I did wonder about that, it did seem a bit strange that they would even consider launching nuclear missiles on possibly incomplete or cancelled orders.

Made for a good bit of suspense tho =) 

nuff said 

forget I said anything 

Rocknrolla : I heard this was Guy Ritchies return to greatness but overall I would call it OK. There are some moments of greatness (All involving Russians) but not enough to save the film from mediocrity imo.

Until the shit that is the essence of Madonna is cleansed from his soul expect mediocrity, and that is assuming she hasn't entirely sucked it dry and shat it our of her mummified ass. 

I treated myself to on my birthday after that last quote. 

I picked the icon that looked most like a shit. 

That movie is strangely Bergmanesque, btw. Not to be pretentious about it to justify watching it because you all know I have taste for shit, but it really does remind me of both Wild Strawberries and the Seventh Seal.

Cast Away?

Not a big Hanks fan here. I mean, I don't hate him, I'm just indifferent to his acting. Now Sinise as Lt Dan, fuckyeah, that was the only thing that made Gump remotely tolerable. 

If you haven't seen BubbaHotep, it is about a mummy who sucks people's souls from their ass orifices and then shits them out which destroys the souls for all eternity. Which is pretty much Madonna's MO. 

think Starbuck meant Swept Away.

and Daz, as far as submarine movies go, you cant go past Das Boot. 

But I am not gonna sit and watch a film for..what was it? 9 Hours? Is there some sort of sensible cut I could have a look at though? :P 

What! You, DaZ Boot, have not seen the movie yet?
Seriously not? My world collapses. And there is no icon to express my feelings.

The director's cut is 3 1/2 hours or something, just pause and return the next day. 

Spirit,
Petty Office Tom loves that movie, and he went apeshit happy when he recognized the villain in Beerfest (he played the First Officer). 

what nitin said, I meant swept away. I actually watched a good 20 mins of it too. Oh and I saw Audition last night, that is not the ideal date movie. 

like spirit said, the dir's cut is about 3.5 hrs. 

is an ideal last date movie 

Just watched Hoodwinked again (4th time I think). I still love it and highly recommend it. The animations are very crude at times, but overall it is miles ahead of the mainstream animation movies for me (especially after watching Madagascar 2 recently...).
A shame it is such an underdog. 

Just watched Hoodwinked. For a kids CG movie it's badass.

As you say, the actual graphics are a bit dated (on par with the early CG stuff like Toy Story, mebe a bit better), but the writing/acting/depth is a lot, lot better than majority of animated films. 

30 Rock Season 2 - even more uneven than the first series but the good episodes are worth wading through the all the mediocre ones. The show seems to have only one setup for a joke (someone makes a comment to the effect of "that can never happen" and then it does) which also makes it routinely predictable but luckily the performers are good enough to still milk the joke that you are expecting. But when it call comes together, as it does in about 3 episodes in this season, it can be very very funny.

6.5/10 (just)


Entourage Season 4 - still entertaining but there is definitely a feeling of lazy familiarity through the whole season, particularly with the storylines of Vince and Eric.

6.5/10


Lost Season 4 - probably the most consistent show on tv, it continues to toy with interesting ideas even though it keep stretching out its main story a little too unnecessarily and keeps adding more and more new characters for no particular reason. The use of flash forwards added a fresh dimension though and was used quite well too instead of just being a gimmick, hinting at the overall arc of the series.

7/10


Life Season 1 - it's pretty tragic when good characters get stuck in mediocre shows but that's Life I guess. Damian Lewis plays a cop who is released from prison and rejoins the force after being incarcerated for 12 years for a crime he did not commit. There is an overarching story about his investigation into who framed him but the general structure of the show is standalone police procedural episodes.

Unfortunately, despite good characterisations and performances, the standalone investigation episodes are just plain weak. To be fair, the longer the season goes, the better it gets but the early episodes are just plain bad. By the end of the season though, I was looking forward to more so overall I guess its worth a watch.

