Reviews

Although it isn't magic he uses, not unless you count a count as a wand. He is a hit-man, working in Melbourne, and this documentary style film recounts a few of his jobs. The condition imposed on film-maker Max is that he won't release the film until after Ray's death.

It is a strange film, but very enjoyable. The style is used to allow Max to question Ray about his actions. To have an outsider looking in wondering can Ray tone down the violence, or how much would he want in order to eat his own excrement. Did I forget to mention this is a comedy? The focus of the film is all on Ray. The rest of the characters are just their to provide him with something to interact with. And Max, the cameraman is never shown un-pixelated on screen, to protect his identity from the police no doubt. And Scott Ryan gives an excellent performance as the almost charming hit-man. His sense of timing is perfect and his delivery of the lines is spot-on. Of course he did write and direct it, so he should know everything about this character, but it is still a wonderful role.

It is almost a buddy road movie, with Ray, Max and a possible target traveling across Australia to locate some money. There is a great discussion about Wayne Carey and whether sleeping with your vice-captain's wife could ever be regarded as merely a mistake. Probably more likely to turn out to be a cult hit than a blockbuster, if you get the chance you should try to catch this film.

This traces a few days in the life of the teenage gang leader Tsotsi. When we first meet him, he and his friends are playing dice, deciding what to do that evening. And what they do is murder a man, stealing his wallet and leaving him behind on the train. One of the gang, Boston, isn't too happy with this. He begins to drink and to talk about how they lack decency. He tries to provoke Tsotsi into revealing some sort of feeling, asking him about his real name. Tsotsi means thug, it isn't the name his mother gave him. That doesn't work, so Boston asks has any woman hurt him. Still no reaction. Not even a dog, he pleads in exasperation, and his provocation bears fruit, as Tsotsi punches and kicks Boston in a brutal attack before running off into the night.

As he runs we get a flashback of a young boy, a young Tsotsi fleeing through the night. And throughout the rest of the film Tsotsi's childhood memories are intercut with the current happenings and violence. To say anymore about the plot would be to spoil some moments of the film.

There is a wonderful mixture of stillness, silence, and energy to this film. At times the camera lingers on faces, watching for a flicker of emotion. Other scenes are full of action and movement.

This is a film that does say that poverty is a driving force behind crime, but that is never allowed to become an excuse. There are other characters who are just as poor but do not react in the same way. It also never glamourises the violence, and while redemption may be at the heart of the film it never goes over the top in offering a happy ending.

This is actually one of those films you hope may have a Hollywood ending, where they can all live happily ever after, even though you know that that would render the rest of the film almost pointless.

After Emily Callaway's mother commits suicide her father decide to take her away to a house in the woods to help her get over the trauma. But Emily seems to be getting worse. She starts talking to a new friend, Charlie, and he seems to be a bad influence. Her father David, a psychologist tries to use this imaginary friend to help Emily work through her issues. While the audience is left to wonder is Charlie really imaginary? Is he a ghost or the neighbour's dead child? And why are the locals acting a little strange? And the trouble keeps on coming as mysterious messages, some a little gruesome, get left in the bathroom, often with a message scrawled in red for David to read.

The first hour or so of this film is decent enough. Dakota Fanning is great as the kid, you have no real problem in believing that she could be evil, or seeing ghosts or whatever, but by the end of the film you just don't really care. The resolution is dull, and the final scene pointless.

Since his slew of so-called comedic roles where he pokes fun at his previous characters I've found it a little difficult to take De Niro seriously, but he does a fine job as the worried Dad here.

All in all this is a mediocre film, dragged down by the ending.

I've been vaguely wanting to see this film for a while now, but until last night I kept putting if off. Glad I'm finally went, because this is one of 2005's best films.

It all starts off with Harry, our narrator, who at first you might think is a tad too po-mo and self-knowing, but he is so well written, and his lines delivered so well by Robert Downey Jr that you are never in danger of distancing yourself from the action, and the humour.

Getting disturbed in the middle of robbing a toy store leads to Harry pretending to be an actor and getting flown to LA for a screen test. There he meets up with Val Kilmer's Gay Perry character, a P.I., who has been hired to show him the ropes as the character Harry is to play is a detective. But an "every-day" surveillance goes wrong and we end up with dead bodies, severed fingers, guns, suicide and random violence.

Harry is the stranger, introducing us all to the world of LA as he bumbles his way through, always cute and good intentioned, although not always with good results.

A comedy film-noir detective post-modern film with great dialogue, you'll love it. And if you don't you should.

I really enjoyed this film, possibly because I'd read so many bad reports and people giving out about it. Okay, so it wasn't perfect, but it was more than entertaining. Ledger and Damon were good in their roles as brothers out to con their way through life. Maybe the Italian torture fella was a little over done, but I was in that sort of a mood and found him funny.

