| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hart's War - R | Mixes The Great Escape with To Kill A Mockingbird, completely fails to be in any way gripping or engaging and ends up a generic war movie that is easily, and best, forgotten. Nicht gut! | December 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Avatar - PG-13 | Easily the best film of 2009 for sheer spectacle. It has absolutely everything a 2+ hour movie needs and not once does it even tempt to drag. It isn't perfect: the Pocahontas/Ferngully plot is predictable - yet Cameron has such a gob-smacking obsession with detail that he still makes it something of his own. It also feels toned down for family audiences, and the bad guy is a walking testosterone cliche. Yet besides all that, this is a rollicking action movie on an epic scale, the likes of which you've never seen before. Ever. | December 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Black Rain - R |
"He's an NY cop on the edge. He doesn't follow rules. He shoots first and forgets to ask questions. Now he's in Japan - the land of respect and honour. Sparks. Will. Fly." If that wasn't the tagline it should have been. Douglas is fine, Scott's direction is good, and the plot works. Watchable. |
December 18, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Dragon Wars (D-War) (War of the Dragons) - PG-13 | It cannot be that difficult to make a film about dragons waging war upon the earth, it really can't. Reign Of Fire tried but forgot to inculde any actual battling. And this film is just a mess: from the massively over-complicated plot to the terrible acting and the ropey CGI. It's so bad I refuse to write another word about it. | December 18, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Sex and the City - R |
10 minutes: dark haired girl keeps squealing but nobody shoots her. 45 minutes: the one that was in Ed Wood is jilted at the altar and wonders if she'll ever smile again... 1 hour, 10 minutes: blonde one that looks older than the others wants sex with her neighbour but buys a dog instead. 1 hour, 20 minutes: black character is introduced so as not to offend minorities. 1 hour, 40 minutes: fashion week. I switch the DVD display to tell me how much time is left. 1 hour, 45 minutes: valentines day. I pray for a power-cut. I'm ignored. 2 hours, 5 minutes: Carla runs across town to rescue some shoes and the man of her dreams happens to be there. He has scary eyebrows but it's never let on if he's a serial killer. 7 hours later and it's over. I win the bet. I'm ten quid richer and that'll go towards the therapy. |
December 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| See No Evil, Hear No Evil - R | Ah, this takes me back: before Kevin Smith and his dick jokes, before Seth Rogen and his dick jokes, there was a time when a comedy relied on wit, timing, acting talent and a clever concept. Just like this film. Admittedly, it does still have dick jokes and swearing but it's so well written and every possible joke is squeezed out of the idea - the blind gun duel is fucking hilarious. If Seth Rogen was tomorrow crowned Funniest Man In The History Of The World Ever, this film would still be funnier. | December 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Scanners - R | Much like Nolan did with Batman, if you put the X-Men in present society it would be this film. Cronenberg - probably the best sci-fi/horror director around, does a brilliant job on the twisty-turning plot, keeps the pacing tight with plenty of action, and chucks in some fantastic scenes of gore - especially the "demonstration" near the beginning. One to watch. | December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Conan the Barbarian - R | Arnold hams it up to perfection in this, fights a giant rubber snake, shags a nymphomaniac witch and even learns the true meaning of strength over steel, or some such. Problem is, as fun as it all is, it's done so seriously that it's frequently unintentionally hilarious. | December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Box - PG-13 | Richard Kelly, director of the interesting and original, but overhyped Donnie Darko, and also the godawfully shite Southland Tales here adapts a Matheson short story. It's pretty damn good too with lots going on and messages about consequences and purgatory and some other stuff. A great thriller. Thing is, the story is Matheson's. All Kelly brings to it is silly CGI water stuff, which is superfluous and pointless. | December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Running With Scissors - R | It be another of those quirky, eccentric, family drama movie things. Cox and Paltrow are great but it still slips into melodrama and, like all the rest, has to have a gay relationship. It's not as good as Igby Goes Down or American Beauty, but it's certainly better than The Royal Tenebaums. | December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Lookout - R | 2009 has not been the best year for film. I can count on one hand the films I've seen this year that I want to see again (Transformers 2, so sue me). This being the case there is a solution: rent this film. It's got both a good plot, and great character work by Levit and Daniels. It's gripping, interesting, engaging and does everything a film should do. Granted it was made in 2007 but it's better than nearly everything released this year (including Transformers 2), and will restore your faith in cinema. Recommended. | December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Batman: Dead End - Unrated | Batman Vs. The Joker Vs. Predators - this thing was fucking cool. A must watch on youtube! | December 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Hardbodies - R | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Planet 51 - PG | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Unrated | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Tex - PG | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Happy Endings - R | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Armored (Armoured) - PG-13 | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Batman: Gotham Knight - Unrated | December 9, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Pelican Brief - PG-13 | Two politicians are killed and so law student Julia Roberts spends one evening in a library and uncovers a plot that involves absolutely everyone including the President (as you do). She's then chased all over Washington and seemingly cannot be killed - not even by the same assassin that killed the politicians. It's all very silly and a waste of time. | December 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Encounters at the End of the World - G | I swear Herzog could turn a camera on a brick wall for nine hours and still produce a fascinating documentary. Here he heads to the South Pole and does his usual trick of examining every single thing. He doesn't take the easy, Oscar-baiting route and bleat on about climate-change and penguins - though both do get a mention (the "deranged" penguin bit is really sad), instead he's like a child in constant awe, letting the camera linger, interviewing the people he finds there and watching the bizarre alien-like creatures beneath the ice. It's a brilliant documentary even if you hate ice and the very sight of it makes you sick - such is the greatness of Herzog. | December 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Goal! III (Goal! 3: Taking on the World) - PG-13 | The final instalment whereby the kid who we saw come up through the ranks now gets injured and takes a back seat. England crash out of the World Cup on penalties, one of the players dies, and there's even some fetish vampires and midgets, for the kids. | December 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Marie Antoinette - PG-13 |
This starts well with Dunst (in good form) portraying a bored queen who is allowed to do nothing for herself and is under immense pressure to produce an heir. Then Coppola does her usual trick of going all whimsical and la-de-dah and thoughtful and poetic and mind-numbingly dull. Coppola and Wes Anderson should fuck off and make babies together or something, whatever, as long as they leave Hollywood. Argento is great in this however. |
November 30, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Catch and Release - PG-13 | So there I am on an eight hour flight to China. I couldn't leave my seat because there was nowhere to go. I couldn't go to sleep because I wasn't tired. I couldn't read because I had nothing to read. And I couldn't watch something else because this was Air China. It was at that moment I came to realise why the meal was served with plastic cutlery. | November 30, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Paranormal Activity - R |
When I'm told a film "terrified America" I either ignore it or go see it for a laugh, as was the intention with this one. Trouble is I found myself terrified as fuck and loved every minute of it. One of the reasons it works is that it's intelligent: they can't just leave the house because it's the woman that's haunted, they call in a psychic who isn't some hippy-freak and talks sense, and the boyfriend is an absolute sceptic...until he starts watching the footage from each night. The night time bits were the parts I hated the most as I knew something was coming but was still scared shitless when it did, so much so that I found myself dreading the night time scenes and being relieved when it was daytime again. If the demon (not a ghost, no) had been a bit more of a bastard and not stopped slamming doors when they woke up I'd have properly pissed myself and therefore given this a full five stars. The scariest film I've ever seen. |
November 30, 2009 | N/A |
7784 ratings
832 reviews
