Lacombe, Lucien (1974) - Louis Malle's terrific movie about a naive, directionless and borderline sociopathic young french man who, after being bored with his day to day job, attempts to join the French Resistance but upon rejection, inadvertently joins the Gestapo.

Through the character of Lucien, Malle manages to impressively blur the distinction between the hatred that fuelled some to collaborate with the Nazis and the passion that drove others to resist them. Its a bit overlong and the narrative does seem to get lost 2/3 of the way in, but it is still an excellently acted and directed movie.

8/10


Wonder Boys - The script tries a bit too hard in quite a few places and the ending is also a bit tacky, but in between there's some real high points. And it is also very funny.

Tobey Maguire overdoes his role, but Michael Douglas is quite good as the cynical writer who doesnt know how to follow up his mega-succesful last novel. Robert Downey Jnr is also great as his editor, trying to rush his next book to completion.

Quirky and entertaining but needed more focus.

7/10


The Name of the Rose (1986) - I didnt have much of an idea about what this was about and was pleasantly surprised. A very good, moody film and whoever cast Sean Connery got it spot on as this is the best he has ever been.

The movie's essentially a murder mystery set in a 14th century Bendectine monastery and Connery plays William of Baskerville, a monk who is "in tune with reason as much as he is with spirit". Its a very dark film, both in terms of subject matter and atmopshere, and the director has gone to much effort to get the ambience right.

The main mystery loses a bit of steam towards the end, as other matters get more focus, but overall this is a very satisfying movie with a good script and quality performances.

7.5/10 

accepted his Oscar for Beautiful Mind, he made a point of stating that the man who deserved to be recieving the award did not even get nominated. He meant Michael Douglas for Wonder Boys. 

Alien 3 (30 min extended version) - Finally saw this version, I'd seen the original theatrical version previously and it really was one bad movie.

This is better, but it only pulls the movie up from terrible to above average. Really, adding scenes can only do so much, this needed a major overhaul to be any good, let alonebe comparable to the first two which are great films.

Anyway, the extended cut flows better and is a lot smoother, but now its way too long at 144 min. Its actually fairly good till the 80 min mark, and then it doesnt realy know where to go or how to get there. and given that there's an hour left after that point, that's a lot of time. Pity, because the plot actually had some real potential, too bad the script is such a mess.

David fincher directs too distantly, you never really get involved with the movie despite the excellent production design and the reasonable performances. Its shot in the trademark Fincher oppressive style that is readily evident in Seven and Fight Club. but despite te excellent cinematography, there's no real memorable images nor any memorable set pieces, which were ther in the first two films.

6/10


Le Corbeau 91943) - Excellent little movie from Henri-Georges Clouzot about a small town plagued by a series of poison pen letters. Whilst the main mystery is a bit easy to work out, its fortunately not he main focus of the movie. Clouzot is more interested in portraying a community rife with paranoia and fear and wher people inform on the doings of others in order to hide their own secrets (which, given that this was made in the occupation years, is probably also an attack on the gestapo and other collabarators).

And its filled with some nice imagery, especially the closin shots. Good Stuff.

8/10 

I saw Black Dahlia this weekend. It was terrible! I'd read the book long ago, and liked it, which is probably why I didn't read any reviews that could have warned me. Think about everything that made LA Confidential good, and remove it. 

I was looking forward to it, as well as hollywoodland. but both have been getti bad reviews. 

another movie with Aaron Eckhart that I saw recently was "Thank You For Smoking," and that was highly entertaining. Might be on DVD by now. 

why do i disagree about alien3 being a bad movie so much. really need to watch this again. 

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) - I'd heard a lot about how great this movie was, but had put off watching it till an acceptable dvd release was out. Finally saw it this weekend off the remastered HK dvd and it is most definitely an absolute masterpiece.

It's a faultless movie, with Gong Li in the role of a lifetime as the fourth bride of a powerful chinese lord in the 1920's. The competition between the wives is tough, as their "master's" attention carries power, privileges and status.

Impeccably shot, outstandingly acted and excellent directed, this is probably the best modern asian film I've seen.

9.5/10


The Black Swan (1942) - At 84 min, it's a breeze to sit through but is ultimately a fairly corny old-fashioned pirate movie. Has charm in parts and looks great, but depsite the quick running time, it's nothing memorable.

5.5/10


Deadwood Season 2 - Finally finished this, took a while because I was trying to cut down my unfinished movie stack and so only saw this intermittently.

Anyway, well below the quality of season 1, which admittedly was hard to live up to given that it was probably the best season of drama television ever, but it's still much better than most shows' peaks.

