New Ghibli film? But is it better or worse - you say overshined by the previous' but your new favourite - ? 

Hangover Square (1945) - B grade 40's horror/thriller almost given A grade treatment by John Brahm. Its moody, looks superb and is reasonably well acted. The plot on the other hand is not quite up to scratch and lets it down quite a bit.

5.5/10


The Last King of Scotland - excellent film from documentary maker Kevin Macdonald. The first 90 min are spot on, the movie managing to capture the different tones and moods of its different characters quite distinctively. There is also an uneasy buildup of tension throughout. Performances are top notch with Whitaker, James McAvoy and Gillian Anderson producing some very fine work.

The last 20 min or so arent quite up to scratch though with the movie descending into routine thriller material.

7.5/10


East of Eden (1955) - Not a fan of Rebel Without a Cause, and after having seen this, this is really the one James Dean should be remembered for.

This is almost a great film, a weak ending IMHO drags it down, and Elia Kazan can take much of the credit for its quality. But it really is James Dean's central performance that makes it what it is, he is a very a mannered performer, but its no less magnetic because of it.

Some of the scenes in this are as great as anything ever made.

7.5/10


Rescue Dawn (2006) - Christian Bale is on some sort of roll at the moment, he can do no wrong. He puts in another fine performance and combined with Werner Herzog's fetish for authenticity makes this film about the story of vietnamese POW Dieter Dengler a very personal experience for the viewer.

It's quite slow and some of the other actors are a bit annoying with their performances but if you can get past those issues this is well worth watching.

7/10 

porco rosso is an old ghibli film, 1992 like spirit says.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews20/porco_rosso_dvd_review.htm 

"overshined" not by quality but by not being mentioned like the others. I stumbled over it randomly.

I suggest not reading/watching that review, it gives away quite a lot. I hate when reviews or trailers or samples do that. "I know that scene has to come somewhen, I saw it already". Bah! 

Probably why I hadn't heard of it then. My favourite of the bunch is probably Spirited away still, rather than Princess Mononoke.

It's kind of Disney style but skewed and a bit more grim, as their name says - a fresh wind. 

I'd order it but Amazon doesn't deliver out here; I'll have to do some hunting in those 'shop' things. 

The Good:

Juno

A genuinely funny, feel good movie about an immature teenage girl dealing with a pregnancy she's not ready for. The movie has some cringeworthy dialogue that tries too hard at times (e.g. the phrase "honest to blog" delivered as if people actually talk like that) but the good things about it helped it from getting ruined by the dialogue.

It's superb when it's not trying too hard to seem hip or in touch with youth culture, and still pretty good even when it is. Ellen Page is the perfect actress to play Juno -- she doesn't look a day older than 16 but has enough experience and restraint at 21 to master the role whereas an actual 16 year old might get caught up in the quirkiness of it all.

Children of Men

Incredible movie about a dystopian future in which mankind has suddenly lost the ability to reproduce. Brilliant pacing with perfectly placed periods of tension and resolution.

It's a essentially a message movie with a few different messages about the meaning of life, maintaining hope for the future and faith in humankind. The kind of movie that leaves you a little stunned when it's over.

Little Miss Sunshine

Good light-hearted fare about a dysfunctional family on a roadtrip. Lots of funny scenes and great performances by everyone involved, especially the little girl.

Motorcycle Diaries

A great movie about a roadtrip across the entire South American continent that Che Guevara and his friend took when they were young lads. They took the trip merely as a way to find adventure they ended up consumed by the injustices they saw along the way (Che moreso than his friend obviously)

The acting by Gael Garc�a Bernal was excellent in that he did a great job portraying the transformation of a reasonably normal kid into a passionate revolutionary. A beautifully shot movie and wonderfully paced -- to the point where I was genuinely disappointed when it was over because I wanted the story to go on forever. I seriously hope the same cast and crew do a movie about the latter half of Che's life but I doubt that'd happen.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

I actually just watched this tonight (thanks Lun) and you can watch it too! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7764236988646880932&hl=en

A great documentary about Daniel Johnston -- a seriously mentally ill singer/songwriter who almost broke through to great success several times in his career only to have his illness hold him back. A good chronicle of the man's life, it's also a great reminder of the mysterious ways the brain drives some people to see the world through artistic eyes and how that same drive can ultimately transform into out and out dysfunction.

It's really touching to hear his parents talk about his struggles and I admit I got a little choked up when his dad was talking about the event that occured when he and Daniel were flying home from a gig later in his career. A great movie.

