The king's speech
I did not expect to like it at all and instead I got the most wonderful movie I've seen this year (unless I am forgetting something). Very likable characters, a to me interesting story that was exciting and full of strong tension all the way. Some minor annoyances but I won't mention them wo noone gives them involuntary attention. 

why is this so hated? I thought it was quite fun with its campy parody style. 

It's weird for sure. Seems pretty disjointed. Maybe the tone is a little off also. It possibly is taking itself a little too seriously, because when it gets to the bit when -- SPOILER(?) SPOILER(?) HONESTLY WHO CARES -- hot Tron assassin girl steps out of the computer and turns from lines of code into a real flesh and blood person, it just seems absolutely ludicrous. Nowhere near campy and fun enough for that kind of thing to pass by unchallenged. This isn't Weird Science, I wish it was. 

didn't hate it or anything, but sometimes it was just really weird to be funny (if it was supposed to be) and there was the general sense that it was imitating sin city.

just my impression, of course. 

it definitely imitates Sin City visually but I dont think the tone is the same at all. Sin City was kind of like hyper noir, this was definitely in the parody mould. And it does get weird funny, but I liked that part :)

Unlike what I just finished, Scott Pilgrim, I dont think I 'got' this at all. Possibly the worst movie I've seen in a long time. 

From the trailer I described it as "Groundhog Day meets Speed meets The Matrix". And watching it it was pretty much Groundhog Day meets Speed meets The Matrix. Cool film I liked it a lot. Just nicely done and interesting how it pans out. Manages to do a lot with very little (a train, a small room, a science lab, and 5 main characters), the army girl is cool, and the feelgood ending is pretty nice too. Could have been slicker in places and possibly deeper but still good. 

I dug that movie (Source Code). You could go cross-eyed permanently if you spend too long thinking about the plot. Which I like!

I watched a movie called:

Enter The Void

Fucking wierd movie. Most of it is filmed from the perspective of a dead dude's spirit, and its kinda set in Hong Kong, ergo there is a lot of dirty sex and drugs and violence in it. But it's definately a 'different' take on a movie to the norm......... 

I though it was Japan? I have that in my pile, should get around to that.

So on my last day off before going back to work, I saw Greenberg and Mother and Child.

The former is a dramedy with Ben Stiller playing a neurotic a-hole trying to sort out his life. It's by Noah Baumbach so if you've seen Squid and the Whale or Margot at the Wedding, you know what to expect. Finely etched characters but pretty uncomfortabel viewing.

The latter is one of the great films of last year with excellent writing (albeit with a few obvious contrivances) and even better actign from Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Samuel L Jackson. 

Japan. It's from Gaspar No�, go figure. Pretty psychedelic in parts. But also an hour too long for what it's worth. And the number of sex scenes seemed excessive. 

oh look it's on Amazon 

Trolls!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLEo7H9tqSM 

I actually like this movie. 

the korean action/thriller The Man From Nowehere a while back.

Finally saw it and its a simple, predictable, but stylish and solid genre flick with terrific action sequences and some nice regular black humour. Dont expect anything more and you'll have a very good time. 7/10


Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours on the other hand is a film that slowly creeps up on you and then full on hits you in the gut in its final scenes, a meditative, unsentimental look at family, death and memories that is just a treat to watch. 8/10 

The Dilemma (2011)
Painful to watch (because it is so bad), avoid at all cost. 

Well now I'm torn, do I listen to Spirit and avoid it, or ignore him and watch it???? 

seen quite a few recently but these stand out:


attack the block (2011) - great fun. imagine shaun of the dead meets kidulthood; predominantly action/horror with smatterings of cultish brit comedy. does both elements well and the laandan roodbwoi dialogue is brilliant. trust fam, believe

moon (2009) - very similar to source code in terms of themes/mood but works better due to the story being less convoluted and more logical. add a strong lead performance and great clint mansell score and you have one of the best sci-fiers of the last few years. keeper!

black swan (2010) - good. great, even, but with me being a bit of an aronofsky fanboy i kind of expected it to be awesome, which burdened it slightly with the weight of expectation. still, i guess it didn't disappoint and had about the right mix of everything.

nitin, out of interest have you seen the wrestler? i ask as it features almost none of DA's token 'smart arsery' (as you put it :) ) and imo still stands tall as a touching character piece (with some notable parallels to black swan) 

Aeon Flux.

Pile of cheesy gibberish music-video catwalk-strutting style TOSS. Even as a trashy pointless slice of "veg in front of the tv for a couple of hours" it was a waste of time that could have been spent scratching my arse. 

yes I have. And I liked it but, as a film, I didnt find it great even though Rourke, Wood and Tomei tried their hardest to turn it into one.

The plot and characters felt far too familiar IMHO. 

Time Crimes - Don't know if I already mentioned this, but I finally saw and quite enjoyed this - slightly less than I had hoped to, but definitely worth a watch if you like Movies involving time travel, dark comedy, English subtitles. A nice, fairly low key movie with a pretty funny meta-commentary on approaches to time travel paradoxes in film

Predators
Very uneven. I'm in love with all those old arnold sci fi movies from the 80's, and in many ways this movie pays homage quite well to those, but it's super uneven. pretty meh/enh/etc in the end. 

