Entourage Season 2 - more of the same, although it's slightly better than season 1 because there's a few more interesting events occurring. That means its an easy watch which is reasonably entertaining but because of the extremely one dimesnional characters and the shallower than a 5 day old rain puddle shallowness, it is also instantly forgettable. Jeremy Piven cotinues to provide the only interesting character in the show, hollywood agent Ari Gold.

7/10


Miami Vice - A miscalculated misfire from Michael Mann. Its infused with plenty of style and Dion Beebes' cinematography is pretty good, if not upto his previous work with Mann on Collateral. However, Mann imbues the movie with more gravitas than the material can handle, and the whole thing pretty much collapses under its own weight.

The script is poor and the pacing is all over the place, with early scenes being far too chaotic and the middle section being far too limp. Jamie Foxx does well individually but has zero spark with Colin Farell while Gong Li does reasonably well with a poorly written role.

Even the action scenes, which to be fair are still far better than the tripe most movies try and pass off as action scenes, are not as good as in Mann's other films.

5.5/10


Silent Hill - Christophe Gans's first movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf, was a glorious mess but this one is just an absolute mess.

Based on the popular horror game franchise, the production design is excellent and the visuals are impressive, if a little too CGI, with some truly grotesque and hellish scenery. But as far as a sense of dread or suspense goes, they are nonexistent. It might be flashy but it is definitely not scary.

It is also scripted like a video game, characters literally going from one room or level to another whilst avoiding obstacles and monsters, which when given the 2 hour + runtime becomes extremely tedious.

On a side note, quite a few reviews upon release complained about it being almost incomprehensible. I didnt find it to be like that, in fact by the time it's over it makes as much as sense as most David Lynch films. 

silent hill would be 3/10 

Brotherhood of the Wolf wasn't Gans' first movie, he also did Crying Freeman and a segment from that Necronomicon thingy. 

really? I always thought Brotherhood was his first, what's crying freeman about ? 

Very good film ! 

I'm surprised you haven't heard of it, it's quite popular (based off a very successful manga), more so than Brotherhood (as that one was produced in France).
It's also with Mark Dacascos, he plays an assassin working for some powerful yakuza gang, but love makes him reconsider his current job (yeah, typical, heh =). It's an ok movie. 

so it's not french then ? 

It's a USA/France/Japan co-production, but most of it takes place in the US and a bit in Japan if I remember correctly. 

saw this one with my kid in cinema last weekend :)

http://www.flushedaway.com/flash/index.html

great movie!!!

P.S--> for those that have kids go see is a great one ;) 

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005) - Zhang Yimou's latest falls well short of the greatness of his earlier works but is still quite a decent film.

In this tale of a Japanese man who attempts to reconnect with his son by going to China and filming a particular masked opera, the plotting is a bit contrived and the whole thing too melodramatic, but the direction is strong and the acting even stronger.

But it looks like this was only a temporary return for Yimou to his ealrier type of films, as his next one looks very similar to Hero and House of Flying Daggers.

7/10


The Big Heat (1953) - Above average film noir from Fritz Lang which is a bit too sentimental in parts to really work as a noir and also has a not so convincing Glenn Ford in the lead role as Detective Bannion who tries to singlehandedly battle beauracracy, corruption and crime at the same time. Its derivative stuff, but it works to an extent due to tight direction and good performances from supporting players, especially Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame.

6.5/10 

The Conformist (1970) - Along with Raise the Red Lantern, this was another movie that I'd been wanting to see for years. And like Raise the Red Lantern, it was well worth the wait.

Bernardo Bertolucci's film is a headspinning experience thanks to the dizzying visuals and the even more dizzying narrative structure. It's not hard to see why Scorsese and Coppola adore this movie about a member of Mussolini's secret police who becomes a fascist not out of greed nor out of fanaticism, but out of the desire to become 'normal'.

The visuals by Vittorio Storare are on par with his work on Apocalypse Now, the camerawork is so fluid it will make your average cinematogrpaher cry. The music is not on the same level but is still very memorable and fits the action on screen like a glove. And beneath all the style, there is a lot of substance, but due to the complex narrative and the speed at which it moves along, it's quite difficult to take it all in.

