Monday 26 December 2011

It maybe Midnight in Paris but The Sitter gets A Separation from his girlfriend in a night known as Fright Night.


Midnight in Paris stars Owen Wilson who plays a Woody Allen style character named Gil Pender who, with his fiancĂ©e (Rachael McAdams), travels to Paris for pleasure but Pender is distracted by the fact he can’t seem to finish his novel. Pender is hoping that Paris will give him inspiration in adding the final touches to his novel and it does in a rather peculiar way via some magical vehicle transportation carriage which every midnight takes Gil off to a place of high intellectual vibe.

Monday 19 December 2011

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.



Many people looked on the 2009 Sherlock Holmes blockbuster with scepticism as Guy Ritchie never seemed like the kind of director who would bring Sherlock Holmes back to the big screen and imagine the surprise when we discovered it was actually quite good.  Both positive reception from audiences and critics made it inexcusable for a second film not to be made.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Cowboys and Aliens.


With a sharp gasp for air an unnamed man (Daniel Craig) wakes up and finds himself injured and lying in the middle of the desert.  He has no memory of how this happened, who he is or what this weird bracelet thing is on his arm but before he or we can even begin to think of the million possibilities three drafters on horses arrive on the scene believing him to be worth a bounty reward. They are quickly beaten by the man with no name who then steals one of the horses and with company of man’s best friend sets off to the nearest village.

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Reviews of 30 Minutes or Less, Ides of March, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Hangover II and TT3D: Closer to the Edge.



Based on a true story 30 Minutes or Less is about a guy called Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) who is a slob working at a pizza delivery restaurant which aims to deliver the pizza in 30 minutes or less (the smart ones of you may have worked out this is also the title). Nick drives out to some sort of scrap yard where two guys (played by Danny MacBride and Nick Swardson) knock him unconscious, tie a bomb to him and order him to rob a bank of $100,000 dollars. This money is needed to kill Dwayne’s (MacBride) authoritarian father (played by Fred Ward) so Dwayne could receive his dad’s inheritance money. The performances themselves are not bad (with the exception of MacBride who fails to raise one single laugh) but they are let down by a quite simply woeful script (written by Michael Diliberti) that lacks wit and ingenuity relying totally on swearing, nob jokes and gay jokes to generate the laughs. Unsurprisingly none of these are used in an effective way as the swearing begins to become not only needless but repetitive and never used in a clever manner but just for the hell of it. That said there are one or two good jokes, the best one relates to Jesse Eisenberg’s most recent and greatest project which is actually quite smart but it goes no further than that. Also the bank robberies are quite amusing but despite the very short running time of barely 80 minutes there is plenty of time to feel a tad bored. None of the characters are particularly likeable so it’s rather hard to care about whether the bomb explodes or not. It’s not unwatchable but it’s not one worth watching.  


Sunday 11 December 2011

Rise of the Planet of the Apes review.



The original Planet of the Apes is one of the most successful B movies ever made and still has a massive cult following, it is a classic of the 60s. The original, starring Charlton Heston, was followed by four sequels, a remake (directed by Tim Burton) which is regarded with distaste by film fans and critics alike, and now a prequel/reboot. The prequel/reboot is being regarded as one the finest films of the series since the 1968 original.

Sunday 4 December 2011

Hugo Review.



Martin Scorsese has dealt with social alienation in Taxi Driver, detestable boxers in Raging Bull and cold blooded killers in Goodfellas, so a family film is a whole new experience for Scorsese. Scorsese has left his mark on cinema, becoming one of the most influential, praised and celebrated directors of the industry. His early films dealt with the impact of male ego and violence, he now turns his attention to the family movie genre. I was interested to see what Scorsese would do in this genre; I never expected anything quite as special as this.

Captain America Review.


Hollywood seems to be producing a huge amount of movies based on comic books from the most well known of all, Batman, Spiderman (which is being pointlessly rebooted) and Superman to the lesser known such as The Green Lantern. You would be forgiven if one was to say that they are tired of superhero movies but yet some are good and some are downright awful. Captain America: The Last Avenger is the latest Marvel comic book production to hit cinemas.

Saturday 3 December 2011

Sarah's Key, 50/50 and Moneyball.



Kristen Scott Thomas is a big name on both sides of the channel (though her French career is more notable) and Sarah's Key is another fine film that contains another fine performance from Thomas. Sarah's Key tells the story of two people named Julia Jarmond (Thomas) and Sarah Starzynski (admirably played by newcomer Melusine Mayance). Julia is a modern day journalist investigating the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of 1942 when 12000 Jews were captured and imprisoned (by the French) in appalling conditions ready to be sent off to the Concentration Camps in Poland and Germany. Sarah is one of those Jewish people who were captured by the French; we follow Sarah as she meets empathic guards and kindly Frenchman in a desperate bid to free her brother from a locked cupboard in which Sarah locked him in to avoid his capture.