6-6.5/10


Rachel Getting Married (2008) - a little bit self indulgent at times but otherwise a fairly fine film from Jonathan Demme. I'm not quite sure the Dogme camerawork was all that necessary, and its particularly distracting in the first fifteen minutes or so, but eventually the strength of the script and performances win out over its detractions. Anne Hathaway is excellent in her role as a recovering addict out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding and causing all sorts of family tensions to come out during her visit.

There is no real plot throughout the movie, its basically a covering of the day before and of the wedding in a home video fashion but the script from Jenny Lumet (Sidney Lumet's daughter) is filled with great moments of character interaction that nicely manage to interchange between black comedy and serious drama. Look out for a hilarious scene involving a dish loading competition.

7-7.5/10 

it keep stretching out its main story a little too unnecessarily and keeps adding more and more new characters for no particular reason.

They are just restocking the Red Shirts, for more mayhem and bodies blowing up fun!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character)

I didn't care much for Faraday (still too much a cryptic bastard) and Charlotte (easy on the eyes though, but not nearly so much as Juliette) as new characters, but Miles and the one played by Jeff Fahey are great. Last week, Fahey's character had a great quip that ended that show. Also the new antagonist Kimmi filled his villainy roll with gusto, his Black Water tattoo, nice touch.

While last season had some strong episodes, the Sayid, Desmond and Ben centric ones come to mind, the strongest episode in my mind still remains the mind blowing 3rd season finally.

It is still doing strong this season with a solid and interesting episode last night that had the rare quality in this show of answering more questions than it left you to ask (like is Ben really a villain. Why, YES, YES, YES, how could you have ever doubted it!). 

Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army (2008) - really enjoyed this, heaps better than the first one. It's everything a popcorn blockbuster should be : exciting, funny and imaginative. Every frame is filled with some very creative detail and the pacing is perfect too. I think The Hobbit is in good hands.

7.5-8/10


Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972) - not sure the film itself is really all that great but you have to marvel at Werner Herzog's sheer audacity in taking a film crew to the Andes to shoot his story about a group of spanish conquistadors trying to find the city of El Dorado in the amazonian jungle. The film definitely is a posterchild for location shooting, the sheer lushness and overwhelming nature of the Amazon just could not be achieved artificially. The lack of any real structure or focus hurts the movie though as although there is some attempt at displaying a madness in the Aguirre character (ala Heart of Darkness), its pretty hard to care as most the effort seems to have been expended on just shooting the damn thing.

6-6.5/10


Alexander Nevsky (1938) - Sergei Eisenstein's movie about the conflict between the Teutonic Knights and the russian people of Novgrod has obviously served as a template for every single epic film depicting a battle between two armies but it lacks audience connection with its characters. The movie is proudly patriotic, so maybe you have to be russian to connect, but I found it difficult to sympathise with any particular character.

Technically though, it's a marvel. The 30 min battle sequence at the end is extremely impressive (and has been copied as recently as the LOTR battle scenes), powered on by Dimitri Prokofiev's memorable and stirring score.

6/10


Centre Stage (1992) - fairly interesting biopic of the tragic life of China's first famous movie actress, silent film star Ruan Lingyu. For a biopic, the structure is quite unconventional, with the narrative of the main events in Ruan's life broken up with production talks between the director and the stars and also interviews of witnesses who knew Ruan.

Its quite slow, the pacing very glacial in parts, and it takes a while to get into as the movie assumes some familiarity with events and characters but Maggie Cheung is mesmerising in the main role and keeps you interested throughout.

7-7.5/10


Clash by Night (1952) - decent if unremarkable noirish melodrama from Fritz Lang. The first half is particularly strong, with some very strong atmosphere and dialogue. The second half loses some of the edge and becomes fairly predictable but its worth a watch overall.

