| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The History Boys - R | A really enjoyable and well told story. That the sexual tension amongst the boys and their teachers plays out in the presence of Miss Jones, formerly the subject of Rigsby's unrequited lust, just adds more delicious black humour. | December 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Sunshine - R | There is is quite a good human story here and it is told in a pretty involving way. That several of its plot devices are borrowed from various other very good films, ranging from 2001 to the "Death On The Nile", isn't a problem. Indeed, spotting where the borrowings may have come from adds to the fun. However, the "science" that the Sun will be "going out" in another 50 years, unless someone throws some more lighter-fuel on it, is not particularly believable, which makes the film less satisfying as a whole. | December 2, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Star Trek - PG-13 | Very good reboot to the Star Trek franchise. That it all takes place in a parallel timeline is a VERY neat device for ironing out several of the plot disconnects between itself and the Original Series, which in its turn was never THAT internally self-consistent anyway; it took until the 1990s and Babylon 5 to introduce properly thought-through and properly consistent plots to TV Sci-Fi. | December 2, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Kingdom of Heaven - R | I liked the cinema version, but the longer Director's cut is so much better. Indeed, once you've seen the longer version you get the impression that the original edit was done by someone from a rival studio trying to mess it up! | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Close My Eyes - R | This is a very good film, in which some terrific performances from the three leads are occasionally let down by parts of the script. | November 25, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Riddle of the Sands - PG | Good, intriguing story and well filmed, but let down a bit by the way it seems to sort of peters out at the end. If it were a Bond plot Michael York would have blown up the villainous German Fleet single-handed! | November 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Live Free or Die Hard - PG-13 | OK, we've sort of seen most of it before, but this 3rd sequel is an entertaining enough film to be worth watching in its own right, and Bruce Willis does them so well. I initially had trouble recognising Timothy Olyphaunt without his Deadwood Cowboy hat and WITH the hair he didn't have in Hitman, but I think he did a good job in the (necessarily recast) villain role. I had even more trouble finding it in the database until I found that the clever Die Hard 4.0 title was used just in Europe. | November 10, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Operation: Daybreak - Unrated | Hadn't seen this for years, until it turned up on Channel 5 last night. Great (true) story, which looked like it was mainly filmed in the actual locations in Prague. Interesting also to see Martin Shaw and Anthony Andrews in a movie from before they both found their iconic roles in The Professionals and Brideshead Revisited respectively. | November 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Glory - R | This film brings out the deeply unpleasant nature of the Civil War and indeed much of the futility of war. It gets off to a slow start, but gets MUCH better as the story progresses and you get to know and feel more sympathy for the characters. Although by the time Matthew Broderick says the equivalent of "please, sir, please please please let me and all my men get killed sir" at the end, you begin to question again whether you like him. | October 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Formula 51 (The 51st State) - R | I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to get round to seing this, but I found it a thoroughly entertaining action pic, with lots of opportunity to play "spot the location". Must just make sure I avoid the locale of any kilt wearing Chemists next time I am in Liverpool (and certainly not take any sweeties from them). | October 5, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Titus - R | I saw this ITV1 of all places. NOT really ITV audience material at all, which you could tell from the fact there were few advert breaks and almost no adverts in them. However, EXCELLENT film, even if the mix between some of it being in Roman dress and some in modern dress was a bit weird. It has both chariots AND cars in the same film. Interesting to see both Henry VIII from The Tudors and Kevin from Brothers & Sisters doing "serious" acting. | October 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Bedazzled - PG |
Pete (as Lucifer), Dud (as Faust) and Raquel Welch too (as Lust). Eleanor Bron provides the crumpet interest for the more interlectual. What more could you need?
Later remade with Liz Hurley in the Pete role. THAT film isn't a patch on this. |
September 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - PG-13 | Enjoyable and very entertaining film, taking Indy back to South America in search of El Dorado and old friends. | September 17, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Lady Jane - PG-13 |
This is a very good and reasonably historically accurate (at least by "The Tudor's" standards!) telling of the Lady Jane Grey story, other than perhaps overdoing the cod-Fabian Society politics a bit. Helena Bonham Carter (fresh from Room With A View) plays the Queen of 9 Days well, and Cary Elwes makes a fine foil as her doomed husband. The manipulation of the young couple by their various self-serving and venal relatives is portrayed well, but at least Jean-Luc Picard comes good in the end. The (off-screen) Philip II of Spain is revealed as the true villain of the Bloody Mary era that is to follow. He will crop up and be even more villainous in Elizabeth, Elizabeth R and all sorts of sequels and prequels until Francis Drake gives him a good singeing!