The scripting, and in particular the dialogue, is not as excelent as season 1. This time around, the integration of swearing into the shakespearean like vernacular is not as well done and the swearing does actually become distracting and draws attention to itself. Also the first 3 episodes are a bit weak.

After that point the show does pick up and hits some of the same highs that it achieved in season 1. Theres a lot more happening this season and whilst its difficult to get a grasp of everything, there's a lot there to hold your attention.

7.5/10 

Wages of Fear (1953) - Henri Georges Clouzot 's brilliant film about four desperate men in a decrepit south american village, who take on the job of transporting a vast amount of nitroglycerine over some rather dangerous territory.

Most movies wish they had a script so good, the first hour is pretty much all buildup but it does a great job in setting the atmosphere and characters. The remaning time is the actual transport, and despite being 60% of the running time, it does not get tedius for any of it.

The acting is strong, the direction even stronger and although it might be predictable in parts today, it is still one heck of a movie.

9/10 

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) - It has some great scenes, but there are some poor choices by Martin Scorsese that significantly lessen the impact.

The main problem I had with this, and the one that took me right out of the film, was to have everyone maintain their accents. Especially Harvey Keitel. As I mentioned, this took me right out of the film and was completely distracting.

Other problems included an at times brilliant, and at other times completely silly score and some shoddy acting by some of the minor players.

In between all that, there really is some memorable stuff, much more than the entire length of The Passion of the Christ. And whilst Paul Schrader's script is hardly subtle, it is almost always intriguing.

A misfie overall, but an interesting one.

6/10


Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) - Another classy film by Luis Bunuel, this time about a chambermaid's sojourn at a wealthy 1930's french estate, which is inhabited by some rather curious people.

Jeanne Moreau is great once again and the movie starts off fairly lightly before veering off into more dark and surreal territory in the second half. One of Bunuel's more straightforward and accessible movies, but as good as his other more abstract stuff. The ending is a bit abrupt, but otherwise classy stuff.

7.5/10 

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) - the final movie in Chan Wook Park's vengeance trilogy and coming after Oldboy, it's a bit of a disappointment. It' still a decent movie, just not more than that.

It melds the styles of both Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Oldboy which works to great effect in some scenes but is not as effective for the most part.

This one is about Lee Gaeum Ja, who has been in prison for 13 yrs for a murder, and upon release obviously goes about extracting vengeance on the real perpretator, whilst the movie provides exposition about her character and past via flashbacks (some clever others not so clever).

There's lots of style and it does head off into unexectedly interesting directions despite the simple premise but there's also a definitely a sense of Park trying to cram way too much into one movie. And some of the segments are a bit too heavy handed.

But there's a nice strain of humour running through the movie, giving it a sense of the surreal and the flashiness of Park's style does cover up some of the narrative mess.

Enjoyable, disappointing and entertaining all at the same time.

7/10 

Personally I thought Deadwood got better with each season, but you're right about the swearing in season 2. I think they may have tried to live up to expectations a little to hard in thar regard. I thought the season 2 finale was one of the greatest moments I've seen on film, in television or cinema. Though admittedly it wouldn't stand up without the character building in episodes previous.

Season 3 addresses some of the problems with swearing [either that or I was just used to it by then] and ups the ante on the convoluted speeches [Farnham and Jane being particularly entertaining as usual]. It's also much more violent and the underlying tension running through the camp is tangible throughout with very few of the moments of respite that season 2 dotted around. I've yet to see the last two episodes, but so far it's stunning.

The greatest thing about Deadwood is that I come away from it thinking in their language, just as I do from Shakespeare. I don't think I could ever give the series enough praise tbh. 

is 3 meant to be the last season ?

its a great show, no doubt about it, I think I was just expecting too much after the near perfect season 1.

yeah, the finale for 2 was great even though it was pretty much an adpated version of the climax of godfather 1.

But al swearengen is quite possibly the most fascinating tv character ever. 

Night Moves (1973) - A fine character study from Arthur Penn parading around as a film noir. It has another solid turn from Gene Hackman in a role not too dissimilar from Harry Caul in The Conversation. He plays obsessive private detective Harry Moseby who suffers from existential dilemmas and doesnt quite know when to quit with a case.

The script is well written but takes on a bit more than it can handle. Whilst the mystery plot and chracter drama is competently written individually, it's not linked together all that well. So each plays out in acts but they never coalesce as a whole and there is a bit of a jar every time the script changes focus.

Still Hackman is excellent and there is some great dilagoue. Its well directed in a low key fashion from Penn too.

7/10 

Brick - Rian Johnson tries a bit too hard while directing and it's a little too self conscious of the genre and films it's trying to emulate, but otherwise this is pretty good. Its an interesting idea, trying to transpose film noir into a high school setting but it succeeds better than Veronica Mars in my opinion.