No Country for Old Men

Brilliant, tense, action packed meditation on the consequences of one's actions, fate and evil. Some very nice photography throughout the movie and great performances by the leads.

Another movie with a brilliant sense of pace -- the way it makes the viewer feel like they're being chased by a vengeful, hellish demon right along with the main character is outstanding.

The Bad:


Syriana

A wannabe Dickensian tale without Dickens' sensibility to tie things together coherently or present some kind of story along the way. Structurally very reminiscent of Traffic (and well it should since it has the same writer) it lacks the the sense of cohesion and relevance that made that movie so good.

The acting overall was pretty poor as well.

Matt Damon channels Good Will Hunting via oil economics in a scene so bad and bereft of realistic emotion that it will make you laugh out loud.

George Clooney plays himself. Awesome.

28 Weeks Later

Definitely the worst movie I've seen in a while. It's essentially exactly the same as its predecessor 28 Days Later which defeats the entire purpose of having a sequel. It feels more like the sequels that get made for video games than a movie sequel. There was really no reason for this movie to be made other than to try and be a modern "Dawn/Day/Night of the Dead" franchise which it was never meant to be in the first place.

Robert Carlyle who's been so brilliant in so many movies (especially Trainspotting) is especially bland in this movie, but the character they wrote for him was shitty to begin with so I don't blame him. An utterly pointless movie that rehashes 28 Days Later to the point where you'd probably go insane if you watched them back to back. 

agree on children of men, no country for old men and mototcycle diaries. I found Syriana to be above average despite being try hard complex and Little Miss Sunshine just didnt work for me.

Juno's opening here soon, quite want to see that.

Havent seen the others 

They Live by Night - if it looks like noir and smells like noir, it must be noir? Not when its made by Nicholas Ray.

Much like On Dangerous Ground and In a Lonely Place, Ray dresses up what really is a character piece in noir sensibility and the result is again an excellent film. There's some very nifty use of light and shadow here to accentuate the scenes but its the care shown towards the characters that really makes it work.

The movie itself was later remade by Robert Altman as Thieves Like Us and inspired Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde.

7.5/10


Ivan's Childhood (1962) - Surprisingly narrative oriented movie from the great Andrei Tarkovsky and the narrative seem to hamper him. Or maybe its the average script which struggles to connect the audience with what should be a sympathetic story of a young russian boy used as a scout by the army during the WWII.

Nevertheless, Tarkovsky imbues the film with his trademark meditative touches, such as the boy's surreal dreams and non visual flashbacks, and is once again a genius with his camera.

7/10


My Man Godfrey (1936) - excellent screwball comedy, william powell and carole lombard make a great pairing, the supporting cast is terrific and the script is great in both its dramatic and extremely witty comedic moments.

7.5/10


The Sopranos Season 6 Part 2 - I found the whole last season (part 1 included) to be a big disappointment. Season 5 had the show back on track and the first half of Part 1 was excellent too.

But everything from then on was just very very average. This Part still has some very good episodes but there's some very shoddily written ones too.

Also, events that should have been given more time were rushed, and plotlines that should have been avoided got way too much screentime. If the Vito storyline was the shocker last time, its the AJ storyline this time.

I didnt mind the final episode that much, but overall, given that they 20 episodes to wrap this season up, it felt very underwhelming.

6.5/10 

I really truly believe, that they gave the AJ storyline so might weight because they had planned to have him die in the last episode. Only, to have backed on in the editing room 

but that whole storyline was poorly written and the actor that plays AJ is one of the weakest on he show which didnt help either.

Some more :

Viridiana (1961) - Luis Bunuel's controversial movie about the short period in the life of a soon-to-become-nun during and after she visits her late aunt's widower husband for a few days is one his less surreal efforts but still just as effective as his more bizarre work.

The first half is very strong, the movie introducing some very interesting characters and going off in all sorts of unexpected directions. The second half, which generated a lot of the controversy, is still good, but I found it to be a bit too heavy handed and predictable.

7/10


Zatoichi (2003) - Not bad update by Takeshi Kitano of the Zatoichi series of films about a blind samurai swordsman but it never really got going for me. There's some inspired parts but on the whole I found it to be very unoriginal.

5.5/10


Knocked Up - way too long for what it is, and it especially drags towards the end, but otherwise it's smartly written and performed and also pretty funny.

6.5-7/10


Rome Season 2 - A bit surprised as it probably turned out a little bit better than season 1. The first season was held together by Ciaran Hinds as Julius Caesar an with his absence from this season, I wasnt expecting much.

