Films are good 2

Ok, it's a bit later than expected, but what ya gonna do. I last did one of these way back in February, doing short reviews of 18 films I saw at the cinema in Toronto. Since that time and leaving Toronto, I managed to see NINTEEN films, so... buckle up, as I take you back to March 2010, OoOoooooOOoOhhh.

-Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton makes a trippy adaptation of a kids classic, but for some reason decides to make it a sequel, and it falls totally flat. The Alice character is totally uninterested in the world she sees because she's seen it all before and therefore the audience isn't really arsed either. Plus she looks strangely like someone I know (a man), which made it a bit weird to watch. There was some decent characters, but some totally ridiculous bits that weren't needed - the battle is rubbish and I nearly started puking over the man sitting in front when Johnny Depp decides to start break dancing in a tale supposedly set in Victorian England. Plus, they sloppily put it in 3D after it had been filmed for no other reason other than to make more dorror. Colourful pukery.

4/10

- How To Train Your Dragon

Really quite surprisingly good animated gubbins about that a boy and a dragon who looks like a cat, set in a viking world without a sniff of rape (probably for the best). Looked great in IMAX, the 3D worked and was genuinely funny in parts. The music was shit hot as well. Not much else to say about this one, just... nice.

8/10

- Hot Tub Time Machine

From the trailer and the name, it might as well have been called "Stupid Shit Machine", but this admittedly dumb film turned out to be pretty hee-larious. In a total homage to the 80s, three men and a young fat boy get transported to the 80s to go apeshit and then have to get home. I can't really remember anything else about the story, because it was awful. Some funny running gags from some funny men though for sure but a few of the modern day references did fall a bit flat. Anyone can say "Miley Cyrus lololol" and get a cheap laugh these days. But better than expected.

6/10

- The Ghost Writer

Serious mystery island thing based on a book where Ewan MacGregor goes to interview Prime Minister Pierce Brosnan and nearly gets killed. Nailbiting stuff for a pretty non-violent and clean movie (as opposed to Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and on equal terms as a "gripping, clever movie" with that Swedish effort. It perhaps was a bit boring in the middle, but the end in particular was heartbreaking. Sadly no use of a lightsaber or a.. James Bond.. thing. Brosnan's accent was a bit odd if I recall. But totally awesome, technically a Polanski (100 points if you get this reference).

8/10

- Clash of The Titans

I pretty much went to see this because Liam Neeson said "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" on a trailer, which can be now used forever more as a third division sexual innuendo. So they did a remake of an old movie which I didn't see, but I saw Jason and the Argonauts (y'know, with those claymation skeletons) and it shit on this. Some good action scenes, but all in all a bit daft. Heaven or whatever looked shit as well. Shiny armour? Nah. Avatar man is gonna get typecast at this rate.

5/10

- Shutter Island

Leonardo Di Caprio is probably my favourite actor at the moment (he's come a long way since dying in the sea) and this one was another roaring success in my opinion. Much more than a creepy granny with dead eyes, Leo goes on an island with a hospital full of mentals to investigate a murder.. OR DOES HE!? Really quite gripping, less of a horror and more thought provoking than it looks and lots of dead children. Superb.

9/10

- Kick Ass

Maybe it was because I was watching this film in the city where the film was mostly shot or more to the point, maybe it was because I was in sitting in the theatre the characters go to (THE FOURTH WALL WAAAAAAAAAA), but I bloody loved this film. From the trailers it looked like a shitty stoner comedy for kids (kids smoke weed these days yeah?), but it's actually an ultra-violent comic book remake with some proper boot arse sequences (see what I did there, yeah?). Unlikely nerd bloke becomes an unconventional superhero and takes on a gang boss with the help of a small girl and Nicolas Cage. Beats McLovin, who isn't very good. But the film was very good. Better than Spiderman 3.

