http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302886/
Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, super sexy girls, how could this be bad. (Not to mention a short scene with the Stiffler and one other "famous" guy I already forgot about right now.)
Could have had some more love (the ending was a bit underwhelming) but it was fun and great. Ellen Pompeo, god she has a smile. 

Eastern Promises - moody, brutal thriller/drama from the Cronenberg-Mortensen team and it's as good as their last offering, A History of Violence. The script is tight, every plot point and character action fits together nicely without feeling too forced or contrived.

Mortensen is very good as Nicolai, an english russian mafia heavy man, and he is well supported by Naomi Watts and an in form Vincent Cassel (who finally gets a decent english language role).

Cronenberg directs well, mixing restraint with unflinching (although gratuitous) violence and the end result is pretty satisfying.

7.5/10


A Prairie Home Companion (2006) - Robert Altman's last film, a fictional behind the scenes look at the final show of a long running radio series in the american midwest that gets suddenly cancelled, is reasonably entertaining thanks to some hilarious conversations and very good performances from the ensemble cast.

However, that's all it is, a string of conversations, some interesting and some not so much. There's nothing really holding it together, apart from what looks like whimsical nostalgia, and it really doesn�t amount to much apart from being a nice diversion.

6/10


Slings and Arrows Season 2 - not as good as season 1, but that's a realtive comparison, because it's still a damn fine season of tv. It retains almost the same format as season 1, which makes it seem not a fresh but otherwise it's darker and whackier with the same high level of writing and acting.

7.5/10 

Mean Machine - Watched this again last night. Its a copy of a remake , and also a remake in itself (IMHO). Anyone who's seen The Longest Yard (old or new) or the original Mean Machine will know what I'm talking about. The screenplay of all four movies is almost identical. Mean Machine (2000?, Vinnie Jones) is by far my favourite. Its very very funny. About screws playing guards at fooball (or soccer if your American). In each film theres always a guy who plays a psycho whos in maximum security and this film has Jason Statham (sp?) who plays 'The Monk', a martial Scottish martial arts expert, who ends up in goals. His daydreaming scenes are priceless. Also there is a 'lesson' in how to play dirty given by The Monk using Danny Dyers as a model, where he demonstrates 26 different 'moves' which could be used to immobalise the opponents. All in all hilarious, not too long, well scripted, well worth a watch:

8/10 

I know, I know... 

Weeds Season 1 - even though I found quite a lot of the drama and comedy to be forced and/or predictable, on the whole this was quite a decent show mainly due to the performances. Mary Louise Parker does a really good job, even on the numerous occasions the script lets her down, and most of the others rise above the material too.

But I shouldn�t criticise the scripting too much, even though its not as clever as it thinks it is, it hits the mark regularly enough for it to be satisfying.

7/10


Criss Cross (1949) - excellent film noir from Robert Siodmak. Burt Lancaster does really well here, his character seems to be aware he is doomed right from the start and Lanacaster portrays the reluctant acceptance of his situation very well. Tight script with neat supporting performances and its shot very well too.

7.5/10


Ugetsu (1953) - hmm, it's pretty well made in almost all areas and has some very neat ideas, but it just didn�t work for me beyond an appreciation level. Kenji Mizoguchi's period fantasy about the actions of two farmers during civil war in the samurai times is part neo-realist cinema and part ghost story, with both parts fairly convincing in their execution.

The story, however, is very melodramatic and I personally think melodrama requires a heightened form of acting to work and the neo-realist approach adopted here did not work for me in that aspect.

Still, well worth checking out.

6.5/10


The New World (2005) - Definitely overlong, and the last half an hour doesn�t work as well as it should, but otherwise I found this to be an excellent take on the Pocahontas story with engaging performances from Colin Farrell, newcomer Q'orianka Kilcher and Christian Bale.

Terence Malick obviously has a slow, ponderous and meditative style, and it's one which annoyed me no end in The Thin Red Line, but here I found it captivating in managing to transplant you right in the middle of where this movie takes place. The cinematography here goes beyond just pretty imagery and actually makes you feel the location, so much so that after spending 2 hours in the jungle when the movie finally shifts to England for a brief period, it seems as alien to the viewer as it does to one of the characters.