6-6.5/10


Changeling (2008) - Decent if overlong and disjointed film from Eastwood. Jolie is excellent, much more restrained than she could have been and better for it, and the movie works well within each of its three interconnected stories but struggles a bit to bring them all together.

7/10 

The Cooler (2003) - William H Macy plays a 'cooler', an unlucky individual whose presence is used to end the good luck streaks at Alec Baldwin's casino. But when he meets his 'lady luck' in Maria Bello, things start to go a little wrong.

Finely acted but there's something not quite right about Wayne Kramer's movie, most noticeable the tone which veers from fantasy to romantic comedy to film noir without entirely gelling.

4/10


Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) - definitely overlong but this is another stunner from Jean Pierre Melville. The plotting is familiar, as are the characters, but Melville once again manages to make his crime/heist thriller incredibly fresh with some brilliantly executed sequences that turn the mundane into the riveting

7.5/10


Early Summer (1951) - the second film in Yasujiro Ozu's unofficial Noriko trilogy and it sits comfortably in between Late Spring and Tokyo Story in terms of quality. Setsuko Hara is again outstanding as an independent woman trying to make her presence felt in post-war tokyo and Ozu manages to create some very touching scenes between her and her family members.

7.5/10


Five Graves to Cairo (1943) - nice, tense little WWII flavoured thriller from Billy Wilder which, although highly implausible, displays admirable skill in the creation and maintenance of suspense. The script has a reasonable amount of the customary Wilder spark, this time mainly through characterisations rather than dialogue but it�s the top notch direction throughout that keeps you interested.

7-7.5/10


Pineapple Express (2008) - quite funny for the first half, theres some pretty inspired stuff actually, but the second half is just plain stupid. It tries to go all Hot Fuzz at the end and fails miserably. Its also too long, but that seems to be an Apatow 'feature' generally.

5.5/10 

and some more :

Fury (1936) - above average socio-drama from Fritz Lang with Spencer Tracy playing a man who becomes a target of a lynch mob after being falsely charged with a crime. The characters and themes are too simplistic but Lang does a reasonable job in his set piece scenes to not let those detraction get too much in the way.

6/10


The Grifters (1990) - rewatch and I am still not quite sure why I don�t really like this. It has interesting characters and some very fine acting from Annette Benning and Anjelica Huston but Stephen Frears' film about three different con artists feels oddly paced and only seems to have good individual scenes and never quite gels as a whole for me.

5-5.5/10


Gun Crazy (1949) - effectively another variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story and while it is nowhere near the same league as Arthurn Penn's classic or even Nicholas Ray's excellent They Live by Night, its still fairly entertaining stuff thanks to its brisk pace and some very innovative direction in key scenes. So while the plotting is fairly predictable, its presented in quite a fresh manner.

7/10


I Know Where I'm Going (1945) - another strong film from Powell and Pressubrger with Wendy Hiller playing a young, independent woman who travels to the Scottish isles to get married to a rich industrialist and ends up becoming unsure of her own ambitions along the way.

The location shooting is absolutely incredible as is an amazing mid movie sequence involving a whirlpool which completely upstages all the effects that Pirates of the Carribean 3 mustered up in a somewhat similar sequence. But what gives it its true power is the script which contains natural, unforced dialogue and some beautiful characterisation.

7.5/10


The Incredible Hulk (2008) - pretty solid entertainment till the ridiculously stupid and badly misjudged climax which is just plain silly and way too long. Until then, its quite well made if disposable entertainment with well staged action sequences and good pacing.

6.5/10 

Yippee - a modern action movie with (OMG) a small amount of character development! :)

I thought they had given up on such things ("Naah - character development is for pussies!") 

iron man and TDK handled that aspect better. But yes, it does have some which is a rarity these days anyway. 

I liked it. I was forcefully lent the comic a few days before it opened and had read most of it by the time I saw the movie -- and it's amazingly faithful to the source material. It's basically "the incredibles" for grownups :)