30 Rock Season 3 - funnier than Season 2 but the celebrity cameo per episode gets annoying. And I've worked out why I don�t personally think this is brilliant, only good (and it took watching something more traditional like Fawlty Towers to realise this). All the ingredients are there but there is just no buildup for any of the jokes, they are just delivered one after the other with no real effort for setup.

7/10


The Road (2009) - as good an adaptation of the source material as there could be really. It's a very difficult book to adapt and director John Hillcoat does quite well in choosing to focus on the relationship between the father and son (with flashbacks to the mother) rather than the hardship of their journey through a post apocalyptic world. It's uncompromisingly bleak but so was the book and the only thing that could really be improved upon is a better child actor. The one used was fine but struggled in some of the more difficult scenes. Viggo Mortensen is excellent as usual.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

7-7.5/10


Bright Star (2009) - Jane Campion's film about english poet John Keats is not a biography but more about his brief relationship with seamstress Fanny Brawne before his eventual death. It's a film of two halves in more ways than one.

Narratively, the first half is better than the second which drags on a good 20 min too long. Performance wise, Ben Whishaw lacks charm and charisma and does not come across in any way as a great poet or someone that would draw attention in the manner that his character is shown to do. On the other hand, Abbie Cornish is terrific as the witty, strong minded and naive Fanny Brawne (who was robbed of at least an oscar nomination). Even visually, the first half has some breathtaking cinematography before there is a deliberate shift to a more dank and gloomy atmosphere (and Greg Fraser's work was also robbed of an oscar nomination).

On the whole, its well worth watching, having a strong emotional core without being mawkishly sentimental.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810784/

6.5/10


Waterloo Bridge (1940) - In direct comparison, this is an unashamedly sentimental melodrama with Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor. And for the most part, it is quite well made by Mervyn LeRoy who gives the whole thing a natural flow despite the script being ludicrous at times. What will make it or break it though is how you react to Vivien Leigh. I have never been a fan of her mannered and camera mugging acting style and although it is more restrained than usual here, it rears its head in several key scenes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033238/

6/10


Z (1969) - Costa Gavras' brilliant political thriller based on the real life assassination of greek politician Grigoris Lambarkis and the subsequent investigation into his death is an old fashioned european film that eschews the general trappings of a thriller for a more matter of fact approach that focuses on capturing the prevailing public atmosphere preceding, surrounding and succeeding the assassination. Interwoven into that atmosphere are some inspired touches that also give time to the more personal and intimate side of things. And its all set to Mikis Theodorakis' marvellously rhythmic score.

Admittedly, some of the later investigation scenes arent quite as interesting as what comes before but on the whole this is high quality cinema.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/

7.5-8/10


Mother (2009) - Joon Ho Bong treads familiar ground with another rural south korean murder mystery drama that draws inevitable comparison with his earlier and masterful Memories of Murder. Unfortunately, this latest film, despite its strengths, is only an above average affair which takes too long to get to its interesting and fresh ending. But Bong is a master of mood and this is permeated with an eerie ambience that is enhanced by one of the best scores of last year. And Kim Hye-Ja's central performance as an elderly single mother whose mentally disabled son is charged with murder is some of the best acting you will come across, full of nuance and intense emotion and carrying the film through some of its duller periods..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216496/

6.5/10


Martyrs (2008) - brutal but partly engrossing french horror film that ultimately bites off way more than it can chew in its last act. Director Pascal Laugier seems to have higher aspirations in mind than just a well made B horror film but its questionable whether those aspirations match the execution. Nevertheless, when Laugier sticks to the standard genre conventions, he unarguably demonstrates plenty of skill in generating surprise and shock.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029234/

5-5.5/10 

thought the first half was a bit better, too.

up until the lock down it was awesome, but after that point it just gets silly.

I think I've said it before, but Inside is better in my opinion, as far as french horror goes.

