I thought the total opposite of what Nitin said.

I liked the second half, but after watching the first half, I nearly turned it off in disgust. Good job I didnt though. I remember saying to my girlfriend "I think these girls will survive, cause, I dunno, they just seem a little bit more worldly than the last ones". I couldnt have been more right. I liked the way the film ended. Very quickly, almost as if to say "well? do you REALLY need any more? is it not PERFECT?"

The first half was nasty for me. I mean it was almost as if to make you think "why am I even bothering to watch this?" when they were in the bar. And then when the first killing occur, It was just a bit disgusting, and gratuatus. But I suppose thats Tarantinos style.

I give a similar mark to Nitin, maybe a bit higher, like a 6, but I liked the bits he didnt, and didnt like the bits he did. 

I see this more as Tarantino exploring different style, much like a more traditional artist. That's why I'd rate it on a totally different basis than most other movies.

That said, i did expect a more interesting and consequent handling of it; but maybe i'm missing some cheesy 70ies/80ies movies background. 

Tekkonkinkreet
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0831888/
The backgrounds are amazing but apart from that I hated pretty much everything: The story, the characters, the people's looks, the voices.

I found it very depressing and crazy. 

different style?

a bunch of (admittedly female) characters sit around for quite a while, all speaking like tarantino, interspersed with gory violence :)

ricky, a couple of my freinds had the same reaction as you actually. 

Gone Baby Gone - Ben Affleck makes a stunning debut as director with this excellent film that is dripping with character and mood.

He also does his brother Casey a big favour, giving him the meatiest role in the movie, and the younger Affleck does it full justice playing one half of a private detective team hired by the grandparents of a missing girl to 'augment' the police investigation into her disappearance.

From there on what follows is not only a superior police procedural but also an unflinching look at the nature of choices and their sometimes irreparable consequences, all presented in a very assured, restrained and subtle manner that is very rare to see these days.

It has a few flaws, the nature of the plot causes a few pacing issues near the middle of the movie and one of the seemingly main characters is only there to serve the plot but overall from out of what I've seen so far, this is the second best flm of last year behind No Country for Old Men.

7.5-8/10


La Silence de la Mer (1949) - a world apart from Melville's later films, this is almost a precursor to the films of Robert Bresson and those of the impending French New Wave.

Set during 1941 in occupied France, an old man and his niece are forced to provide billeted accomodation to german soldiers and resist in the only way they can, by refusing to say a single word during their stay. However. one such soldier continues to speak to them, admiring and understanding their silence, and the majority of the film looks at the relationship between the thre characters till the end of the officer's stay.

There are obvious limitations imposed on the film due to the plot, and its not helped by some of the acting, but the situation and teh characterisations are compelling.

6.5/10


We Own the Night - extremely predictable and generic crime drama that is well made but just cant overcome its unoriginal nature.

Joaquin Phoenix is very good at playing tortured and almost manages to raise this out of the average barrel, along with a fabulous rainstorm car chase, but the whole thing never really kicks outof second gear at any stage.

5.5-6/10 

I hate you, Tekkon Kinkreet rocks! 

well, not the story ;) 

Margot at the Wedding - Noah Baumbach's followup to The Squid and the Whale is not as frequently hilarious but is possibly even more brutal and bitter in its drama. Nicole Kidman has her best role in years (since Birth) and does a pretty good job as a neurotic writer who attends her sister's wedding, despite not having spoken to her for a a lengthy period of time.

Some of it is definitely laugh out loud funny, especially at the expense of Jack Black who plays the sister's fiance, and quite a lot of it is dramatically potent, but overall there are too many selfish and unsympathetic characters for it to be involving.

6.5/10 

Carnal Knowledge (1971) - Mike Nichols' recent Closer was really a more modern update of his earlier effort starring jack nicholson, art garfunkel, candice bergen and rita moreno.

It's understandably less frank in its language and exploration of sex but the dialogue is no less clever, biting or sharp and the performances are pretty engaging (even though nicholson occasionally goes too over the top).

The problem is that even though its only 97 min long, it starts to repeat itself by about the halfway mark. The characters never develop, because they refuse to change, and their lives gets stuck in a predictable cycle because of it.

Overall, though its still quite entertaining despite not really going anywhere.

6.5-7/10



The Libertine (2005) - entertaining period piece that is a fictionalised look at the life of John Wilmot, the 2nd earl of rochester and a libertine poet of satirical and bawdy poetry.

The narrative is fairly mundane and I'm sure its woefully inaccurate historically (I've never considered that a quality anyway), but when the performances are this good and entertaining, it really doesn�t matter.

Samantha Morton and John Malkovich provide good support but it's once again the Johnny Depp show as he goes about making a thoroughly unlikeable character likeable. It�s a performance that relishes the excesses of the character but also knows that it doesn�t have to delve into that same level of excess histrionically. The look and script are also well above average.