8/10

- Iron Man 2

I was proper looking forward to this one and quite frankly, it fell flat on it's face. Tony Stark is still a cock, but a good character and there's plenty of his tomfoolery and rapes and japes on offer here. Sadly, there's not much Iron Man kick-assery, which is a shame, because it's called Iron Man 2, not "Tony Stark is a cock II". Mickey Rourke was quite good as a hard Russian bastard, but overall too much talking and not enough action. The final boss scene was weaker than this fucking cuppa I made the other day where I put too much milk in by accident, so I drank it in about 30 seconds. Which is approximately how long the shitty bunch of piss scene lasted. Unsatisfying.

6/10

- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Oh, a film in Swedish with English subtitles, how very intelligent and grown up I felt watching this like a proper clever person, it's a shame I didn't have a goblet of brandy or Walkers Sensations or something. Based off a book I hadn't read, I watched this after hearing it was good and depicted graphic sexual violence (alright, that put me off a bit because I'm a big girl) and it delivered. Basically like a big ultra-violent Swedish Morse or Frost or.. Swallow.. very tense and unpredictable, a breath of fresh air to see at the cinema and a refreshing move away from standard Hollywood gay space marine junk. Although they're redoing it for Hollywood. Ruined. 9/10

- Robin Hood

Remember when you watched the Robin Hood Disney cartoon as a kid where he was a fox, or maybe that one with Kevin Costner and you saw him shoot arrows and give money to the povs and shit, yeah well, forget all that. Because in this one, Russell Crowe is basically a bad-accented footsoldier in the army (just back from smacking brown people in the Crusades) fighting against the French or the bad king or some other bollocks. He only really fires one arrow in the entire film. "Yeah, yeah", you say, "it's a prequel, get over it!". Well no, I will not get over it thank you very much! Uninspiring, unfunny, boring, no charm, hated all the characters, gutless. Fuck off Robin. I want Batman.

4/10

- MacGruber

Now this is more like it. Again, based off something I've never seen and again, delivers. I should not watch things more often. Totally silly ridiculous spoof of every action movie ever, with the main character based on MacGyver, who I only know about from The Simpsons, like most American culture. Reminded me a bit of an American Garth Marenghi, and as funny. Plus a hilarious scene in which a load of well known wrestlers die after the film draws you in to thinking they're going to be the main characters. Took me right back to when I was 12. (I later found out apparently people over the age of 12 still like wrestling?! Huhuhuhuh. Where did my Chris Benoit action figure go? Probably got TOY-d rage.. get it.. nah.)

8/10

- The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Films based on games are usually pretty bad - this one wasn't as bad as I thought. So, Donnie Darko runs around Iran and has to save the world from Ben Kingsley etc and some British ostrich guy makes genuinely funny jokes whilst an annoying princess is nasty to him. The action was pretty good, as was Gylylylenhalsl's British accent - not that spectacular, but worked for me. The setting in particular doesn't really grab me by the balls any more because I've seen Aladdin. What this film needed was some big horrible demons, like the games. But I was particularly impressed by the way they shot the bits in a game camera style-e where he's wall running and stuff, that was classy. Bit better than the reviews which said it was shit. Up yours reviews!

6/10

- Get Him To The Greek

A film with Russell Brand and that fat bloke from all the funny films, nah.. that'll be rubbish. Actually, it was pretty good, blimey. Ripped into the celebrity culture, which I am well behind, but also smacks you in the face with some fat disgusting jokes, dildos in mouths and all. Predictable, but it's not setting out to be anything more. I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall after this and it wasn't as good. So well done Russell, you might be an ex-crackhead manwhore victorian bellend old man abuser, but you make alright movies. Jonah Hill had one of his better days and P Diddy was funny (what?!). Congrats.