A bit goofy, but just absolutely intensive gore. and as unrealistic as the premise seems, it's happened in real life! 

yeah have Inside on the to watch list. Any others? Frontiers looks shit but I could be wrong. 

Yeah, I don't know how that's gonna be, still have pretty high hopes!

Lake Eden's pretty decent, as far as over the top xenophobic survival horror goes...

And I've heard great things about that movie Time Crimes. Looks pleasantly goofy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ndXJnT8AM 

could be interesting.

Meanwhile :

Videodrome (1983) - pretty effective little flick from David Cronenberg with some very creepy sequences (and effects!) and some quite prescient insight. Not going to try and summarise the plot because describing early Cronenberg plots in a non-stupefying manner is almost impossible. But Cronenberg's prophetic, if not always logical, exploration of consumer control and reaction within the tv entertainment world is bizarrely compelling and ludicrously entertaining at the same time, with all the strangeness given an anchor by James Woods' fantastic and committed performance in the central role.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/

7-7.5/10 

A Prophet, comments later but in short, modern crime classic.

Comments on some others :

Mary and Max (2009) - the new feature length claymation film from Harvie Krumpet director Adam Elliot is good but also repetitive in both content and structure. It does feel a little like a short film idea stretched out to feature length. Still, its very watchable with a strong ending and a nice streak of acerbic humour throughout.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/

6/10


Tomorrow (1972) - Robert Duvall is a great actor and this is arguably his greatest performance, which is saying a lot considering his body of work. Duvall is in pretty much every scene of this film, playing a simple minded Mississippi dirt farmer who is hired as an overseer of a saw mill the winter season and finds an abandoned pregnant woman whom he eventually falls in love with. The film shows the turn of the century south in a very straightforward and unglamorous fashion and captures the mood and feel of a very lonely rural community in what appears to be a very authentic manner.

Its slow moving, but always interesting, especially if you like strong acting and moody cinematography. Olga Bellin, who plays the woman, is also brilliant.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069393/

7.5/10


The Ruling Class (1971) - brilliant idea for what should be wicked black comedy, but the execution is just plain poor. A member of the House of Lords dies in a silly way and leaves his estate to his insane son who thinks he is Jesus Christ. Other members of the family try to have him committed in order to steal the estate and their plan backfires when the son no longer believes himself to be Jesus, but rather Jack the Ripper.

Unfortunately, the film is a big sprawling mess with a couple of brilliant scenes but mostly being a poor mishmash of different tones and genres. Peter O Toole is allowed to chew whatever scenery he can find and although his performance is more than zany enough, he only really hits the mark in a few scenes (the most notable being his showdown, as Jesus Christ, with another insane inmate who believes himself to be The New Age Electric Christ).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069198/

4-4.5/10


Side Street (1951) - solid if unspectacular film noir from Anthony Mann reuniting the successful pairing of Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell from Nicholas Ray's superior They live by Night.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042960/

6.5-7/10


The Ascent (1977) - Larisa Shepitko is relatively unknown but is widely regarded by her peers as one of the best female directors in cinema history. She died young, making only a handful of films and this was her final film before her death. It�s a near masterpiece, with a first half that is as good as any film ever made.

In 1942 Belarus, two partisan soldiers leave their band and trek through the snow to find a nearby farmhouse to get supplies. The first half tracks their progress through the wintery landscape, with mesmerising long tracking shots that have to be seen to be believed. Eventually they are captured by Nazi collaborating Belarusians and at this point the film settles into a more conventional biblical allegory that focuses on the different attitudes of the two men towards their fate. This half of the film is still strong, brimming with an unforced honesty, but it is also much less immediate than what has come before.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075404/

7.5-8/10


The Red Desert (1964) - terrible film from Michaelangelo Antonioni. Its only saving grace is that its shot quite well but otherwise this is a tedious, dreary, dated and repetitive effort from Antonioni. His earlier alimentation trilogy covered much of the same ground but far more effectively in my opinion

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058003/

3/10


A Serious Man (2009) - A little too oblique and impenetrable for me to fully appreciate but its another distinctively bleak but hilarious outing that only the Coen brothers can make. I have no idea how they got approval to make something like this but I'm glad they did.

