Reviews

The first thing that struck me about this film is the colour pallet and the styling of the surroundings. Its very dark with most of the film being set at night and even in the day the bleak Scandinavian snow almost looks darker than it should. This adds to the feeling of isolation you get from the protagonists life. Oskar is a young boy with few friends and not much to help him at home. His parents are split and though they are friendly they seem preoccupied and do little to help Oskar with his bullying problem. The first few scenes really set the tone for the movie as we watch Oskar stabbing a tree with a large knife, miming what he would like to do to his bullies. Soon into the film we see the second main character walk into Oskars life, Eli. She arrives in a taxi with an older man and they both move in next door. She talks to Oskar one night while he is out pretending to stab his bully and says they cannot be friends but soon enough they start up a friendship. The two leads do a fantastic job of portraying two young, shy friends getting to know each other and when it becomes more supernatural you can see that they have really thought about there roles and show skill in portraying what feels like realistic reactions to their situation. The other actors also do well as they add to the gritty feel of the town whilst also giving a larger feel of isolation to the children as they go about there "important" lives. The amazing thing to note about this film though is the perfect mixing of two separate stories. On the one hand you can say it is a Gothic, gory horror with some good set pieces and some scary scenes and on the other it is a love/friendship story between two 12 year olds. It seems like a hard job but you really do get the two distinct sides of the story done very well. There is no let up on the horror and yet they somehow have moments of genuine affection seen between the characters which really get to you. There's not much you can say against the film and the feel of the film is what astounded me the most. You somehow find a way to connect with these two characters, pushing past the supernatural to the real heart of the story which is the finding of some love in an cold, isolated town. There is one thing i'd like to mention about this point though. There is a part of me which thinks whether this vampire stuff is all part of this boys imagination. You can see that he has an obsession with crime and then all of a sudden this girl turns up and kills these men gruesomely and helps him with his bullies. I'm unsure about whether I'm right or not but you can understand him adding this little bit of the supernatural to escape his reality.

I remember thinking when I first starting writing this review "I hope I spelt that right. Actually I don't care it was rubbish" Its like someone had an idea and just thought that was enough. It trys to be slick but just isn't.

Im going to start with the biggest problem. WHY WHY WHY did they cast Bruce Willis. Miscast. He doesn't make sense in that role. That character doesn't even do anything remotely important to the story and at the end (**SPOILER**) he writes a book which is a bestseller and wins the Pulitzer prize.(**SPOILER end**) I cant see how anything he could of wrote (they tell you ZILCH) and I cant see what it could have been about. So basically the storyline that involves Bruce Willis is mainly useless.

Tom Hanks is also a bit rubbish. But Morgan Freeman is good, did well in a poor film.

The story seems to be neither comedy nor drama but does try to show message but thats all. Genre less.

The last film I gave this rating (transformers 3) I didn't review due to what I call the WHAT DID YOU EXPECT policy. Rubbish acting stupidly cheesy and no plot oh but the billion dollar "action" scenes were decent 3/10

To start off I would like to mention this in terms of the first two films in the Alien series. This film is a game changer, it still has horror elements of the first but explores so much more than the originals, with the first two basically exploring only the mother-child relationship. It discusses similar concepts to Blade Runner with the idea of what makes us human, beautifully played out in a scene between David(Micheal Fassbender) and Charlie(Logan Marshall-Green) over a pool table. It also sticks it's foot into the fear of death, the idea of meeting our creators and also looking at how faith can be defined.

I think Michael Fassbender is an absolute genius. His performance as a robot with the ability to understand human emotions while not actually having them is superb. You can see that each scene is meticulously thought out, with his character being so very close to being a human but not quite. This is exactly where his character should be and in some parts you start to wonder if the makers of David-8 gave him too much curiosity and whether he has actually gained independent thought. This then raises questions in your mind as to whether we as humans really are that special and you're stuck in this perfect creation of thought made by the David 8 character. Even forgetting the one I have already mentioned there are so many scenes I could pick out, but i'll force myself to just have two. The first being where David discusses what he would do if he were set free when talking to Shaw (Noomi Rapace), and the second is not even in the film. The promo for the introduction of the David-8 model is the shortest film I have ever seen that is worthy of an Oscar nod. Fassbender crying and at the same time explaining how he can not feel emotion is amazing. If he doesn't win an Oscar for his acting in this film (whether it be lead or supporting is up to Ridley Scott), then we need to seriously give the Oscar voters a re-shuffle as they have to understand that sci-fi should be respected genre.