But the show does some very interesting things with Mark Antony and Octavian Caesar this time around and once again is at its strongest when it sticks to the political side of the roman empire. Havig said that, there is less annoying soap opera this time in the lives of the two soldier characters which is also a plus.

7/10


Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) - Above average teen road movie by Alfonso Cuaron which is less annoying than its amercian counterparts because it has characters you dont want to punch out after a few minutes.

Its also helped by some very natural performances, some reasonably funny moments and a breakaway technique used to make the places (and inhabitants of those places) they go to a part of the picture.

What doesnt work is a voiceover technique that fills you in on what was probablly intended to be interesting little details but starts to grate very early on. It also takes to long to do what it set out to do.

Still, a solid watch.

6/10 

An impressive amount of films nitin, I never find the time, too many games. Thanks for the continuing reviews though, gives a good guideline the next time I want to see anything. 

Been a bit sick the last few days and watched some telly.
I thought this would be a crap Spanish flick about hysterical women complaining about their problems. I was dead wrong.

It's one of the best films in near history I've seen.

It's hard to tell about a good movie without spoiling it. But you know that I'm very critical of most stuff and I definitely urge you to see this, if you movies that actually have plots, as well as strong and different lifelike characters. 

Mark Anthony was the best character by far, I liked him in season one also. It's so awesome how everyone considers him "a destructive brute" but he's so fake-polite with that smirk of his, and he always has to sit at tables and listen to petitioners and you can just tell he hates politics.

The finale was really lame though, it was so obvious who was going to die and why, although they did handle the increasing sociopath aspect of Octavian fairly well. The series as a whole was decent (I like historical settings and R ratings), but not worth canceling Deadwood over. 

I've liked all of almodovar's recent stuff, All About My Mother being the greatest.

tronyn, pretty much agree with all that. And yes good as it was, definitely not worth Deadwood's cancellation. 

which is interesting (if perhaps obvious) about Rome season 2, is that the good guy (Anthony) seems like he could kill anyone as soon as look at them, but actually has an inherent emotional compass, whereas the bad guy (Octavian) seems nice and friendly but has no morality whatsoever. Maybe I've been watching Dark Knight trailers and No Country For Old Men too much lately, but it seems like people are opting for this type of moral opposition more and more these days. The externally bad guy is good and the externally good guy is bad. 

A Place in the Sun (1951) - very good noirish melodrama from George Stevens that unfolds pretty well and has pretty good performances from Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters and Elizabeth Taylor. I would also bet good money that Woody Allen had this in mind when he made Match Point.

7/10



Diary of a Country Priest (1951) - great film about a lonely, sick and generally unliked country priest in France who faces the question of whether it is enough to have only god as your companion. Its extremely well made in a very unobtrusive style by Robert Bresson and thankfully does not preach anything, but makes some very powerful points no matter what your stand on the issue of religion is.

8/10


Veronica Mars Season 3 - easily the weakest of the three seasons, especially the last 5-6 epsiodes but I still found it to be not too far from the quality of the previous seasons. Sure, the major story arcs are gone and the side characters are relegated to cameo status but I've never really cared for those previously and the thing I've always liked about the show are the dialogue and kristen bell. And both of those were still top notch this season.

6.5/10


The Stranger (1946) - orson welles does hitchcock in this moody thriller that has a propestrous plot but good characterisations and direction. The suspense is first rate too.

7/10


Dexter Season 1 - pretty decent show, although I think it plays it too safe with the concept it has and needs to be darker in order to mine the material to its fullest extent.

7/10


Kansas City Confidential (1952) - fairly solid minor noir that is well written and well performed.

7/10


Late Spring (1949) - very good family drama from yasujiro ozu that moves pretty slowly but that pace allows Satsuko Hara to put in a really strong performance as a woman in post war japan on whom marriage is forced by society.

7/10



The Face of Another (1966) - second film of hiroshi teshigahara that I have seen, and so far I think the man was a better philosopher than he was a filmmaker.

This has a concept similar to that in Face Off but approaches it more from a philosophical and existential point of view rather than as an excuse for a (pretty good) action film. Anyway, the film is a mish mash of approaches and ideas that, while interesting in themselves, are never presented in a coherent or consistent manner.

6/10



Die Hard 4 - like the last two, its nowhere near the quality of the first because it forgets to build its action and doesn�t have a villain to match Hans Gruber. The action scenes are pretty well staged but are overly silly and preposterous from the start.

6/10


Heroes Season 1 - first half is much better than the second half (with the exception of the very first episode which is very very average) but the longer it goes on, the sillier it gets. By the end the silliness level is pretty high and the plot holes fairly big.

Still, most of it is pretty decent with interesting characters and, at least initially, interesting themes.

