Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425413/
A generic clichee boring funny long tragecomedy (is that word used in english too?) that not even Simon Pegg can rescue from mediocrity. Not bad, not good, just non-exciting popcorn movie with some good laughs. 

What a piece of shit. Well deserved being a flop in cinema (no idea about Planet Terror, that one is prolly much better). It's boring, the story is stupid, the "omg old movie effect" effects are bad, the girls are ugly, Tarantino is a massive wanker or what? Does he think if he, the god, makes a bad movie it automatically becomes good? Bah, big disappointment. 

everything after Pulp Fiction has been a let down. 

A tour de france! Even better than the first film, showcasing a realistic interpretation of the turmoil and gritty reality of life on the streets while dancing to average hip hop in slow-motion. The screenwriters cleverly decided to only use lines of dialogue that had previously appeared more than a dozen times in other films, in a satire on the mainstream nature of modern pop culture. This also allowed the focus of the viewer to remain firmly on the slow motion dancing, and trying to ignore the racist undertones which underpin most of the scenes.
OH DEAR/10 

i saw cloverfield the other night

it could have been a very average godzilla-esque monster flick, but the blair witch style filming made it enjoyable. some very tense moments & good overall atmosphere, even if some of the characters were a little annoying 

I quite liked the first half but found the second half to be trash.

Shortish reviews of some that I saw on the weekend plus one last night :

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - easily Sidney Lumet's best film in 25 years (after all his last one was a courtroom 'comedy' starring Vin Diesel) but while it's a return to form, it falls short of the great stuff he made during the 70's.

It�s a well made but predictable movie with good acting, good writing and a permeating mood of despair throughout. Philip Seymour Hoffman continues to demonstrate that he can pretty much do anything and he gets good support from Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei (and to a lesser extent Ethan Hawke who tends to overact everything but is still effective).

7-7.5/10


Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) - the fourth great film from Woody Allen and I really can�t fault it despite the score I give it. Everything works, the ensemble cast of Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Dianne Weist, Max Von Sydow and Allen himself is perfect, the writing and characterisations are of a very high standard, there's no scene that is out of place and it ends well.

8/10


Mirror (1975) - probably Andrei Tarkovsky's most difficult film, and that's a big statement in itself, this autobiographical version of his life requires you to know a fair bit about Tarkovsky himself and/or russian history to fully appreciate it. Its no normal biopic though, it�s the film equivalent of the stream of consciousness technique in writing with no concept of time and space and pretty much a visual depiction of how memory is, a collection of events from different periods that seem to segue into each other over time.

But even if you don�t fully understand it, and I certainly didn�t, it's quite easy to appreciate the filmmaking skill on display. Most of the individual segments work well on their own and as is usual with Tarkovsky, the imagery is hypnotic.

6/10


In the Valley of Elah - Tommy Lee Jones seems to be recently perfecting the character of the disillusioned and bitter old man and his work here is probably the best incarnation of that character.

Paul Haggis' iraq themed film suffers from his usual heavy handed and contrived writing but is rescued by the performances of Jones and Charlize Theron in the main roles and by the camerawork of the great Roger Deakins.

7/10 

is it true the camerawork here is more vomit inducing thann in the recent bourne films? 

Cloverfield is fucking awesome. End of story.

It's shot via camcorder so if you easily get motion sick, you might not like it. But the thing is, it needs to be shot that way to work. The shots of the monster are so pants tightening it overrides my desire to complain about the camera work. 

Movie is ok, but no nitin, it's nowhere near vomit inducing as the 2 last Bourne films, those were friggin horrible, way to go for making the shots cheaper to produce by cutting them every 5 milliseconds. 

Bonnie & Clyde (1967) - not too sure about the score but otherwise its hard to fault this great great film. Although the shifts in tone are rapid, they are never jarring and always flow well despite the movie switching from a light hearted tone to a more darker one quite frequently.

The performances are uniformly excellent from Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons and it really is unfair to single one out but Dunaway's melancholic portrayal of Bonnie was the most impressive in my eyes.

There is a great attention to character and unlike most movies which rely heavily on background and events to build character, this one seems to do it by focusing on small actions and gestures that reveal a lot.