Also on the subject of Oscars this should have one for Cinematography. I don't think I know anything that looked as good as this, I mean actually stunning shots that when you look at them you just marvel in there creativity and detail. From the surface of the planet, to the amazing sets below the surface and then there's the interior of the ship which looks immaculate and beautifully futuristic. In the original two the feel of the films were always tight, cagey making you feel trapped, the fact that this moves to a larger, more grand scale and still manages to create fear is impressive. The visuals used in creating different characters is also brilliant, with perfect design and some interesting ideas working together to make the best looking film I have ever seen.

I would say there are two scenes that are memorable for this film in terms of reminding me of the shock of the original chestburster, not in the same way but new creative ideas. Obviously I can't mention them but there's one towards the end which is part-fight scene and the better one comes around 2/3 the way through and I would love to tell you how amazing it is and how it makes you feel so claustrophobic, but I know that would ruin it for you so i'll just imagine it in my head. The 3-D is pointless and I don't know why Ridley Scott wanted it that way but I suppose for once the 3-D doesn't actually ruin it which is the best 3-D will ever do for me.

On the negative side there are two or three issues with side characters not really being developed. I felt that Meredith Vickers(Charlize Theron) character was not developed enough and I felt another 10 minutes worth of scenes would of helped to awaken her character more, though she still proved to be interesting. Also the rest of the supporting cast could of done with a bit more time on there characters but I must say that this does not mean any of them acted poorly, they just didn't have the options available. Guy Pearce's character had many scenes cut from the movie apparently, which I again would of liked to see more of not only to advance his character but the depth of meaning behind the film as well. Also I would like to say that while the film trys more it is not as good as the first two on the characters or feel. The fear created in the first and thrill created in the second is here but not quite to that standard. On a another small but bad note I would like to mention a ridiculous scene towards the end… But I can't, you'll see it anyway you can't miss it, just think doughnut.

To round this off i'm going to mention why I think a few people don't like the film and why I think it is personally the best film of the Alien franchise. The real problem I think people have, but don't mention, is to do with the ending of the film. It ends openly and while this may annoy people a lot, it is what absolutely necessary. The film cannot answer all the question's it poses because whatever answers it gives would not be grand or anywhere near true enough to give the question any credit. This film is made to make you think, not to answer the questions but to put those thought's in your mind. This is why I believe this film to be better than both Alien(8) and Aliens(8) as it actually explores something fundamental to us all, that quest for the answer to "the" question.

This film is a black comedy starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, written by Paul Zimmerman and directed by Martin Scorsese.

It's about a Rupert Pupkin(De Niro) who obsesses with becoming a comedy great and collects autographs at the back door of famous talk show host Jerry Langford(Jerry Lewis). He helps out the host by stopping a mob from overrunning him and then pesters him to let him on his show but he only gets the run around for a few days after being told to phone his assistant. He does not give up and keeps stalking him but eventually the host gets annoyed and stops humouring him. After this the comedian hatches a plan with a female stalker, whose obsessed with the host, so that she can have sex with him and he can finally perform his stand-up routine.

The film shifts between bleak reality as Rupert lives in his mothers basement practising in front of a wall of painted audience members and pretending to talk Jerry and a guest,both cut outs on a set of his show. In his imagination he sees himself as a entertainment great being told how much of genius he is by the talk show host and being married to his love interest by his ex-elementary school headmaster turned vicar, who tells him how sorry he and everyone at the school is for not realising his greatness, on the Jerry Langford show. These scenes are sometimes difficult to spot as reality blends with his imagination, especially the last scenes and leaves you occasionally not knowing if what your watching is real. These really show how mentally unstable he is and how his early life effected him and left him scarred me with an extreme sense of unease as you progress through De Niro character.