7/10

- The A-Team

Oh dear. When I was nine, I wanted nothing more to be in the Menston Hotshots A-Team. But I wouldn't want to be in this A-Team remake, because it was rubbish. I wouldn't even want to be on the subs bench. The new Mr T was totally awful, I don't know who told a UFC fighter he could act, because he can't. Leave acting to the professional wrestlers! The action was on and off, some of it was pretty cool, some of it was just plain daft. Like Robin Hood, this film is sort of a prequel, and like Robin Hood, I don't care about the characters when they're not really doing what I imagined they'd be doing. Yeah, it might have been faithful to the TV show, but I never really watched that. And as a standalone action movie, it wasn't that interesting. My mate Cam fell asleep during it. So..

5/10

- Jonah Hex

Well, I didn't really know what to expect from this awful piece of turd. I mean, the trailer looked interesting enough, kind of like a more comic-booky Wild West with John Malkovich as a bad man and lots of guns and fire and stuff. But actually turned out to be one of the most hilariously badly made movies I've seen for a while. Awfully written lines, a main character that gets battered every five minutes and a dream sequence plot point so overused it was almost satirical, this movie was a whole new level of fail. It also lasted about 10 minutes and had the most boring soundtrack I've ever heard. And Malkovich was gash. It did make me go around saying "Welll wellll well, Jonah Hex.." in a bad southern accent for a while though. Which is not a bonus. Deserved to be a total bomb.

3/10

- Toy Story 3

Aww, now this was a lovely film, if it was human, I'd make it soup and call it "darling". The last two films came out when I was a wee lad, so for pure nostalgia reasons, this couldn't really fail in my book. But it did more than not fail, it triumphed over any chinks in my optimistic mindset like a kitten wearing a beanie hat, and delivered on all levels. Funny, heartwarming, all the old characters back with a bang and everything looked great (plus some new ones, I loved the phone on wheels which I had as a kid, sort of like the original Direct Line thing but with a face). I even had a big lump in my throat during the symbolic scene between Andy and the tiny girl. If I have any criticisms, it's that the film felt a bit like Chicken Run - obviously based on the Great Escape and not live action. But eh, I can forgive that. Shuperb.

9/10

- Predators

What do you get when you put a load of people on a planet full of those nasty Predators? What do you think fucking happens? You don't watch this film for story, because basically, there isn't one. It's just an outlet for gory deaths (but it isn't very gory) and cheap screams (but it isn't very scary). That's one of the main problems with this film, the Predators seem to lose their whole sense of scariness and I half expected to see a scene where they're all sitting around eating sandwiches and wanking. There was a few good deaths and some hilarious back-references to the original film, which were both cringeworthy and kind of cool. At the end of the day, better than that borefest Lost, but not as good as the original. I ain't see the other sequels, but.. neither has your mum.

6/10

- Inception

Do you go to the cinema to watch mind-numbing trash or to get your brain smacked around for 3 hours with a metaphorical cricket bat made of thought-provoking, intelligent and complicated metaphorical wood? Well, I like a bit of both. This big boy was of the cricket variety (ahem) and it all fits together like a jigsaw, which helps this shit overcomplicated concept, because that's made of wood as well. Leo puts in another sterling performance in a film about people who go into dreams and change things and err.. it's been a while since I saw it, so you'll just have to watch it. But lots of intense action, a complex but very clever story, great acting, great music and scenery, and a big fat stupid cliffhanger to end on. One of the best films of the year probably. From the same man as the Dark Knight, probably one to watch that lad.

9/10

- Salt

I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous this film was or how many times my eyes widened and my jaw dropped during some of the silliest scenes I've ever seen continually offended my intelligence. It's actually like the writers made it up as as they went a long. Or they were 12 years old. Cliche after cliche after oh-my-fucking-god-is-that-Angelina-Jolie-disguised-as-a-man. I mean yeah, it was entertaining and unpredictable. But so is Russian Roulette. Which is ironic, because this was all Russian and shit. Big lips herself wasn't too bad, but I didn't really care if she was a spy or not and I was just in bewildered most of the time by the insanity, the dreadful insanity. Made 24 look like Coronation Street. Salty.