6.5/10


Odd Man Out (1947) - third film I've seen from Carol Reed and it makes it 3 great films out of 3. Its probably the best script I've seen in terms of characterisation, every character is very well drawn out and multidimensional no matter how small their role is. Add to that some top notch performances, a terrific mood and look and reasonably tight direction and you have a winner.

The only issue I had was that it goes a bit off tangent and deviates a bit in the middle but given that that section is still fairly entertaining, it's a minor quibble.

8/10



Blood and Sand (1941) - extremely corny but pretty well made version of a popular spanish story. The performances by tyrone power, linda darnell and rita hayworth are reasonably adequate and the techincolor cinematography is spectacular, but the main reason for it being worth watching is some nice scripting (despite the corny plotting).

6/10



I Confess (1953) - fairly straight drama from Hitchcock with an interesting if implausible premise of a priest hearing the confession of a crime and then struggling with the oath to keep it a secret when he becomes a suspect by circumstance.

Good performances by Anne Baxter and Montgomery Clift and it is quite well made till the compromised ending which hints at some interesting developments and then never follows through on them.

6.5/10



Extras Finale - disappointing end to the series. Too much (forced) sentimentality and not enough laughs. There's the odd moment of hilarity (the clive owen cameo being the best) but plods far too frequently during its 80 odd min running time.

5.5/10



Simpsons Movie - wasn�t expecting much given how terrible the simpsons has been for years but even with those low expectations, I thought it was pretty bad. Like most of the episodes in recent years, there's no real wit, imagination or focus for most of the running time.

4/10 

I am Legend
There's a lot and a lot bad about this. It's loosely based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, which also inspired 'The Omega Man' and 'The last man on earth'. The idea of the movie is that scientists attempt to cure cancer by retro-engineering the measles virus, and programming it to kill cancer. As you can expect, it doesn't work out well, and the virus rapidly infects the human population, killing 90%, leaving alone the 1% who are immune, and causing the other 9% to revert to a violent primal state.

The primal infected people end up feeding on the 1% of survivors, and when the film starts, Robert Neville (Will Smith) is seemingly the only man left, attempting to survive in L.A..

Will Smith's character is one of the strongest parts of the film. There's a reason he survived, and it's because he has meticulously prepared for every eventuality: he has systems and traps set up all over the city. In the day he goes to get fuel for his generators, retrieves canned foods from deserted apartments and presumably builds up his ridiculous arsenal of weapons.

The film also makes a good decision in not defining the infected as 'vampires' at any point, as they were described in the book, although they share characteristics, such as that UV radiation damages those infected with the virus, so they only come out at night, they've lost their hair for some reason, their skin is white, etc, etc.

That's about all they got right about the 'infected' though. The CGI used for them is truely horrible and it really takes away from the immersion of the film. The overall design of them is cliched and boring too: the virus for some reason turns almost everyone into an angry snarling 6ft tall bald guy.

Also, I think they made a big mistake in making the infected as fast, indestructible and powerful as they did. There's simply no way any virus could make everyone 10 times stronger than anyone in the world has ever been, able to climb a building in a couple of leaps and able to headbutt through walls and bulletproof glass hundreds of times, or get shot in the head without getting hurt. I know it's hollywood, but as a whole the film is pretty believable and the 'bad guys' completely ruin that.

The film builds really well in the first two-thirds i think, but in the final act it kind of falls to pieces as it tries to introduce the notion of a utopian survivors colony to the north, among other things. The film is at it's best when it's just Robert Neville and his dog against the world, gathering supplies, fighting to survive and trying to find a cure for the virus, but when most of that changes, it loses a lot of momentum. The ending seems a bit tacked-on too, and I've read about an alternate ending on the DVD which sounds much better.

All in all, I don't want to put anyone off seeing this too much. It looks amazing in parts and I really enjoyed much of the film early on. Probably about a 6.5-7/10 

it's nice to write a review.
I just don't like spoilers.
Imho reviews should not be about telling the movie's plot (or even half of it) but about what the movie is *like*. General style, is it good, what is good and what is bad.
I mean, the plot is what we find out if we go and watch it. It unfolds. It tickles your feelings. If we know it, it doesn't work the same way.

Reviewing is hard.

Of course, with the trailers and styles and all nowadays, everything is known about a movie from start to finish anyway before you even go see it. Hence (well, one of the multitude of reasons) why I don't go to movies anymore.

Have to use one ticket I have in a few months though.

Ok, enough complaining. 

apologies if I gave away too much there, though I think if you watch the film you'll find that most of the stuff I mentioned happens almost immediately. 

Agree totally with previous review;

I hear that if you live in Manhattan, the scenes of destroyed NYC are amazing to behold.

Also, for those who've seen it -- since when can a Mustang corner like that?? 

Saw it a few days ago, it was good but I couldn't help drawing comparisons to 28 days later (this was before I found out that I am legend was based on a book) and frankly 28 days later was much better than this.