The film is painful in places as you see the lives of these lonely, angry people who are obsessed with fame and glamour and while they hunt pitifully for it they seem to become more and more cut to pieces while they always manage to bring themselves back to together, in a sense a more broken person but still functioning. The film starts by making you feel sorry for the character as you feel he is only trying to get his foot on the ladder in a difficult business but quickly turns to show a more scarily childlike obsession with fame. The film has no real link to any other films as it never gives an uplifting note, bar one which you are not even sure is uplifting, so it is quite depressing as you see these people strive towards the inevitable cliff edge while ignoring everyone else so to focus on there personal gain.

As a film it is very different and left me feeling like I had taken something in. I'm unsure what and I don't think its a life lesson but just it seems to have hit me in some way seeing the characters madness with no one to help them, no one wanting to help them or even noticing them. De Niro is powerful in the role as the oblivious Rupert moving closer to the edge of sanity, while the stalker played by Sandra Bernhard is creepy, I think more praise is due for the non actor Lewis as his increasingly frustrated and pestered talk show host which was apparently caused by a method acting De Niro using anti-Semitic remarks to anger Lewis while filming .

The film looks alright and has a few songs in it but I feel that most of the effort was put into the lines and feel for the characters for greater effect. It feels a little rushed towards the end and while certainly not being perfectly made gives you a powerful punch to the face over fame and the power of entertainment.

I enjoyed the film greatly, also feeling that while the term black comedy is given to this the comedy in it can be viewed two ways and the film is more of a drama or thriller though even these terms fail to explain its quality in its unusual exploration of the human mind.

8/10

This film had 8.5 rating on IMDb last year (which ranks it just outside the top 100 films of all time) I'm disappointed it's dropped to a 7.9 and hope it will be seen in time as a great film. When this was first arriving on our screens it had an amazing action packed trailer and I thought this would be a good film too watch.

The phrase that comes to mind is more style than substance, usually this is a bad term for a film but in this case the style is so powerful this film pulses through you. For instance a fight scene towards the end is filmed just looking at the shadows of the two men, this is evident of the effort of the makers to make this more than a film. Honestly every shot is brilliant with fantastic use of light and each scene drips with gorgeous cinematography and the score is the best I've heard this year. Also the tension developed in these magnificently portrayed scenes is very good and keeps you on edge and makes you feel the characters as there looking out at you.

The story is not bad though and holds the film well to stop it from curving too far into an art form. The writer has put a few smart lines in it as well to keep things fresh.

I must say though my mother would not like this film as it has several overly violent scenes which I originally dismissed as being pointlessly too gory but actually there quite stylish in a "kill bill" sort of way.

Overall with a small budget and some not bad acting added to some amazing cinematography, my words cannot describe, they have made a fantastic film.

This film had been on my to-watch list for some time now and I had decided to (more ended up) watching it. I was expecting a lot considering its 8.8/10 rating on IMDb.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy it. Im going to agree with Roger Ebert on this film and say it was trying to be like Seven or Usual Suspects with its dramatic twist, which I unfortunately guessed half way through (it wasn't hard) which took some of the film away from me.

Also it had this feel to it like a poor mans film. A film for thick people. I can see massive jock idiots coming from that film saying "I LOVED THE BIT WHERE HE HIT HIM WITH HIS FIST DURRRRRR" "OH YER MAN AND THE TWIST DUDE, WE ARE SO INTULEKTUCAL WATCHING THAT FILM" (not to say if you like this film your an idiot) The violence is almost pornographic like the saw films are with the horror and the "meaning" of the film seems to be violence will help solve the world.

Though it has its bad points it has some good. the acting isn't bad and some of the cinematography is excellent, especially in the first half.

Also the first part of the film with the narrative and the flip in order of the storyline is good. All in all the start is great but a faltering end and the overall feel of the film is not good. 5/10

I don't need to do much explanation of what this film is about as it's in the title. To make that huge title larger and fill in all the of the film's exploits it would go something like this: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford… and the preceding build-up of a few robberies, James relationship with his fellow robbers (especially Ford) and a slight look into the aftermath". I'm not sure if this was a considered title, though I should add that there is a 4 hour version of this film with which Mr Pitt won the Venice Film Festival's best lead for, so perhaps it was an idea.