3/10

And that wraps that up. Maybe I'll write another load of shitty film reviews one day, but since I've been back, my Xbox has wrestled it's way back into my free time (read: all the time, I've been unemployed and skint for the past 6 weeks) and now I have to pay for films! And now I'm starting a new job on Monday, I might never see a film again. That's a lie, I just watched Watchmen. Which was alright. 7/10. There, I did another review, love me. See ya later!

Films are good

So, I've been working at a cinema for four and a half months. Now, I'm no film expert and at home, I don't tend to watch many films; I much prefer melting my mind with comedy series if I'm gonna watch anything on a screen. But what with the free films and the nature of working at a cinema, i.e the endless constant bombardment of the line "Have you seen..." from both guests and co-workers alike, it's hard to ignore them. Nights I would have spent lying in bed watching Family Guy or SHOCK HORROR spending it in the company of real people, turn into "Wanna go see a movie?" or more often "Paul, let's go see a movie...please." The free-ness of it all has also been a godsend when spending 12.50 on a movie would mean you're eating sweetcorn for the next week.

I worked out that I've watched 18 films on the big screen in approximately 18 weeks. Using my powers of mathematics and my B at GCSE maths, I have therefore come to the conclusion that that's one a week. So, to celebrate this seriously non-momentous and utterly pointless event, here's a short review of each one. I've also been watching a helluva lot more films in general, but if I counted them I might as well review every film I've ever seen and that's not the way I roll madam. TAKE IT FROM THE TOP!

- District Nine
Totally brilliant sci-fi action about a load of (mainly) stupid aliens getting stuck in Johannesburg and the explosive struggle between them and humanity (Or lack of it, ooh, biting). The main guy is awesome, turning from comedy buffoon, to oppressor, to whimpering wreck, to badass saviour, to coward and finally to a self-sacrificing hero. Some intelligent messages, always keeps you on edge and horrendously cool. The first film I saw when I got here and still the best. Buy it, rent it, stream it, you fukken prawn! 10/10

- Inglorious Basterds
Ooh, look at me, I'm Quentin Tarantino, I'm all trendy because I spelt the name of the film all wrong and ooh, here's a shot of a woman eating some bread slowly, ooh let's zoom in, ooh. Ooh. Ok, despite the fact Tarantino always does the same ruddy shots or whatever, this film was pretty good. A load of Jewish soldiers basically kill Nazis in France, and the film revolves around a plot to blow a load of high ranking ones up. Another one that keeps you on edge with some pretty extreme twists, Brad Pitt was pretty funny and lots of gratuitous violence never hurt anyone. Badoom-tsh. The Jew Hunter bloke was also a very good acting person. 8/10

- Capitalism: A Love Story
Michael Moore is at it again! The "fat socialist weasel", as Trey Parker and Matt Stone once referred to him as, tells us, the American public... er.. to wake up and smell the coffee (BUT NOT FROM STARBUCKS LOLOLOLOL) in another documentary tracing back the history of capitalism and why everything is bad for people nowadays you get the picture i.e etc forever. Some good stories and case studies, too much black and white illustrative footage and too much of the hideously ugly Mikey on screen, but definitely makes you think. Bowling for Columbine was better. 7/10

- Zombieland
Some guy that looks kind of like Michael Cera and plays an exact replica of a Michael Cera character in a zombie apocalypse, meets that bloke from Cheers and learns to kill zombies in funny ways for our amusement. Best bit by far was the cameo from Bill Murray and the whole situation that surrounds it, I didn't find the rest of it as funny as some of the audience who appeared to be each having an epileptic fit, three heart attacks and a stroke everytime a zombie got smashed in the head. It was just fine. I prefer zombie films that are unintentionally funny. Or Dead Rising on Xbox 360, which it was kind of like, but with better controls (i.e IT HAD NONE COS IT WAS A FILM WHICH IS BETTER THAN THE SHIT ONES THAT RUDDY GAME HAD!) Or Shaun of The Dead. 6/10

