond :) 

that timothy dalton is too "feeling" for a Bond in the vein of the previous ones. He always seems somehow sulking and devastated and saying to the girls like "how do you feel?". Others womanized and shot people like hell, and were mentally rock-solid the whole time... Talk about psychopathy. 

yeah it was definitely more Bond the secret agent rather than Bond the action hero, but I guess I just didnt find it interesting enough as an espionage film.


Megaman,

no this the second Bond film, with Sean Connery. 

Land of The Dead - pretty good zombie flick with a nice dosage of subtext from Romero. Not exactly subtle in its critique, but it is reasonably effective. Of course, it works nicely as a zombie flick plain and simple, though the lack of any real narrative does hurt it a bit.

7/10


40 yr Old Virgin - I must have seen a completely different movie to most people because despite it being highly recommended and also one of the most well reviewed movies from last year, I found it extremely unfunny. I had heard a lot of things about a witty script, but this is as far from witty as I could imagine.

3/10


Le Cercle Rouge - Usually there are a handful of films that define a genre and showcase its highpoints. Sometimes there is one film that does it all. This is that film for the heist genre.

Jean Pierre Melville's masterpiece is impeccably acted, beautifully shot and directed by a man who knows he is in complete control. The confidence of the director in his material is exuded in almost every scene.

9/10

According to imdb, John Woo is currently working on a remake and although he is a massive Melville fan, IMHO there is no way he can replicate the brilliance if it aims to make any money whatsoever.


Cinderella Man - nice looking, feel good against the odds boxing film, mediocrely directed by Howard as usual but with two very good performances from Crowe and Giamatti that stops it from becoming too sappy. It does go on for far too long for what it is given that there is zero character development for any character. Overall though, worth a watch.

7/10


Tombstone - Second viewing, the first was a while back, I still dont like it. It just looks horribly forced, from the acting to the directing to the music. Val Kilmer is the one saving grace but he just draws attention to the ordinariness of the rest of the production.

4.5/10


The Girl with a Pearl Earring - Plodding, dull and uninteresting, mainly due to miscasting of the principle leads. Colin Firth was very unconvincing as Vermeer. Scarlett has a certain acting style (that she always adheres to) which works very well in some roles and makes her look like a lost puppy dog in others. In this one, she comes across as the latter.

3.5/10


A Beautiful Mind - Second viewing of this too and its still how I recall it from the first time round. Apart from a handful of scenes in the second half where Crowe flexes some acting muscles and Connelly lends good support, this is an awful awful film. The script is mostly to blame in my eyes, and then the hamfisted direction.

4.5/10


Wallace and Gromit - CotWR - Quite good, reaosnably witty and funny and the claymation is brilliant. Much better than some of the recent cropt of compuetr animated films like Madagascar and co.

7/10 

I liked it too, esp. Giamatti and Crowe, and the actor who played Max Boer (am I remembering the right boxer, here?) should not be overlooked as his performance was well done. There was one incredibly bad distraction in the movie, Renee Zellweger's accent; it sounded comicaly contrived, like a WB cartoon character from the Bugs Bunny era more that an actual person. 

sucks. I dont know why she still gets movies, she's not really all that good looking and she certainly cant act. 

Love and Death - Some of Woody Allen's work is brilliant but this effort is one of the unfunniest and forced attempts at comedy I've seen since...well The 40 Yr Old Virgin. Hard to believe its from the same person who made Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes & Misdemeanors.

3/10


The Missing � surprised that this was a Ron Howard film, I counted exactly 3 instances of trademark howard sentimentality. That�s pretty good for a 130 min film. Not that this is well directed, an average directing job at best. But the performances are good, tommy lee jones and cate blanchett rising far above the material, and the script is reasonably decent even though its overlong and doesn�t really know how to end. Could have been better but not a bad attempt.

6/10


Pickpocket - I'm unable to pinpoint why exactly but I quite liked this. It goes against so many things that I think should be part of good films, yet it's very very easy to stay glued to the screen.

Voiceovers for information that acting should provide and completely neutral acting are the two prime examples of what I was referring to above. But used here, they work brilliantly. Having said all of that, I didnt quite find the end as moving as was intended.

Also, this would have to have been an influence on Taxi Driver to some extent.

7.5/10


Head in the Clouds - badly written, badly acted period drama. Stay well away.

3/10


Look Both Ways - very good debut from Sarah Watt with strong characterisations and a nicely woven screenplay, which although a little overscripted at times, is a welcome change from most australian scripts. I liked the nce use of animation throughout the film and the actors do a reasonably good job of bringing the story to the screen.

Steps into cliche territrory every now and then but on the whole, quite a quality film. Pity about the interlaced dvd transfer.

7.5/10


The Cooler - competently acted but awfully scripted movie that never quite knows what it wants to be and also runs through the cliche book, making sure none are left out. In the end I was quite underwhelmed despite the good performances by Macy, Baldwin and Bello.

5/10 

Sleeper - Slightly better than Love and Death, but still not that good and definitely far below Allen's best work. You can see glimpses of what he would go on to do but this is fairly pedestrain material.

4/10


Assassination of Richard Nixon - works on most levels mainly due to an exceptional performance by Penn. Comparisons to Taxi Driver are hard to avoid and whereas that was a perfect venture into the disturbed mind, this suffers from never really making a credible enough transition for its character from self pitying loser to deranged psychopath. Still worth a watch for some brilliant acting.