2007. Starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. Directed by Andrew Dominik.

I'm sure this film wouldn't be half as good as it was if it wasn't for one man: Casey Affleck. He received an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor and he steals the show from right under Brad Pitt's feet. He lost out to Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, which I will begrudgingly say is fair as it was top notch, but in my awards it goes down as Affleck in my awards. I'll start by saying that while he tops the list it is not to say that everyone else is poor. All the cast are on top form here including Sam Rockwell. I'd say Brad Pitt does a fantastic job portraying James' paranoia, outlandishness and pure cool grit. But Affleck is just too good here; every single one of his scenes is played perfectly. Every aspect of Ford's character is played out stunningly: his admiration of James, his slyness, his boyish tendencies while trying to look like James. The message is just thrown out of the screen at you that this is a boy in a man's body looking for a name for himself. The last few scenes do not allow for much acting to be done by Affleck in terms of screen time but his change of character is outstanding. He completely removes that boyish dreamer and replaces it with a man filled with deep regret and hatred.

The other Oscar nomination was for Best Achievement in Cinematography. Put simply it looks good. Even from the poster you can see that the setup is great. Its outdoor shots are very panoramic with the great sweeping Wild West backdrop all trod along by horseback with Pitt swanning around looking cool as can be. The film proceeds over a large time scale and goes through the seasons, each looking remarkable when caught on camera, with my favourite being the snowy mountain background as Pitt's character becomes more paranoid and restless. It lost that Oscar to one of my favourite films "There Will Be Blood"

Now I have to say for all these good points there are quite a few bad that weigh it down a fair bit. The first thing that frustrated me a lot was the dialogue. The language in the film was obviously going to be a difficult issue with it being set in the late 1800's, but not this much. A lot of the lines seem to not be vocalised well (I watched a DVD version) and some of the language was just gibberish to me, so every now and then I lost the plot and had to go back and use subtitles.

This is not my biggest annoyance with this though. That comes down to a rather simple thing used 2 or 3 times in the film. Right at the start a narrator speaks a bit about the previous goings on of James and his gang. I don't mind this as the film is already quite long and can understand why producers feel the need to trim. The issue comes when the narrator starts to describe a few of Fords ideas and feelings. Only for a few seconds or perhaps a minute at a time but this still infuriates me. The idea of a film, and why a film can work better than a book, is that you see a characters emotions there in front of, you see what it feels and you can connect with the character while putting yourself in its place. This use of a narrator seems lazy to me, as the writer of the film cannot find a situation for the actor to express himself he/she just sticks in a bit of dialogue and Affleck looking sad. If you can't find a scene just have the character do a monologue or express his feelings to another character in a big chunk.

The only way a film can be any good at all is with some underlying depth or an idea or concept that the viewer must understand and take a meaning from; I enjoyed Prometheus because of how it makes us think about ourselves in terms of our real nature and what shows us to be human. This is what makes or kills a film for me and this film, while not having a real depth, has a good idea in it. "How can a man kill his hero". That is what this film is mainly all about. It gives you Ford's world and shows his life. It puts you in his shoes and shows you how a man goes from idolisation of a man-myth, to realising the only way to be him is to kill him and fall finally into a pit of regret over youthful stupidity.

This is basically a film version of an 80's TV series that kick started Johnny Depp's career. It's about two rubbish cops (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) going into a police program to pretend to be in high school so to infiltrate a drugs ring that's killed a kid in the school.

NOW STOP, no not hammertime but don't worry. I know that sounds like a very rubbish stupid comedy film but very early on makes you realise it knows its stupid when the guy in charge of the operation explains something about the program to the two cops, I quote "…a revived undercover program from the '80s, revamped for modern times; the people who make these things up are old and out of ideas, so they try updating (stuff) like this and hope we don't notice". See now that line shows you that it realises its no top notch film and that it is just in it for the ride with a few laughs.

First and foremost yes it is funny, which is a relief as about 3/4 of films that label themselves "comedy" really just arn't. It has some pretty silly gags sometimes but these are outweighed by the tonnes of good jokes and are really insignificant in comparison to 1 or 2 of the fantastic lines in the film. The film isn't too plot heavy which is good as it adds realism to the pair and allows them to branch out to allow some story with the side characters, which stops too many sight gags and fart jokes being used as filler.