Sy Abelman is one of the all time classic characters.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1019452/

7-7.5/10 

"very important" 

I watched Inglourious Basterds yesterday and agree with what people said before me. Nothing too special but alright. I found the Landa character getting out of character starting with the laughter about the skiing accident, earlier he was ace.

Someone like Guy Ritchie could have managed much better to make the various plots come together in one final big good ending...

I also found the music choice bad sometimes but I guess that is Tarantino having to do his thing.

Gotta watch the older one some day. 

And the 1978 Inglorious Bastards:
Average nazi killing. Some parts are better, some worse. Has almost nothing to do with Tarantino's movie. It's american's disguised as nazis and that's about it. Fun characters. 

http://www.teethmovie.com/trailer.html

Anyone seen this?? Sounds pretty interesting, rated well on RT too. 

yes. it's awful really, but strangely compelling at the same time.. and to be fair it doesn't take itself that seriously anyway. certainly enough to put you off sex for a while :P 

What do you call a fanny with teeth in?

A vicious cunt! 

I want to see that - heard it's good and goofy in a 'slither' type of way. 

That the vagina dentata one?

It's alright, mildly amusing, if slightly sub-average. Watch it if you have nowt else to do, but I wouldn't go out of your way to do so... 

RocknRolla, 2008 by Guy Ritchie
Nowhere near Lock, Stock ... or Snatch. Fun though. Very local english, I switched on subtitles after a while. Some hilarious, some cool scenes. But also a lot of stupid scenes. A bit much of annoying music. Some great actors. Ending unsatisfactory as it was not really about the actual main characters (12, Mumble and Bob for me). Will probably not watch again. 

The Informant! (2009) - Steven Soderbergh's latest, a satire of something like Michael Mann's more serious (and much superior) The Insider, tries too hard to be quirky and clever which was completely unnecessary given the loopy nature of the overall plot and main character.

It works best when it casually weaves in random stream of consciousness thoughts in the main character's voiceover narration and less successfully so whenever the music score emphasises each change in tone to such an extent that Soderbergh may as well have had cue cards popping up on screen instructing the audience which parts are meant to be serious and which parts are meant to be funny. Soderbergh's approach is even more beguiling when you consider how impressive Matt Damon is and how on the ball he is as to how each scene should play out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130080/

6.5/10


Up in the Air (2009) - Another decent film from Jason Reitman but once again it feels a little too clever for its own good and doesn�t end convincingly. He has a gift for making what should be smarmy and unlikeable characters likeable, and for extracting strong performances from his cast, but there is a little too much tongue in cheek in his films for them to work beyond surface level (I think Juno, once it got past the first annoying 20 min, worked best on this level).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/

7/10 

The Italian Job (2003)
Very bad hollywood action movie. I think I should avoid movies with Mark Wahlberg (ok, Shooter was alright) and Seth Green (I so can't stand his characters...).


I got into The Big Bang Theory after getting bored of 2-3 seasons 3rd Rock from the Sun recently. Very funny show so far. I am sure nonentity will disagree. 

This is funny :)

http://watchxonline.com/category/610-celebrity-rehab-with-dr-drew.php 

The exceptions are of course Three Kings and The Departed. 

Huh? 

The Corruptor 

you preferred Shooter to IJ remake??

I thought the first was terrible and the second decent.

Also, Boogie Nights, easily the best thing hes been involved in! 

Boogie Nights is definitely on the list, The Corruptor I have not seen, but will make an effort now. 

Bit shaky in parts (not the camera), but otherwise okay. Hardly any new elements except for the conclusion, basically the same movie from a different perspective. 

Boogie Nights > The Corruptor, of course