Reviews

At the risk of sounding pretentious, this is a genre spanning Lynchian neo-noir take on the high school murder mystery. Joseph Gordon-Levitt casts off his 3rd Rock from the Sun image and fills the role of the anti-hero simply trying to find out the truth perfectly. The high school world the characters inhabit with their dialogue and actions from Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, seems almost alien to the real world and yet close enough to reality to still be familiar and therefore seemingly appropriate. And to top it all off, when the lights go up the whole thing makes complete sense. It's easy to try to seem clever by leaving the audience wondering what just happened and hoping they'll come up with the explanation to your movie that you couldn't manage yourself, it takes talent to take an audience on such a trip and, in the end, show them the map of how they got there.

Damn, did i just sound pretentious?

Very funny film, well written and acted by Craig Ferguson. Chris Langham shows that he is a very underrated and under-used comedy actor, the character he portrays being like a template for Roy Mallard his unseen interviewer in the BBC series 'People Like Us'. Made better in my opinion by the fact that the Indian restaurant that they go to in Glasgow is just around the corner from my flat.

When sitting down to watch this I hoped that what I would see would be impressive and maybe even match some of the WWF's highlights over the last few years (Survivor Series 1998 springs to mind). I was not disappointed. With the exception of the Women's title match and the European title match every fight was better than average match. Particular highlights were:

Kurt Angle v Chris Benoit. An excellent and brave match considering how out of vogue purely technical matches seem to be these days.

Vince McMahon v Shane McMahon. A bit predictable at times but it shows that despite being the son of a multi-millionaire (billionaire?) Shane is a superb athlete and is willing to put his body on the line for the company (see Backlash 2001 for further proof).

T.L.C. II. I thought the original Tables, Ladders and Chairs match was impressive, this one was better, more competitors, more destruction of tables and more destruction of bodies. How the wrestlers manage to do this is beyond me.

Triple H v The Undertaker. Everything about this match was good, from Triple H's entrance to a live performance of his music by Motorhead to the ending with some excellent wrestling in between. Triple H really has proven himself to be the best in the WWF. Not the most popular or the most photogenic, but the best at selling his own moves and selling his opponents moves. He seems to be one of the few wrestlers who will make himself look bad or cowardly to make others look good.

The Rock v Stone Cold Steve Austin. What was looking to be a good match between the WWF's two most popular fighters was taken far beyond expectations with the most unexpected and shocking heel turn for a long time. When The Rock turned heel at Survivor Series 1998 it was surprising, and made that Pay-Per-View the best I had ever seen. Stone Cold's turn was more shocking and pushed this one close to Survivor Series 1998.

What totally confirmed this PPV as the WWF's best ever was the highlights shown immediately afterwards. As 'My Way' by Limp Bizkit played over action from earlier in the night the full extent of how good this event had been was shown. Hopefully somehow this will be improved upon but I have absolutely no idea how.

I'll admit that I went to see this film not particularly expecting to enjoy it. But I was proven wrong. Mostly. Brad Pitt has his usual charm, so that you can't help liking him in it, and he does a good job as the 'Anti-Steve McQueen', making fun of himself and his usual coolness. James Gandolfini, as usual, is excellent making what is essentially a cold-blooded killer into a likeable and sympathetic character (inspired casting as he sends up his character in 'The Sopranos')

The main reason though that I was reluctant to see this movie was the presence of Julia Roberts. There is this certain something that Miss Roberts has that really annoys me. Maybe it's her particularly wide mouth, or maybe it's the fact that she seems to only do movies where she is portrayed as being this almost godlike beauty (see the first 5 minutes of Notting Hill if you don't believe me.) I really fail to see her appeal and, particularly since her character in this movie is meant to be an annoying woman thus making her almost unbearable, find myself avoiding films with her in them. To be fair to her she didn't annoy me in every scene she was in, but when she was acting with Brad Pitt she turned the annoying, full of herself, unreasonable cow switch up to 11. But forgetting about those parts, it is a fairly funny film and has a surprising cameo role at the end. (Don't look on the cast list on imdb if you wanna keep the surprise.)

Very bad film, made worse by claiming to be true but being a bunch of lies. It did bring up at least one question to me. At what point in the 2nd world war did the U.S. capture the enigma machine? I'm no historian but I thought it was the British that did it. Minor point I know, but I feel that this is important in a movie that claims to be true.

I'm sure that in the U.S this film is very popular but one thing about this film really annoys me. Apparently us British people are absolutely useless and stupid, as are apparently, everyone in the world who is not American. Therefore we need good old Uncle Sam to deliver us from any evil that may descend upon us from the skies. We are obviously powerless to fend for ourselves, we need the president himself to save our asses. I know it's only a film, but maybe this is taking it a bit far.

What a film! Disturbing, violent, sickeningly gory. Hannibal is all of these things. Yet it is also (in its way) a love story, and at times very funny. The make up effects, particularly Gary Oldman, were most impressive and the use of Florence for a large amount of the movie was absolutely gorgeous. A very memorable film, and both psychologically and physically disturbing at times and very beautiful at other times. Whether it compares favourably with Silence of the Lambs is a difficult question as the two films are very different, Silence being a lot more psychological than physical. Both films are very good, Anthony Hopkins adding extra dimensions to Dr Lector and Julianne Moore doing a very good job of claiming the role of Clarice Starling for herself. Overall a very unforgettable film that will keep you talking for days.

The best comedian ever, in his last video before his untimely death. Bill shows the world what we are now missing. How this guy is better known here in Britain than in his home country, where he did most of his work still amazes me.

Before seeing this film I decided I would not read any reviews from any sources and make up my mind for myself. I had heard various good things about it and thought the poster made it look quite exciting. I was SO wrong. It is the biggest pile of crap I have seen in a long long time. There are cavernous holes in the plot and the audience are given no chance or reason to sympathise with the main characters. I'm not even sure it deserves 1 out of 10 let alone the 10 out of 10 that some (probable scientologists) have given it. Its only redeeming factor is John Travolta's ocassional forays into decent acting during the film. Not that there is many of them. It's just a really bad film.

A really funny short film, though not as funny as the best Blackadder episodes. This though is not too much of a bad thing as at its best Blackadder was one of the funniest programmes ever written. Still it is better than most of the comedies written nowadays, so no complaints.

One of the scariest most unsettling movies I have seen in a long time. I came out of the cinema feeling a distinct fear of crossing the road, going on public transport or anything else which might prove deadly. But still very impressed with the film.

An amazing film, tremendous performances from all concerned. The brutal fight scenes are outstandingly choreographed from the early battle to the climactic gladiatorial combat. What a fitting film for the end of Oliver Reed's career.