9/10 

I don't know what dictates that if you are doing movies, only crappy scifi will do. It must be some film director conspiracy.

This one was a nice movie in many instances and quite well and detailedly done but as a whole just didn't work.

From New Zealand by the way. So much potential, but the script is just so bad. There were some nice points in it but the badness overcame. 

,.mkl 

Watched this in UK, I dont know if would have the same title in oher countries...

Christian Bale plays a US pilot back in the Vietnam war, who crashes in Laos and is a POW.

I liked this film, it was gripping but not too gritty, reasonably well acted and made me laugh a few times near the end. Quite long, but not too long.

Good! :-D

7-8/10 

yep, pretty good, bale cant do any wrong at the moment.

if you liked the story, check out the doco Little Dieter needs to Fly, by the same director and quite interesting (and different). 

Joaquin Phoenix (sp?) plays a New York club manager who get caught up in the war against drugs with his brother and father both high-ranking police officers, and his friends/colleagues being various gang members...

This film pretty much blew me away. Phoenix gives a truly stunning performance as a man under unbelievable stress who makes the transformation from being 'on the fence' to having taken his side, and defending his family.

The film is beautifully shot and the screenplay plays out in a manor which gives an unbelievable feeling of tension/unease, it was truly gripping. The action sequences pull no punches in displaying the horrors of what has to go on in a war against drug dealers, and it is this shock value which I believe gave this film a real edge. Outstanding!

8.5/10 

Odd film about a serial killer. Could have been a lot more interesting than it was, 6/10? 

phoenix was very good and the rainstorm car chase was brilliant, but I didnt care for the rest of it as I found it to be a poor imitation of other better movies. 

http://imdb.com/title/tt0953318/

is one of the best movies i've seen in the last two years. 

American Gangster - ridley scott's latest shamelessly steals from The Godfather, Scarface, Serpico and Heat but despite all that thievery and a narrative that looks to be far too familiar, scott manages to make the film not feel all that familiar.

Part of it is down to the attention given to certain superfluous scenes which don�t really add much to the narrative flow but do a lot in setting up character and mood. The rest of it is probably down to a reasonably intelligent script and impressive performances from Crowe and Washington, the latter finally doing something worthwhile in recent times. It's also brilliantly shot, successfully emulating the Godfather's shadowy style in grand manner without resorting to direct plagiarism.

7.5/10

Futurama : Bender's Big Score - Much like The Simpsons movie, how much you like this will really depend on how much you liked the latter part of the series. Personally, I found the first 2 seasons great and the last 2 seasons above average at best and the movie is much more like the later seasons, only longer.

4.5/10



Dawn of the Dead (1978) - rewatch and I don�t like it, in fact I actually much prefer the remake (which despite all its flaws had a brilliant first and last 20 min).

George Romero's original is a B movie through and through. The acting is bad, it looks bad and the direction's average. Sure, it's ambitious with all its attempts at social commentary and the recent movies that have copied its themes have probably not executed them as well but they are better movies on the whole. I just couldnt get into this one.

4.5/10 

Thanks for this movie, gibbie... 

Oliver Twist (1948) - All the david lean films I have seen have been great and this one is no exception. There are certain omissions from the Dickens story but I personally think it works better because of them as the original story got far too contrived by the end.

The look and atmosphere are exceptional and the casting is first rate, with alec guiness putting in yet another memorable performance as Fagin.

8/10



Mouchette (1967) - kind of a companion piece to Bresson's earlier Au Hasard Balthasar and again utilising his unique technique of stripping away any emotive acting and leaving it up to the viewer to determine how to react. Its really a brilliant technique and it works extremely well in all his films, but the way it works here from about the 30 min mark on is quite remarkable.

Essentially a coming of age story for a young, outcast girl in a small french town but one that is enveloped in cruelty, disconnection and lack of companionship. Not an easy watch, but quite a worthwhile one.

7/10



Dark Victory (1939) - far too melodramatic story about the impact of sudden terminal illness with the great Bette Davis surprisingly uneven in the main role.

The characters are actually quite well etched but the plotting tends to get quite heavy handed and during the more serious moments, Davis veers into overacting quite often. It�s a pity, because when the film and Davis do work, its quite a neat show.