NB, I did NOT recognise that was Guildford Dudley resurrected as Michael Collins in "From The Earth To The Moon"! |
September 17, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Damned United - R | Enthralling and highly enjoyable film about the pre-Nottingham Forrest career of Brian Clough, centring on his conflict with Don Revie, whom he (briefly!) succeeded as Manager of Leeds United. Michael Sheen plays a brilliant Brian Clough, although his accent does seem to slip back from Middleborough to Wales far more than in Michael's other "real character" roles. Timothy Spall's Peter Taylor and Colm Meaney as Clough's nemesis Revie are played well too. It took me quite while to realise it was Chris from Skins playing Duncan McKenzie. Iindeed I was in the 35 minutes of deleted scenes before I did! If I have one real criticism, it is that putting most of those deleted bits back in and making a 2 hour film would probably have made it even better. | September 10, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Whole Nine Yards - R | This is a fun movie. Mathew Perry does a reasonable job of showing what might have happened if Chandler had become a dentist, married someone even nuttier than Monica and found himself surrounded by hitmen. Bruce Willis sends himself and his own movies up beautifully. | September 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Lucky Number Slevin - R | Pretty entertaining film with some nice plot twists. I was drawn to investigating it by knowing it was a remake of Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars/Last Man Standing. | September 6, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Matrix Revolutions - R | OK, finally got to the end of the third installment. Like number 2, I found this a more entertaining film than the original. If that had been less confusing I might not have waited quite so long to see the two concluding parts. I'm still not convinced the story warranted being stretched out over 3 very long movies. | August 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Matrix Reloaded - R | Great action. If anything it is a better film than original Matrix, but the plot remains a bit too confusing. | August 17, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - R | Good entertaining film, but there is no way the train and CGI satellite of this sequel can substitute for the sheer splendour of being set onboard an Iowa Class Battleship, as the original Under Siege was. | August 15, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Munich - R | This is an excellent film, with great action and a very good cast. The plot is taunt, although just a little bit confusing in places wrt what is in the "present" and what is in the "flashback" elements. | August 10, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Brideshead Revisited - PG-13 |
I came to this with some trepidation, thinking that no film could do justice in only two hours what the 1981 TV Series took 12 hours over. I was wrong.
Brideshead Revisited (2008) is a beautifully filmed and well acted screen treatment of the novel. I think it helps that they have re-used Castle Howard as Brideshead and that Matthew Goode (as Charles Ryder) is such a ringer for the young Jeremy Irons. Once you get past Ben Whishaw's hair NOT being fair (which takes a few minutes), then he plays a rather excellent version of Sebastian Flyte. The Charles-Sebastian-Julia love triangle is portrayed rather well, although here Charles' affections move from Sebastian to Sebastian's beautifull but (strangely) more forbidden sister rather faster, because the (relatively) short screen time forces some concatentation of the plot. Emma Thompson makes a very good Lady Marchmaine, whose over-comitment to her religion is the nexus of most of the pysochological scars in all her children. |
August 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Frost/Nixon - R |
I remember being mesmerised by the actual interview when it was shown 30+ years ago and I have read Tricky Dicky's Memoirs.
The performances of both Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the lead roles are totally compelling. An excellent film. |
August 2, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Inglourious Basterds - R | July 30, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Leonard Cohen: Live in London - Unrated | I read all sorts of rubbish about this not being a "proper" DVD recording among the reviews on Amazon, but having sampled a very good hour's edit from it on BBC 4, bought a copy. This is a recording of Leonard's O2 Arena gig in 2008. It is a BRILLIANT DVD and gives you an excellent full concert of 2 hours 40 minutes to boot too. If you like Leonard Cohen at all, then cetrtainly worth investing in. | July 27, 2009 | N/A |
291 ratings
245 reviews