The main reason for that is because Johnson realises that you cant just transpose the elements of film noir, you also have to create a cynical and seedy world for those elements to be a part of. This he does successfully here, and whilst the actions and language of the characters are not what normal teenagers would engage in, it doesnt seem out of place in the world created.

However, Johnson doesnt seem to have enough confidence in his material and imbues the movie with lots of visual tricks that serve no real purpose and end up detracting rather than adding to the movie. Also, it ticks every box in the noir handbook but it would have been better off leaving some of those boxes unchecked as certain parts seemed very forced.

Joseph Gordon Levitt does very well as the main character trying to track down his girlfriend.

7/10 

The Bride Wore Black (1968) - french movie about a bride whose husband is killed ont heir wedding day and she goes on a vengeful spree to kill all 5 men involved, crossing their name off a list as she kill each one. Sounds a lot like Kill Bill, but general plot aside, this is more Hitchcock than Tarantino's film.

However, its pretty disappointing. Despite bing reasonably directed by Francois Truffaut, reasonably acted by Jeanne Moreau and also featuring a nice score by Bernard Hermann, it just didnt work for me.

5/10 

w

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f

go write real reviews for real sites ! 

cant be bothered. These shortish ramblings are easy to come up with, I couldnt be arsed doing more than this. 

what I have seen recently though:

Children of Men
Film set in the future where all the women are sterile and the human race is slowly dying out.
Extremely engaging style of shooting to this is quite noticeable, makes the film seem almost first person, and very convincing, especially as it's technically a sci-fi film. If you've heard of this film at all, you'll have heard people praising how realistic it's version of the future is, and I agree. Nothing fancy, it's pretty much the UK as it is now but a bit dirtier and with slightly better computers and cars. Clive Owen is pretty good, but plays it quite subtle. Overall I liked this as it didn't try and force a moral conclusion or message on you, it just told a story, and made it very exciting. Great action scenes too, go watch it.

Severance
You'll only really be able to see this if you're from the UK i think, but don't worry if you're from elsewhere, it's not that good. It's a horror/comedy combo in the vein of the excellent 'Shaun of the Dead', but this goes down the route of trying to be more scary, and fails in the task of being funny. It's about a business team-building trip a group of generic office workers take, going into the woods (in Slovakia maybe?) and killings by ex-military crazies ensue.

It's really let down by Danny Dyer in the lead role. The guy is a total cock, and the film is constantly attempting to make you think he's cool. Fuck, they keep making him pull out random drugs from his jacket to prove what a rebel he is. Wow, you're smoking weed?! Get over it. Everyone else has. Except rappers in the US for some reason. Don't bother seeing this. 

children of men, yeah I heard about that and Cuaron's visual style is very distinct, looking forward to it. But who knows when the hell it will come out here in oz. 

The Long Goodbye (1973) - Some sort of 70's filtered, post modern film noir by Robert Altman which is a parody, homage and an update on the genre at the same time. Elliot Gould plays the Raymond Chandler character Phillip Marlowe in a very laconic, non caring sort of way and complteley different to how the character was played earlier in the The Big Sleep and Murder My Sweet. Altman also updates some ideas, for example he gets rid of the voiceover that is normally a staple of the genre and replaces it with a character trait where Marlowe likes to talk to himself.

It's all reasonably entertaining, especially a cameo from a gangster owed money (which is the type of scene Tarantino is known for now), but the breezy style is a bit too meandering and I'm still unsure about the (presumably) changed ending.

7/10


Unbreakable - Rewatch, I remember hating this at the movies, but decided to give it another go. Anyway, this time around I didnt think it was terrible but its still fairly underwhelming.

Its reasonably well directed by Shymalan but the script is poor. The general plot itself is fine but the pacing is way off and there is too muc preoccupation with the 'twist' ending. The themes and ideas were there to explore if so much emphasis was not placed on the twist, Samuel L Jackson's character coming off th worst in the current script. And some of the scenes were incredibly contrived.

5.5/10


The Rules of the Game (1939) - Rewatch as well, since I saw Gosford Park not too long ago I thought I'd give this another go too, especially considering Gosford Park is virtually a remake.

Originally, I thought this was the better movie, mainly because it didnt have that dodgy second hlf with the too cute self conscious murder mystery. This time around, I would say they're both about the same, I couldnt care less about any of the charactes here and so didnt care one bit about their dilemmas. Its well made, but I just dont see why its one of the greatest films of all times.