5.5/10



A Foreign Affair (1948) - disappointing effort from Billy Wilder, which is compounded by the fact that the material actually had quite a lot of potential.

The tone is completely wrong in most scenes, turning what should have been an intriguing dark drama into a mostly lighthearted comedy. Its strange because it comes from the period where Wilder was at his darkest rather than from his later period of comedies. Not a complete misfire because the dialogue and exchanges still retain his classy wit, but definitely a missed opportunity.

5.5/10


A Mighty Heart - Considering how prone the material could have been to exploitative sentimentality and how much it depends on information bombardment, I found that there was expert control demonstrated by the director and actors. The docudrama approach is very well done and I particularly appreciated attention to little details such as conversations between background characters, although admittedly this does not come across in the subtitles.

Jolie was very good but so was most of the rest of the largely unknown cast. It would have been a better film though if there was more time given to the aftermath of Daniel Pearl's death rather than leaving that as an aside at the end.

7/10

Time to Leave (2005) - pretentious, self conscious, but more importantly, dull and distant movie about a fashion photographer who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and struggles to determine what to do with the very short time he has left.

Francois Ozon usually makes movies that have the first two characteristics mentioned above but generally they are also good films. This time he struggles to involve his audience in his story because of poor characterisation and eye rolling occurrences. The acting is good and there's even a cameo from the great Jeanne Moreau but Ozon can do much better than this.

4/10


Wag The Dog (1997) - extremely average, pseudo satire that thinks its a lot cleverer and funnier than it actually is. The content had a lot more potential but Barry Levinson seems content in just making an average tongue in cheek 'comedy' in which a fixer, called in to cover up the president's pre-election sex scandal, decides that a fake hollywood produced war is the answer.

The writing lacks bite and the acting varies, with Hoffman and Deniro sleepwalking through their roles and Anne Heche dreadful as the president's PR manager.

4.5-5/10 

The Mist - firstly, if you get the chance, watch the director preferred B&W version. Both the standard colour and b&w version are on the dvd, and it only took me a a couple of min of flicking through to be convinced that the b&w version is heaps better. It looks much more striking, the feel is much more claustrophobic, the CGI looks better and the whole thing just has a more foreboding atmosphere, which is a key ingredient in a horror film. Doubt many theatres would show this version, but it's really the better way to see it.

Secondly, it's the best horror film in years (well, at least the b&w version is anyway), probably since The Descent. There's a few internal logic gaps, but if you're willing to get past them, it's a well acted and well written movie thats just a whole lot of fun.

Like The Descent, although there is gore present, its not the focus as it is in so many other 'horror' films coming out these days. Instead, there is a lot more attention to character and also psychological horror. It goes onto the list of recent movies with memorable endings.

7-7.5/10


Shanghai Gesture (1941) - No idea how this got past the censors back in the day, it's a dark, bleak film with amoral characters in abundance. It's also another highly stylised and engrossing movie from Josef von Sternberg with tons of atmosphere and an interesting story centering on a gambling house in Shanghai where al sorts of shady dealing and characters go on.

Well worth checking out.

7-7.5/10 

Are you talking about the new The Mist? Isn't that a remake (maybe I'm mistaken) and isn't it based on Steven King (imho, a hack whose output far exceeds his talent)?

If it is like The Descent though I will watch it... the Descent was awesome, to me it seemed like there were hints of something... some seriously fucked up imagery seemed to hint to me that it wasn't just nature, or a person's perception of nature, but some "third party" involved (outside her mind, not just within). The vaguest, creepiest hints - similar to (the best of) Lovecraft's method, even, where the nature of the threat is not totally certain or defined.

Damn that was creepy. 

yep, the new The Mist. Pretty sure it's not a remake, and yes it is based on the King book (and unfortunately it kind of shows in some scenes).

It's not really like The Descent, much more straighforward than that, I just think it's the best new horror film since then. But starbuck made some comments earlier that are valid (he didnt like it as much as I did). But I'm not sure if he saw the b&w version, which is a lot better in terms of atmosphere and addresses a few of the shortcomings from the color version. 

You're confusing The Mist and The Fog.