The CGI totally destroyed the infected people, it was very badly done and I really wish they had used live actors for the infected.

And yeah, the first half of the film was actually very good, Neville vs the world, with his dog! Then it started falling apart sadly. 

apparently they were planning on using actors for the infected, but in the first weeks of filming the director decided he wasn't getting enough hyper-ventilating rabidness out of the real people, so they decided to just add them in post production. Not that you'd ever tell they did it at the last minute, oh no. 

but in the first weeks of filming the director decided he wasn't getting enough hyper-ventilating rabidness out of the real people, so they decided to just add them in post production.

I guess it's a problem when the vision in the director's head is actually a cartoon. 

Blairwitch Project meets any recent Zombie movie meets Trinca. Somewhat of a mixed bag. The beginning was quite good - a seemingly regular documentary about the work of a fire fighting squad being shot by a TV crew, who follow them on an emergency call, when suddenly all hell breaks loose and nobody (including the viewer) knows what's going on. The second half of the movie is a bit of a let-down with too much generic screaming, shaky and blurry camera and so on. Fits the theme well, but dunno, maybe Blairwitch used up its novelty.
Still an OK movie, I guess, though I have no idea why Hollywood thought a US remake was necessary ("Quarantine")... 

Black Book (2006) - Paul Verheoven goes back to Holland and his european sensibilities and makes a war blockbuster american style.

Its been criticised a little for trivialising serious issues into a hollywoodesque action-thriller but Verheoven's never been a subtle or serious director and this is a stylish, thrilling and excellently paced film with a compelling central performance by Carice Van Houten (who is also extremely good looking) as a jewish woman trying to survive in occupied Holland toward the end of WWII.

The only issue I had was that some of the plotting in the second half is a little too contrived and occasionally Verheoven just cant resist himself and dips into the gratuity pool for no real reason.

7-7.5/10


No Regrets For Our Youth (1946) - Akira Kurosawa does Ozu in this effective mini-epic about Yukie (Setsuko Hara) who in traversing a tumultuous decade in Japanese history transforms herself from bourgeois daughter to independent social activist.

This is completely different in style and tone to Kurosawa's more celebrated work, but is up there in quality with a number of those more well known films. Well written and superbly acted, the movie surprises quite often in its plotting and direction and never goes down the easy route of cheap sentimentality.

7-7.5/10


Cul de Sac (1966) - well I don�t know how to describe this rather peculiar offering from Roman Polasnki. There's plenty of black humour but you couldn�t call it a comedy and there's plenty of suspense and eerie atmosphere but you couldn�t call it a thriller either.

Either way, it's quite an enjoyable if odd movie with an entertaining performance by Donald Pleasance as a painter on the verge of a nervous breakdown when the castle he is living in with his young wife is invaded by some dopey small time crooks. Lightweight Polanski, but still well worth watching.

6.5/10


Shoot Em Up - starts off well enough as a cartoonesque action parody, with tongue firmly in cheek, but the longer it goes on the more it runs out of steam. Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti relish their roles and chew up the scenery well enough, but by the end it's a pretty forgettable effort that's not in the same league as something more clever like Hot Fuzz.

5.5/10 

Fell asleep both times I tried to watch this very boring unfunny film. 

I found the 1st half quite dull, then the second half is laugh out loud fantastic!

Its kind of the opposite from Shaun of the dead, of which the 1st half rocked, and then got dull in the 2nd half... 

...at the end, I kept falling asleep at the start. Waste of a good rental. I tried to watch it twice!! 

I really want to see that... I remember reading reviews and thinking the same thing: why were the reviewers expecting Schindler's List when the movie is directed by Paul Verhoeven? Let's look at his past record, Total Recall? Starship Troopers? Robocop?! Not exactly hallmarks of subtlety, but great films, especially Total Recall, which is one of my favourite action films. So yeah, I need to see Black Book. 

all the way through, unlike Shaun of the Dead which only worked for me in bits.

starbuck,

exactly. It has its faults mind you but its pretty damn enjoyable. 

The Ladykillers (1956) - the remake was a low point for the Coens (despite tom hanks in a good performance), but I have to say that I didnt find the more beloved original all that better.

It's not a bad film by any means, there's definitely a few moments of hilarity, quite a few others of chuckling and Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers are in genius form, but on the whole, I found it slightly disappointing and uneven.

6/10 

Catacomb.

Set in that part under Paris which was linked to in the inspiration thread a little while ago, with all of the skulls.
The first part of the film bored me, the leading female character seemed horrendously pathetic and skinny. But the middle picked up, dragged on for a bit, and then the ending completely surprised me.

Have you seen this nitin? I'd like to hear what you think about this one.

Also Ladykillers:

Havent seen the original, I just remeber the new one with Tom Hanks, but the scene with the explosives and I.B.S. is hilarious. Infact it was pretty funny. Just remembering the plot makes me laugh out loud!