6/10


Always Sunset on Third Street (2005) - Very popular Japanese film from last year and its not hard to see why. It's a nostalgic and unashamedly sentimental & melodramatic depiction of post war Tokyo, whent he whol nation was trying to rebuild.

Normally, I dislike overly sentimental stuff but its exceedingly well made and itgenerally doesnt feel too contrived or forced. There's no real plot, it just follows te life of a group of people on a street in Tokyo 1958. Cliche upon cliche is pile on, but piled on well. Worth a watch, even though its all very predictable.

6.5/10 

The Departed - Although a vastly different movie in tone, style and focus, albeit with the same general plot, it is as good as Infernal Affairs. I thought the original was a pretty decent and entertaining film, nothing more, and I think the same of Scorsese's remake.

The original was more focused on its central two characters and the merging of their identities, whereas this gives more screen time to Jack Nicholson's mob boss and is essentially more concerned with the plot and keeps a distance from the Damon and DiCaprio characters.

There's a lot more humour in this one, which is a welcome addition, but its also a little bloated and self indulgent. Acting wise, everyone does well without really being great, Damon being as good as Andy Lau from the original and DiCaprio also doing well but below Tony Leung's performance. Then again, Tony Leung is one of the great current actors in the world, so it's a bit of a harsh comparison.

Scorsese's flamboyant style suits the tone of his version, a complaint I had against the original where the overstylized direction detracted from the more serious tone of the movie.

In the end though, if you like one, you should like the other about the same.

7/10 

Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut) - It's a shame that this version is not what will generally be associated with this film, because the theatrical cut was one extremely poor movie. It had horrible pacing and terrible editing that also gave the impression that it was poorly shot. On top of all that, there was absolutely no sense of focus or direction.

This is a massive improvement, taking the movie to almost great territory. It adds 50 min of footage, and none of it appears to be battle scenes. You can work out within the first 10 min that this is a completely different movie with a different sense of rhythm and tone. The pacing is much much better, I honestly cant say I felt the 194 min running time.

The poor editng that plagued the theatrical cut is gone (although I still maintain that the battle scenes are far too quickly cut and not hugely effective), and the visuals this time have breathing room to deliver their impact.

It still falters a bit towards the end because Orlando Bloom is average-above average in his role, and doesnt have the necessary presence to carry off the final act. Apart from that though, the rest of it is very impressive.

8/10 

ok, saw a few this weekend :

Downfall (Der Untergang) - Almost great movie about Hitler's last days in his bunker, when it was only a matter of time before the allies broke through to Berlin.

Bruno Ganz puts in one of the great cinema performances, capturing the normal, meglomaniacal, delusional and monstrous sides of Hitler all at once. The movie has copped some criticism for 'humanising' Hitler, which is rubbish because by showing him as a person, and not just a one dimensional caricature, it makes his actions (and also those of the people close to him) all the more horrifying.

It stops short of greatness because of two things I think. Firstly, Ganz's amazing performance outacts everyone else on screen, making them look a bit second rate. Secondly, the movie and the pacing dont quite work after Hiter's death and it seemed a little directionless after that part.

Still, very good movie and well worth watching.

7.5/10


The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947) - Corny, if sincere, movie about the relationship between a widow, who moves away to the seashore after her husband's death, and the ghost that haunts the house she moves into.

Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison are adequate as the two characters and its quite well shot but I just found it to be very dated and silly.

However, it does contain one of the great endings, which is really as corny as the rest of the movie, but is nevertheless very effetive.

4/10


Joint Security Area (2000) - The movie that put Chan Wook Park on the map before his trilogy of Vengeance, and its a pretty decent, if heavy handed, film about a shooting on the north/south korean border that gets the tensions running. It then follows the investigation by a neutral country into the matter, and of course, to what really happened.

It has well written characters and is reasonably well acted, but there are scenes which really needed proper english speaking actors. Also, its a little simple in its philosophising and there are a couple of plot points that didnt need to be twists, but on the whole its an entertaining watch.

7/10


The Virgin Spring (1960) - A heavy handed effort from Bergman, but still well made enough to be a good movie. Set in a very authentic looking and feeling 14th century Swedish village, it is, general plot aside, about the dichotomy between paganism and christianity. And Bergman does hammer you with this point, with some blatant (if sometimes clever) symoblism.

What still makes it work is the authenticity mentioned above, and the work by the actors, especially Max von Sydow as a lord, who is clearly more Pagan than christian despite his own best efforts.

7/10 

Unbreakable: i love the pacing - it's not an action movie. What's bad about it?

and i think the samuel l jackson characters comes off like it does on purpose - it's so one dimensional because comic characters usually are. It reflects nicely what comic chars are about, having a small, dramatic backstory/history, and a clear intent.