Looking at Channing Tatum's IMDb page (I don't think I've seen many of his films) he seems to be in mainly rom-coms and what are essentially girly movies. In this though he is really quite good, he doesn't overplay his character which may be due to him coming from a more straight up film background. The way he delivers his lines isn't cheesy and he gives his character a realistic portrayal while still being hilarious at times. Jonah Hill is Jonah Hill which doesn't need any more on it and the side characters and pretty funny with a good cameo right at the end.

It has that problem all Hollywood comedy's have of having a sad bit 3/4 the way through the film, which by the way one of my favourite comedies - pineapple express - does not, but I can't really bring it down too much for as it's probably forced to include it by the company behind the film. It's also a touch long but neither of these things take away from what is a good self-mickey-taking comedy film.

7/10. Good laughs from some of the leaders of the current generation of comedy

Before I begin let me say I enjoyed the first film (6/10), I thought the action was pretty decent, the plot was wobbly of course, the acting was bad, but unlike most I liked the use of 3D in the film and thought it added something to it unlike most of the other 3D rubbish that year.

This film really did what I expected it do though. The scriptwriters/100,000 monkeys with typewriters obviously used all there decent(if that) ideas in the first and now the sequel kinda feels like its outta ideas. I'll try not to spoil the plot here for you, though it is irrelevant to the course of the film, but there's a part where all the power gets sucked out of Zeus REAALLY SLOWLY so to allow Perseus to have time to beat up all the rubbish demons and traverse his way through the deadly labyrinth (which takes up about 5 minutes of screen time cause the writers can't really think of any ideas other than "oh there trapped again for a bit") so it's kinda like they can't come up with a decent way to thicken the plot.

The main actor (Sam Worthington) annoys me a lot in this film as he can't even be bothered to get rid of his Australian accent for the film, which really kinda shows how much effort he actually put into it. Another thing is that there's about 3 characters in the film which are just there to thin things out, literally there's one guy who Perseus has to spend 10 minutes of screen time to get to it and then take him some where else. In the end this makes the film boring, that's the main difference between this and the last because of the three things I have just mentioned you just end up bored by the end because there was so much filler.

Not to be to much of a stab in the gut to the this film the three British actors (Neeson, Fiennes, Nighy) add something to the film in terms of screen presence or comedy and the action scenes are pretty decent with some OK use of 3D (NOT enough to make the film worth watching in 3D may I add). Also the massive fight off at the end was pretty damn good, though look out for the final battle as my friend Adam did notice that it has a similar feel to a gaviscon advert

4/10. Some decent shots, not nearly enough to make up for a bad film though

Now there's been very little talk about this film. Well, there has been lots of talk about it but it all goes something like this "um, um, well" and then they eventually say that its a horror movie and someone shouts at them saying that that's incorrect. It's written by the guy who made Cloverfield, which some people liked and said was revolutionary but I'm not a fan of. Also, this film was actually finished in 2009 and was not released up until now due to MGM going bankrupt, which make's it interesting as its actually a quite young (pre Thor) Chris Hemsworth playing a role in it. It's a difficult review to do because I don't want to reveal too much about the film which could end up spoiling it for people.

Here's the IMDb description: "Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods." OK, so simplistic horror movie with 5 characters who are obviously the stereotypical teen quintuplet going to a place where some bad stuff is obviously going to go down.

That description is really useless. This film is… interesting. All I can say is that it's not what its set up to look like in the posters or the trailer. On the subject of the trailer, some say it ruins the film and while I do think a few scenes maybe shouldn't be in the trailer, it does add intrigue. It is however one of the most well thought out, entertaining and different films I've seen in a while. It is honestly beyond a genre. It is nothing like any kind of film out right now and while it bears some resemblance to maybe one or two horror films in the past, these two films (i'm not naming them) were also unique to their time.

The performances in the film are unimportant, though I guess they all seemed to do OK. Chris Hemsworth did his bit but I did really think that Fran Kranz (ridiculous name) who played Marty was really excellent in the way he portrayed his character which wasn't just because that character was written so well. Some of the shots in the film are worth noting and about 3/4 the way through there's some great scenes which unfortunately I can't go into too much detail about, but lets just say it makes you keep your eyes wide open.