7/10



Volver - Almodovar's latest is quite good although I found some of the plotline to be a bit too predictable and unremarkable. Still the characters and their interactions are interesting, the mood is well done and the perfromances are spot on.

7-7.5/10 

Shoot Em Up - This film is enjoyable, if completely absurdly rediculous right from the start! And it is - right from the idea of pulling a carrot from the soil only for it to be clean straight away to the idea of carrying a supply of them around in a rucksack to killing people by ramming one into their eye sockets (more than once this happens) this film is utter nonsense. The script is complete cheese and the plot is just a cheap excuse to have many 'government type highly oganised' bad guys chasing after a lone vigilante-type-character.
But, make no mistake, none of the afforementioned 'bad points' detract from the film overall. You see this film is great fun to watch, very well acted, extremely well directed, looks amazing and is pure entertainment right from the start to the finish. A pure adrenaline rush of gut-wrenching action and glory! Watch it now!!

8-9/10 

I think the basic plot premise is very very stupid but there's a lot of stuff there that's done pretty well nevertheless. Some work of the supporting actors and their dialog etc is nice at times... I didn't watch the early part of the first season much though.

Dexter's sister is that emotion showing counterpart to him and I think is a very important part of the show working. I really can't put my finger on her acting - it's hard to really judge it. And of course it's nice to have some of the problems that are represented as happening to a psychopath when really many ordinary people experience some similar things - I find Dexter one of those characters that are in some way easy to feel similar to, compared to the loud "Friends" type characters in US tv shows (yeah they're different genres and caricatures etc but still...).

So all in all some nice TV drama can be made even if the basic idea is crap. Perhaps just because of that, for some weird reason. 

well the idea is silly but they can do so much more with it,

As for the sister, I dont think its great acting but rather a combination of good casting and writing for her character. their relationship is one of the more believble ones on tv. 

Actually, i thought Dexter could've been less 'crime' and more sarcastic black humor character study. They could use the setting and his character a LOT more. But i guess it's hard for an american tv series to cut all the typical series crap.

This was one of the first shows with a main storyline throughout all episodes i actually liked. The La Guertha(?) character is a bit stereotype and overdone, and so is the black cop's writing, but the rest of the guys were pretty much spot on imho. The writing/plot... well, back to the 'series' argument: it could've been a lot more tight (although the show would have a hard time if it was any faster) and thought through, but i guess it's hard to fill 12 episodes. I would like to have it bounce the ball between characters a bit more; the way it is, there's only about 2-3 non-main characters in any given episode.

Also, the obvious 'we need to get a look into all the characters life' part sucks. Why, the main character is emotionally detached and we're in his view most of the time - so don't try to make me feel sorry for the career woman losing her job. But that's the 'typical US show' again :(, and probably adds to the feeling that the show could've worked better with a 'team' of characters that played ball (instead of attention whoring the shit out of eachother ;) AND the main char.)

Guess imho they could've cut the 'catching the serial killer' part a lot, and focused on the main character more. His job looks kinda interesting for example (i doubt it's realistic), and the feel of it would allow it to have lots of influence on his understanding and perception of the world around him. That's the stuff I'm interested in - you have an interesting character, so try to make me understand him and present the world from his POV in an interesting way. I think the show could have worked (better?) if there wouldn't have been a main story line at all, but seperate plots for each episode instead.

I can't stand shit like Prison Break - we're breaking out of a prison - for 15+ fucking episodes. right. The first two episodes were interesting, then it just became zZz :(

That's one thing i liked about dex - it doesn't try so hard to drag the main story over the course of the series.

btw, what's so silly about the idea of it? 

to the tune of merry music. And interspersed with light family drama. 

can somebody tell me WHY this did kill the conversation? :o 

"Cutting Live People In Pieces to the tune of merry music. And interspersed with light family drama"

Well I have to say thats not necessarily stupid in my book. Wrong/disturbing depending on your tastes maybe, but not stupid.

The silliness/stupid aspect for me is more with the implementation of Dexter's sociopathy. You never really see it save for the fact that he kills people in the way bambuz described (and to a lesser extent his fascination with the ice truck killer's methods). As it is though, he comes across more as your general vigilante rather than a sociopath.

Basically the sociopathic character serves the plots rather than the plots serving th character. One of the better epsiodes was with the pscyhiatrist that he goes after but also ends up seeing. That episode at least revealed a bit more about the character (even though ultimately it was used to serve plot again). 

that was idiocy.

I can't kill him yet, I need another session!

And boom he got his sexuality working.

Le sigh.