- The Damned United
It's kind of bizarre to me that this film was even shown in Toronto; being based around a famous-in-his-own-country English football manager in the North of England in the 70s. I'd read the book and knew plenty about "Cloughie" through various TV documentaries, so to see it come to life on the big screen with a quality actor (Mr Sheen..Michael Sheen) was awesome. The relationship between Clough and Peter Taylor was portrayed as a bizarrely homo-erotic one, but some solid acting made it all very believable. A film your Dad would love if he supported Leeds in the 70s, or hated Leeds in the 70s (which is more likely). 7/10

- The Men Who Stare At Goats
Ok, so I saw the trailer to this and thought: "This looks rubbish." And it totally was. Apparently based on a true story, Obi Wan Kenobi meets George Clooney in the Middle East and they pretend to be able to knock over goats with their minds or some shit. But frankly, nothing happened - pure dullness. For a "comedy", there was a complete lack of jokes and there were more flashbacks than Family Guy, except not even half as funny. The only redeeming feature was the message, but I didn't need to watch a shit film with a shit title to take that in. 4/10

- The Road
Probably the most depressing film I've ever seen, The Road is all about Aragorn and his kid walking a long a FUCKING ROAD YOU SHIT in an apocalyptic America. They don't really meet anyone apart from nasty cannibals but are kept going by the bond between a father and a son. And it worked - a feeling of complete hopelessness runs through the film, but little moments make you well up (inside). I couldn't watch it again though, it was too draining. You could just watch Goof Troop if you wanted non-depressing lessons in parenthood as well, just saying... 7/10

- Pirate Radio
Knockabout British feel-good comedy with, oddly, a different title to the British version. All based around the true story of "Pirate" radio stations in the sea in the 60s who would play RAAAAAWK and roll - my Mum once told me she listened to them - trivial trivia for yo' ass. Some good stars in this, Nick Frost, that idiot manager bloke from Flight of the Choncords... and some ones that get on my nerves - Rhys Efans. But genuinely funny - I thought it'd be too sappy coming from the same guy who bums Hugh Grant, but it balanced good jokes with a story and you even cared about the characters at the end, which is always a bonus. 7/10

- Red Cliff
Big fighty Chinese war epic. Not much else to say apart from that, other than IT WAS AWESOME! Huge fuck-off battle scenes and brilliant depictions of some very clever war tactics which proved war IS cool - in your anus Edwin Starr! Kind of like watching Lord of The Rings without Orcs. I read the Chinese Army "donated" 100,000 troops to be extras, which was nice of them. It was subtitled, which is a shame, I would have preferred a comedy dub!! Not really. 9/10

- 2012
Jesus Christ. Totally over the top apocalyptic cash-in on the whole Mayan calendar gubbins. 2012 just made me laugh in amazement at some of the ridiculous balls that happened. For example, they're in this huge Noah's Ark-like boat near the end, and suddenly there's a Titanic moment, except it's not an iceberg, IT'S RUDDY MOUNT EVEREST! Yeah, the special effects were impressive but.. I couldn't take this seriously at all. Bad acting, bad writing, bad bad bad. Expect this to play on TV a lot in 2012... IF WE'RE STILL ALIVE!!!!1111111 Rubbish. 3/10

- Invictus
Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon playing Francois Pienaar?! Excuse me!? Here we have surprisingly alright South African accents in a sort of biopic about Mandela, but all based around the "Regby Wurld Cap". I dunno, maybe filming all the "regby" scenes in slow motion was meant to mean something Clint, but I didn't get it. There wasn't enough grittiness for my liking, Mandela's struggle didn't come across enough and at the end of the day, maybe it's because I'm not a fan of "regby", but it just bored me. It's probably a crime to dislike this, sorry Nelson. 5/10