That's basically my only complaint, along with some dodgy dubbing, I would have preferred a slightly slower pace so that certain events were given more time to register an impact.

8/10 

Fallen Idol (1948) - It's not quite in the same league as that other more famous collabration between Graham Greene and Carol Reed, The Third Man, but its still a great film. Apart form a dodgy and overly bombastic score and the pulling of a punch at the end, there is not much wrong with this.

The acting's great, especially from the child actor, the direction' tight and the script's almost perfect in his thriller that's made not only from a child's perspective but also within a child's world.

8/10 

but your comment,
Apart form a dodgy and overly bombastic score

reminded me of Ladyhawk, a decent fantasy flick from the 80's that is close to unwatcheable now because of a terrible score. 80's synth hasn't aged well. 

except in scarface 

Pirates of the Caribeann 2 - Dead Man's Chest

Bigger, louder and extremely duller. I cant believe it took this long to come with something as tragic as this.

4/10 

the product placement nolonger dictates the action.

candlelight dinner and her fucking phone beeps, she reads the sms and... - how BOND is that? HELLO SONY FUCKING BULLSHIT MARKETING. also, ford paid 15mio pound for having all their stuff appear in the movie. 

And I'd hardly describe the above examples of product placement to be integral or detrimental to the action/plot. Product placement isn't a bad thing in itself until the businesses responsible start demanding certain things from the film, as they did in Die Another Day [i.e. the Ferarri's that fell out of the plane weren't allowed to be seen to be 'damaged' which lead to the ridiculous shot of them poking out of a swamp without a dent or scratch in sight].

Most film/tv productions get sent various items by companies like Sony, AOL etc. which they're free to use as props or background dressing, because both the companies and the film benefit from it. Looking round my surroundings right now I can see Sony, Puma, Xerox, Antec, Specsaver, Panasonic, BIC, Microsoft, Logitec and Duracell products to name a few so I'm not sure why some people get so offended when they see a product in a [contemporary-set] film. Of course you're going to notice the brand of a phone when the camera is positioned in such a fashion that you can read the phone but my point was that in Casino Royale, the product placement is inoffensive. 

how BOND is that? HELLO SONY FUCKING BULLSHIT MARKETING. also, ford paid 15mio pound for having all their stuff appear in the movie.

The next Bond is set to be funded by sushine, rainbows and moonbeams without any hint of nasty Capitalism tainting Britian's onliest, I mean hardest, working civil servant on his exploits.

Yeap, it is all being funded by BBC so you might want to bring a pillow and blanket with you to snooze during that game of baccarat being played in real time. 

Ninotchka (1939)- Starts off well enough and manages to survive Greta Garbo's introduction, but eventually her montonous delivery and extremely one note performance derail the whole thing and the script gets cheesier the longer the movie runs.

5/10

Superman Returns - Kate Bosworth is terrible as Lois Lane, Kevin Spacey is far too camp as Lex Luthor, Brandon Routh is passable as Superman and the script has as many bad bits as it has good bits, but yet it almost works.

Full credit to Bryan Singer for turning lacklustre material and talent into a reasonably entertaining movie.

7/10 

that should read "Kevin Spacey is far too serious as Lex Luthor..." 

Bah now I totaly dont love you for dissing Silent Hill. And Lynch too.

...oh btw nitin's Silent Hill review would be 3/10 

Superman Returns, 7/10? That's a pretty generous score, but then again it seems like I'm the only one who really wasn't impressed at all by this. I don't want to go off on a big rant because it wasn't that awful, it was just completely... weak.

I guess Brandon didn't have much to work with but he seems like a bit of a plank. Spacey was completely underwhelming, and Lois Lane, who gives a shit? Why would you even bother with that girl. I mean Superman could rape her so fast she wouldn't even notice anyway.

I usually like the big budget action / superhero things, but they're usually more fun I guess. Or I'm old. 

i'd have said silent hill was better than superman, but then, i was never a fan of superman, and silent hill has cool monstrous things. 

I just found it completely impossible to engage with this film. Infact I'd say it made me feel exactly the same as V for Vendetta, which also inexplicably failed to interest me. I can't say why for either film, but they both left me feeling "well, I don't want my money back or anything, but I'll actively avoid watching it again." 

see 'mallrats' for why lois can't have superman's baby. >_<