Now admittedly the style and pace is not for everyone and will most likely bore many when coupled with the lack of any real story, but this is in my mind what cinema is all about. A good story is a bonus but when you have such command over sound and image and are able to extract performances from your cast that support the atmosphere, narrative drive is not all that necessary in my book.

7.5/10


The Little Foxes (1941) - very well acted and scripted (if predictable) melodrama by William Wyler starring Bette Davis. Davis is terrific as usual and the supporting cast are wonderful, most of them underplaying their scenes with Davis but still having as much impact.

William Wyler also must have had a thing for staging crucial end scenes on stairways, this is the third movie (the others being Jezebel and The Heiress) of his where I've noticed it.

7.5/10


Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - gold black comedy but it would be a disservice to the great script in calling it just that. The great thing about the writing is that although its often wickedly clever, it manages to also be touching and dramatically convincing when it needs to be. Great ending too.

Add to that the brilliant performance(s) of Alec Guiness who plays 8 members of a royal family that are targeted for murder by an unhappy descendant (an excellent and deadpan Dennis Price) and you have a great film.

8/10 

that someday a movie will be made that has this sort of impressionistic experience of nature's magic and all that stuff. I hoped New World could have been it but no. 

your all gay 

I just watched Hoodwinked. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443536/

Great! If you like animation movies but are bored by all the generic crap nowadays (after Shrek and Ice Age), then give it a try. I was really well surprised. 

Macbeth (1971) - easily the best film version of any shakespeare play I've seen, Roman Polanski's extremely literate adaptation will not be for everyone, mainly because it retains the dialogue as written, but it is most definitely a great film with tons of atmosphere and excellent performances.

Its not perfect by any means, some of the slight changes such as casting Francesca Annis as a much younger Lady Macbeth dont work, but otherwise it manages to do the tale justice, quite a feat considering how many difficult adaptable scenes there are in the play.

It also alters the ending ever so slightly, but it's masterstroke, wrapping up the movie beautifully and providing a nice tie in to history.

8/10 

Weeds Season 2 - writing's a little bit better, more chracter development this season but otherwise I still think it could be sharper and darker and less forced. Still there are moments of hilarity and the performances are top notch.

7/10


Ball of Fire (1941) - for a movie written by Billy Wilder and directed by Howard Hawks, I found it extremely disappointing. The writng lacks spark (although you can see the template for Some Like it Hot being put into place) and the direction seems lazy.

The only thing going for it is Barbara Stanwyck's performance, and even that is a rehash of her far better work from the same year in The Lady Eve.

5/10


Layer Cake - terrible wannabe brit gangster flick. It lacks the humour of Lock Stock... and does not have the hard edge that it thinks it does. Its basically continously ceasless exposition that makes sure you cant care less about the plot or any characters.

Daniel Craig is decent but his performance is wasted in a movie as bad as this.

4.5/10


Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - Havent seen any other versions of the tale (including the new one from a month or so ago) but Philip Kaufman's 70's version has a nice atmosphere of paranoia and unease.

Unfortunately, that is offset by some silly scripting and dodgy music and acting. Not a bad film, but not really a good one either.

6/10 

24 Season 6 - not a bad season overall, and definitely better than the last, but it's plagued by the recent problem of a few silly twists too many and repetitive plotlines across seasons.

I was enjoying it reasonably till it became obvious the writers had nowhere to go about 3/4 of the way through.

6/10 

I don't know if this is a real movie or not, but.... ITALIAN SPIDERMAN!

http://ziza.ru/2007/11/12/italjanskijj_spajjdermen__zlo.html 

Japanese Spiderman isn't as cool, but he does have his own giant transforming robot (naturally)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGxde2a2_iQ 

Transformers - for most of it, it just reminded me of why I hate Michael Bay as one poorly shot action scene after another was broken up with bad jokes and an even worse plot. Seriously, I know plot isnt the point of a movie like this, but there should be thresholds of stupidity that should be acknowledged.

Anyway, the last half hour finally delivers in a pretty impressive staging of carnage and chaos that has enough entertaining sequences to not allow the spastic editing of Bay's style hamper it. And John Torturro's gung-ho marine also saved it somewhat.