7/10


Bandits - Picks up a bit once Blanchett is introduced but the script is terrible. And Bruce Willis is extremely annoying.

3.5/10


Frenzy - minor Hitchcock, but above avergae with some brilliant sequences. Unfortunately the characters are very unlikeable, the pacing is quite off and the whole thing isnt as good as the abovementioned sequences.

6.5/10


The Producers (2005) - Without even comparing it to the original movie, it is a poor attempt at a comedy/musical. Broderick is way out of his league in both singing and comedy. Lane is passable, Ferell is reasonable (till you start comparing at which point even he is second rate) and Thurman is not bad.

If you make a comparison, its the same film but with all that made the first one work and unfunny musical numbers and new jokes put back in.

4/10


Pride and Prejudice - Apart from being exceptionally well shot, it's not very good. The acting is ok, it's definitely not an oscar worthy performance from Knightley who is fairly stiff along with MacFardyen. Overal plot which I presume is from the novel is decent, but how it's been adapted into a screenplay is a bit of a mess.

5.5/10


Intacto - Spanish film (with some exchanges in English) set in a (real) world where Luck is a commodity that can be lost and acquired. Basically certain people have the capability of acquiring other people's luck and using it for their own advantage while condemning their 'victims' to ill fortune of various degrees. Script is heavy on plot, bit short onc haracterisation but it's quite stylish and the overall plot is failry interesting. Impressively Shot too.

7/10 

keep up the nice reviews! 

How do you have so many time to watch all these movies ? Do you work in a cinema or what ? 

no. Just have lots of dvds :)

Plus given that my old computer could not play any new games, I could use some of that spare time.

Also, my current job lets me get home at a decent hour.

Plus I obviously have no life :) 

I was very impressed. Prior to this I'd thought of Jennifer Connelly just as an actress who was often in good movies (Dark City has been a favourite of mine since it came out). However, I didn't really see her do any really standout acting until this movie. Maybe I forgot how much bite Requiem for a Dream had, or just the crazy mother's acting performance in that film overshadowed all others. The script for this movie was quite good, making a tragedy is hard, I think they fucked up 1 character for the sake of the plot, but still, overall it is very good and given the characters involved, fairly convincing. Anyway, Connelly does an excellent job, Kingsley's performance as Colonel Behrani might be even better but as I'm a guy I think I prefer her. Plus the fact that she always plays a lonely, depressed, often drug-addicted, but still incredibly hot young woman, erm, tends to sucker a lot of sympathy out of, ahem, stable and successful individuals like me. 

yeah it is good, I thought the plotting was a little contrived but the actin more than made up for it. I like connelly in most the stuff she's done, but yes she dos eem to have one haracter down pat, although with usually sufficent subtle differences. 

Autumn Sonata - When in form, Ingmar Bergmn makes absolutely brilliant stuff, when not so in form, his films are competently made and acted but come off as self-important and heavy handed. I found this one to be a fairly middle of the road Bergman with some very unnatural dialogue for its chracters (well subtitles anyway).

Well acted and shot, but some of the techniques used break up the film rather than add to it.

6/10


The Twilight Samurai - Highly acclaimed recent Samurai film from Japan but I found it to be thoroughly uninvolving. It's a harsh comparison, but compared to Kurosawa's stuff, this is fairly middle of the road. I'm no expert on the Samurai times, but the dialogue (subtitles again) and particular actions of certain characters just did not seem to be in line with the time period portrayed in the movie. That distracted me enough to not really like the film.

4/10 

Wild Strawberries - A fairly decent self-reflection road movie by Ingmar Brgman punctuated with flashbacks and surreal dream sequences that seem to fuse with the current reality, as a professor looks back at his life on the day he is to receive an academic award. Some of it is quite heavy handed but there are also moments of precisely executed insight. As always, very well shot and acted.

7/10


Patton - Staggeringly brilliant military epic covering the second world war years in the life of George S Patton, the US war general who was a key figure in the allies' triumph. George C Scott puts in one of the finest performances ever (also a nice two hander to his turn in Dr Strangelove), the movie has at least half a dozen amazing sequences (eg the opening five minutes), and the script is a lesson in how to pace an epic movie without making it too bloated or too fleeting.

There are flaws, the script has issues despite being excelently paced as supporting players dont really get anything worthwhile to work with. Some of the supporting acting is also below par. But all of these flaws are minor in comparison to Scott's acting and the excellent direction by Schaffner.

9/10


Gallipoli - Hadnt seen it before, but this is undoubtedly THE australian film. It manages to encapsulate much of 'Australia' without ever appearing to try to do so. The performances are good and the direction is outstanding. The football scene at the base of the pyramids is one of many brilliant scenes. I dont think the section that dealt with the actual war was as good as what went before, it just didnt seem focused enough. Peter Weir made two big contributions to Australian film with this and Picnic at Hanging Rock.

8.5/10


Starship troopers - It's satire, and on more than one level, but its not a particularly clever one as it barely scratches the surface. But, on top of all that, it's also a pisstake on the american war film and is quite entertaining to watch because (a) it goes through every war movie cliche in glorious fashion and (b) the director probably didnt tell his C grade cast that this was satire and they play it (hammily) straight. It does go on a bit too long for what it is, I think Verheoven indulged himself a bit too much.

Also, managed to spot two references. A drill instructor doing joe pesci's "funny how" Goodfellas scene to one of his marines, and Kain's funeral scene from Alien.

7/10