The Hurt Locker
Got 30mins in and decided it's another plotless middle eastern movie filled with various bomb scenes. What a bore. I'm sure a story would eventually come into it, but I'm not waiting.

Spanish GP
Awesome 

Hurt Locker's scenes can be pretty intense, but yeah it's not so much plot-based as it is a character study. A series of increasinly tense situations involving this main guy and how he affects the people around him, and how basically he's an adrenaline junkie.

At least that's what I got from it. 

is awesome, but yes no real plot. 

I've seen it. Was nice, but ultimately disappointing, because I had expected the greatest. 

Let me see ...

Notorious (1946) - Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are sexy spies dealing with personal problems while Bergman goes undercover, actually marrying her mark in order to get close to some Nazi bad guys, much to Grant's dismay. He doesn't show it though, cuz he's a boss. Long story short, the guy she marries is totally a mama's boy, and he and his mom end up poisoning her little by little until she's about ready to die. Fortunately, Cary Grant saves the day, and what's-his-face ends up getting torn apart (I assume) by the Nazi folk for being such a goof.

Most memorable scene - when what's-his-face tries to leave his guests under the pretense of helping his wife, but Cary Grant is all like "Nope" and he has to sulk back to his mansion, with his guests waiting inside the main entrance, very reminiscent of trained dobermans waiting patiently. At least, that's what came to my mind, that these highly refined, intelligent men were actually ruthless animals underneath. Pretty intimidating.

Sunset Boulevard (1950) - So basically: struggling Hollywood writer owes money to guys, ends up being chased, drives into a mansion to lose them, ends up being the mansion of a huge Hollywood starlet from the 1920s who has sense fallen from grace and lives in obscurity. Basically, this movie is pretty fucked up. There is not a single character I like other than maybe Cecil B DeMille.

The writer basically lives off of her vast wealth, and she basically becomes his sugar mama while he ends up meeting one of his friend's fiance, also a writer, and you can guess where that goes.

Meanwhile Norma tries to get back in the spotlight, but really she's old and washed up at this point, her time is gone, but she refuses to accept it. Oh yeah, the butler that's been loyal throughout the entire movie was her first husband AND director, and so now he's this super spineless cuckold character, it's really frickin weird and more than a tad disturbing.

So basically the shit hits the fan, Norma gets super bitchy/jealous/PMS on Joe, which really, he deserved it sort of, and then she shoots him, goes completely fucking bonkers and thinks she's being filmed while she's actually being arrested.

Pretty fucked up. Fun movie to watch though.

Double Indemnity (1944) - This was maybe the bet of the latest batch of movies I've been watching. I would totally recommend it if you're interested in noir films. I don't want to spoil this one, it's actually pretty suspenseful watching what's going on.

It's very interesting watching a murder mystery from the point of view of the killer, it adds a lot more tension but you lose the mystery. It's a fascinating trade off, being so close to the cat who's eventually going to catch you, playing the mouse trying to find a way out of the trap you put yourself in.

I have to say this was definitely enjoyable, I would give it 4.5 or 5 out of 5.

Gilda (1946) - Interesting love triangle dynamics at play here. Antagonist hires protagonist to be his right hand man, while marrying protagonist's love interest, who ends up antagonizing both the protagonist and the antagonist.

I don't want to give away the ending, but I personally thought it deserved a more 'ruthless' ending than what it got. As it is, it's okay, but ... well, you have to watch it or youtube it or something. The rest of the film just seemed to want a more mature ending imo.

The Big Heat (1953) - Glenn Ford (also the protagonist from Gilda) is a hardboiled detective investigating a suspicious suicide that leads to a web of lies and all that awesome noir stuff. He's so hardboiled he doesn't even flinch when his wife is blown up in a car bomb. He just gets even more hardboiled and moves on.

This is another one that I thought was pretty good, but it lacked the suspense and tension that Hitchcock would have added to it. That isn't to say it's bad, it's just less exciting and more cerebral imo. Pretty much everyone involved in this crime racket is hurt somehow - the bad guy is brought to justice, his ex (who's face was scolded with piping hot coffee) went all Two Face on him and his associate, killing his partner in crime and getting even with him by splashing hot coffee on his face, while Glenn's character obviously lost his wife and thus his whole world.

After the all the backstabbing and betrayal, Glenn finally gets the bad guy, and decides not to kill him but give him into justice. And I forget, but I think he probably got his badge back. Oh yeah, he got kicked off the force, and handed in his badge, the Lt. was all like "And the gun, Bannion." and he was all like "This gun is my property, bought and paid for." Boss.

It was good, Fritz Lang did a good hardboiled job with it, just lacked the tension of Hitchcock is all. 

so did you like Notorious?

Agree on Double Indemnity, I think the dialogue in that is pure gold.

Also agree re Gilda (except you forgot to mention the hotness of Rita Hayworth) and I think your comments on The Big Heat are really spot on, there's just something missing isnt there?

As for Sunset Boulevarde, might be fucked up, but great film IMHO. You forgot to mention the chimp :)