- Avatar
Well.. I've watched this film a countless amount of times doing IMAX shifts at work, and in all honesty, I think it does deserve the praise it's got. If you don't know what it's about you're an idiot. Yeah, it's definitely not the best film ever made, but it deserves its stupid high revenues. Sure, the story might be a rip off of Pocohontas and it's hilariously written in parts and blah blah blah, but it's genuinely gripping, you definitely feel for the blue monkeys and the action scenes were top class. The IMAX also makes everything very romantic. Don't slag it off. 9/10

- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Batshit-insane sort of British movie from Terry Gilliam about... I don't know. Totally nutbar. Heath Ledger died during it, probably because HIS RUDDY HEAD CAME OFF! Was that insensitive? I'm gonna say no. Some good performances from people that came in to play his character afterwards and the guy who plays the devil(?). Maybe it comes across as too disjointed and ridiculous for it's own good and becomes pretentious, I'm not sure, I still don't really know what happened during the time it was on screen. Entertaining though. 6/10

- High Life
I watched a Canadian film, and y'know what, it liked it a lot. The title sounds like a subtitle to a friggin' Harold and Kumar movie, but it's much more stylish than that kettle of fish. The story revolves around four blokes addicted to morphine who try and pull off a bank job. And the film works. Funny, clever and just a cool film. Like if you just saw it you'd be like: "Yeah dawg, dat shit was cool". That cool. Some great acting as well. 8/10

- The Book of Eli
Denzel is back as a badass Mad Max type character who walks around (another) post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to deliver his book somewhere. When I saw this at first, I liked it - some top notch action scenes, Denzel and Gary Oldman were good and it was kind of refreshing to see a good old-fashioned cat and mouse chase between a hero and a big nasty boss and his cronies. But later on, I realised just how ridiculous some of the "twists" are and how confused some of the messages from the film seen. Plus Mila Kunis is in no way a badass, I mean.. she's Meg. A mixed bag then. 6/10

- Daybreakers
Take a totally original concept - everyone in the world is a vampire apart from the odd few remaining humans, and the vampires are running out of blood which they need to live or they go all weird - and ruin it with some totally retarded (but funny) over-the-top violence and gore straight out of a old fashioned zombie flick. Ok, maybe ruin is a strong word. Saying it "destroyed the atmosphere" would be a better way of putting it - the film went from being quite stylish to being hilarious. And William Dafoe was gash, as was his "solution", as were the totally shit vampires who hadn't had enough blood - they just looked like Golems with wings. But totally entertaining, a million miles from Twilight (up yours, womankind!), but flawed. 7/10

- Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie does a non-gangster film and he pulls it off, cor blimey guvnor, you slaaaaaag ad nauseam forever. Still, it's set in London of course and casts Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as more kick ass than they were in ye olde books (probably). The whole film was a proper good old fashioned mystery, a mixture between Diagnosis Murder, any James Bond Film and.. well.. Sherlock Holmes.. ahem. Some great characters, action-packed, kept you guessing and not a dodgy cockney accent in site, fuck - well done. 8/10

- Legion
And so to the last.. and probably the worst. I knew this looked bad from the trailer, but like a horrific car crash, I was just too curious.. and I paid in lost brain cells and two hours of my time. So basically God wants to destroy humanity now for some reason, but one angel still has faith, so goes to some old cafe during the apocalypse (ANOTHER! This time biblical..) and protects a bint who has the fetus of the next jesus up in her womb. There's also some other characters who end up there, but most of them die. And that's pretty much it. The demons are totally ridiculous and non-scary, there's so many pointless and unexplainable bits in the movie and it all takes itself so seriously, I can't believe anyone would ever like this ever. They totally gave away the most surprising bits in the trailer as well. IDIOTS. Why the hell do angels have to use machine guns? Why can't they use angel powers?! Awful shit. 2/10

And that's it. Hopefully I'll see another 18 before I go and review them all for you. Unless you found this boring and too long, in which case, go and read your mum. I heard she's a great.. book (get it). Cheers.