I don't think there is much more I can add to this review and it's annoying because there is so much to talk about. It is a blow to the horror genre's gut and I'm interested to see if Drew Goddard continues to try different things and experiment with "Horror" as a genre

8/10. A fresh, entertaining thrill ride of a film.

Citizen Kane has been labelled as one of the greatest movies ever made. The story of a newspaper tycoons life and how a reporter try's to find the meaning of his last word. Directed and starring Orson Welles.

It pains me to say it but I found this film disappointing. I tried to go through my mind after the film searching for why I didn't enjoy it and I considered that maybe it was because of the age of the film, but then I remembered that there were many films from this era that I loved so that didn't stick. The only thing I could say is that maybe it was because it was literally the first big film after the new era of sound and at its time was considered groundbreaking while now it seems tepid. Even this reason doesn't really feel right with me and honestly I think it's down to the following reasons why I truly found this film a let down.

The biggest hit to this film for me is the acting, it mentions at the credits that this film gave a first break for some of the actors and it really does show. Firstly though Welles acts his role perfectly as the love starved Kane, perfectly finding his electricity and his need for people to love him. Other than Cotton (perhaps the lead female deserves credit) I found the supporting cast poor in general but this is really to be expected as looking back to most pre 1960 film there are not normally more than two good actors in a film. This does not sound like much of bad point but I coming to why the acting in this film ruins it for me. There is one pivotal scene in the movie, the scene where the child is taken away towards the start. This scene was supposed to show the child's carefree nature and then how this is ripped from him by the corporation coming in and removing him from his family. The scene annoys me, the child actor does not portray the feeling of this emotion correctly and you watch feeling like it could of been done so much better and without this scene being done properly the metaphor for the film is lost. Now you may say this is harsh on the child actor but the people who made this film should have seen this and either re-shot with a different actor or thought of a different idea on how to work the loss felt by the child into the film.

My second criticism of the film is partly to do with the way it is filmed, splicing different segments of his life story in different order due to them being told by different people. While I must firstly say this sort of thing in 1941 is groundbreaking and perhaps the fact that they even attempted it shows my following to be a moot point, but I still wouldn't expect this from the "Greatest Film Ever Made". Because of this way of film making the scenes with Kane himself are short and sharp, showing change in character very quickly, see scene with his first wife having dinner, this doesn't allow a true character arc. With more time spent in each scene perhaps a feel for the character or an understanding of why he changes could be seen. Also I would of preferred the film to have been perhaps 30 minutes longer to allow for more of Kane's character to be seen with perhaps some delving into his childhood or more of why he no longer ran the paper.

I would like to make clear that while I did not completely love this film it must be seen as a groundbreaking film for its time and at the time, the best film ever made. It's use of camera angles and focus is far beyond anything seen in that age with some absolutely amazing cinematography. Two scenes stick out for me, but it must be said that there are many scenes throughout the film which look fantastic. Firstly where Kane is finishing Leland's review of his wife's performance and Leland slowly walks towards him from the distance showing Kane's madness and Leland trepidation of approaching him in one perfect shot. Secondly a scene where Kane signs away his newspaper shows Kane becoming smaller as he walks towards the window and then underneath it. It shows to our perception that the window is bigger than we think and that Kane himself has shrunk in stature.

Lastly I would just like to add that after reading the film I read several posts on this films wall wondering why more was not said about Charlie's son. The people on the boards point to it as a flaw in the film while I claim it to be probably it's biggest success. The lack of attention to the child by Kane and the film overall(more so as a metaphor in terms of the film) is down to Kane's own loss of childhood. Being taken from his family and forced to grow too quickly causes Charles Kane to becoming a wreck, a man who will do anything to be loved. He buys possessions and creates a temple, he tries so hard to help the working man by promising to remove corruption and bring truth, he does anything for his wives but in the end does not listen to them thinking only selfishly. All of these thing's he does for love and attention but in the end the loss of his family and childhood leaves a gaping hole in a young Charlie and though he tries to fill this void he cannot, showing the true meaning of this film, and of of "rosebud", money cannot buy you happiness. 7/10