5.5-6/10 

I havent seen it yet, but I'm well looking forwards to it!! Hope its not gonna be another Godzilla, or even worse - Doom!
What else has Bay directed? 

armageddon, the rock, the island, bad boys 1 & 2.

and its no godzilla or doom. 

Godizza was so bad it was good ;-) 

 

i just saw four marriages and a funeral (?!) again (saw it as a kid in cinema, iirc).

Hm, I'm surprised how much i like it. The marriages are shot in the most entertaining way, I'm kinda wondering what techniques make them so entertaining.

The end is a bit clichee, of course (and very.. ninetyish?), but a great movie if you just want to have some fun. 

The Spanish Prisoner (1997) - another fairly solid drama-thriller by David Mamet that is generally well written but is, as usual, a little too clever for its own good. As the name suggests, the general story is a variation on the well known confidence scam, but Mamet folds the plot back onto itself multiple times and, importantly, in entertaining ways. The cast is good, including Steve Martin in a rare serious role, and the Mamet dialogue doesn�t disappoint.

7/10 

Entourage Season 3 Part 2 - out of all the seasons I've seen (and I know this is technically part 2), probably enjoyed this one the most. It may have something to do with the fact that it was only 8 episodes rather than the usual 12, so it didn�t feel like it was marking time as often as some of the others. Anyway, overall, it's another season of reasonably well made, entertaining but forgettable stuff.

7/10 

Vacancy and Weirdsville.Both good movies.

Vacancy was REALLY good and intense. Once the action started, it didn't stop and kept the suspense high the entire time. If you like games like Manhunt you will probably like this movie. There's no gore, only some blood, with emphasis on the situation instead of shock value.

Weirdsville was also a good, offbeat comedy about heroine addicts, russian drug pushers, satanic cults and an army of midget medievalists. Pretty funny, some parts were better than others. Quite an odd little movie. 

Any opinions? To me, it seemed like a prequel to The Departed. 

Jarhead - its well made and finely acted but it doesn�t really have a whole lot to say that hasn�t already been said in numerous better films. In fact, a lot of its best scenes are directly derivative of similar scenes in other greater movies and most of those scenes are shot in a similar fashion as a homage, so the comparison just becomes inevitable.

Every now and then though, it manages to have a fresh spin on things such as the climactic walk through the oil fields and the ironic use of the helicopter attack scene from Apocalypse Now being used to pump up recruits.

6.5/10


The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) - I havent seen any Werner Herzog before but this is a very odd little film. Based on the true story in the early 1800's of a man who is released in the town of Nuremberg after having spent the majority of his life in a cellar by himself, it is at times full of fascinating scenes that are both funny and touching.

I thought Bruno S was quite remarkable in the main role (although you have to wonder how much of it was personal experience given that he himself was institutionalised for 20 years and had no formal training as an actor), maintaining the right balance of innocence, obliviousness and curiosity.

However, despite all the good stuff, I had trouble getting into it at times because of a tendency by Herzog to wallow in very drawn out and oblique scenes that in my opinion detracted from the more stronger emotional scenes.

6.5/10 

The Princess Bride (1987) - rewatch, never liked this fantasy satire the first time around and pretty much had the same feeling this time around.

Still find it unfunny as a satire and don�t buy the non-satirical parts of it either. Pity because I have liked most of Rob Reiner's stuff and have also liked william goldman's scripts in the past too.

5/10



The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) - John Cassavetes' film is really a character study dressed up as a crime drama. Although it drags and is awkwardly paced, it is most definitely the work of a very talented filmmaker with a very careful eye for character development.

The story is not really worth talking about, suffice to say that a deluded strip club owner finds himself with a gambling debt and is forced to commit the titular action as repayment, but the treatment is fascinating.

Ben Gazzara is awesome in the main role of Cosmo Vitelli, a man who has convinced himself that he is amazing and that his personally scripted and staged strip shows offer the world "more than the usual".

Some tighter editing would have made this a great film but as it stands the numerous drawn out scenes at the club, even though they serve to help us understand the extent of vitelli's delusion, hamper the narrative quite a bit.

7/10