I loved the way the film opened in French occupied Germany, we don't see that very often. Nor do we usually hear German peasants speaking with Northern English accents, but, weirdly enough, it works. Set in Napoleonic times the film contrasts the practical, sensible French with the romantic, gullible Germans. Will and Jacob have been pretending to fight magic and witchcraft across Germany, getting well paid for it, until the French catch them and send them off to capture whomever is playing their trick and stealing little girls.

As you may be able to guess, the person stealing the children is not a conman, and and Grimms have real magic to deal with.

Visually, I adored this film. The scene of the child sliding down the horse's throat. Genius. The forest is very creepy, and fits the dark humoured atmosphere of the film.

The first feature length outing for Wallace and Gromit sees them in the vegetable-protection industry. As AntiPesto they specialise in keeping the village's prized vegetables safe from the ever hungry mouths of rabbits. In a humane manner. The Annual Giant Vegetable Show is only a few days away when the Were-Rabbit makes an appearance. Destruction of many much-loved vegetables occurs, and AntiPesto also have to deal with Victor Quartermaine who believes that the gun would be much more useful in dealing with the problem than any of Wallace's methods.

Through in a bit of a love story, not to mention a weight loss problem, and you've got the essence of this film's plot. And anyone who hasn't seen any of Park's previous work may be surprised at exactly how much plasticine can convey.

This is a really enjoyable film. There is plenty of humour to keep you smiling, and at only 85 mins even the younger children should be able to sit through it without too much trouble.

There are plenty of allusions to other films, especially were-wolf ones. And we've get our first homage to King Kong though I'm guessing that Jackson's one will be slightly longer.

There is also a short before the main feature, starring the penguins from Madagascar. I didn't hugely enjoy that film, but the penguins were great, and here they are just as funny.

Poor old Victor just can't get his through his wedding rehearsal, can't remember his lines, bumps into things, sets the bride's mother on fire. It is all enough to send anyone running for the woods. But Victor has fallen in love with his arranged bride-to-be and sets about practicing those vows. Only problem is that, in doing so, he manages to marry a dead woman; the Corpse Bride. And she has waited long enough for a husband, and so does not intend to let this one get away.

I really enjoyed this film. Visually it really is stunning. The stop-motion figures look fantastic, the bride in particular. The songs I wasn't overly impressed with, but they did the job. What I did love was the Victorian attitude of Mrs (Lady?) Everglot, with her constant disapproval of her daughter and her impropriety. You know, like being able to talk without gasping as she isn't wearing a corset.

The story is based on a Russian folktale, which in turn was based on anti-Semitic practice of waylaying Jewish wedding parties and murdering the bride.

I always meant to see Spirited Away, but never got around to it, so I'm glad I got a chance to see this film, by the same director, in the cinema. Based on the book of the same title by Dianna Wynne Jones, ,cite>Howl's Moving Castle is an anime cartoon telling the story of Sophie, a young hat-maker who is cursed by the Witch of the Waste and turned into a ninety year old woman. The only way for her to break the curse is to help Howl and his fire demon Calcifer break the curse that they are suffering under.

This film was wonderful. I'm not a huge fan of this style of animation, it is too similar too Pokemon, but it is really well done here. The strong point, for me, being the backgrounds, ships, planes etc, but not the characters.

We never really know all that much about the war of the background, apart from the fact that it has something to do with a missing prince. But I prefer stories that don't feel the need to explain every single thing to you. This is very much worth watching, and although this is a dubbed version I never got the feeling that the voices were out of place.

I haven't read the novel, so I can't comment on the translation from book to film, but I have read some by Wynne Jones and they are very readable.

Football has never really had a good film made about it, not that I've seen anyway. I mean most people enjoy that Christmas favourite Escape to Victory, but despite having Pele, the football isn't really that good. Is Green Street any better? Football-wise, I'd have to say yes. But this film isn't really about football at all. It is about the West Ham firm, the GSE (Green Street Elite), and football fans' violence and how this all appears to an outsider.

That outsider is Matt, who we meet as he is being expelled from Harvard, of course for something he didn't do. Uncertain now of his future, he was studying journalism, he decides to go stay with his sister living in England. But when he arrives his brother-in-law(Steve) has a romantic night out planned, so Matt ends up heading down the pub with Steve's younger brother, and then out to a football match. And so he is introduced to the world of football, or soccer as he calls it. Pretty quickly he is swept away and becomes one of the lads, fighting along side them as they meet up with other footballing firms.

So expect plenty of violence and fighting.

But Pete Dunham and the GSE aren't really bad guys, at least not in this film. Pete is a teacher. He is a gentleman, giving up his seat to a woman on the tube. Isn't that nice of him.

Overall the film itself seems to have been swayed by the violence. We do get a bit of a message that violence creates problems and leaves lives wrecked, but in the end, certain violence is endorsed as proper and correct. Throughout the film as Matt grows more and more into a fighter he is portrayed as growing in confidence, and in appeal as we see him giving his number to girls.

Using innocent-faced Wood as Matt was a good choice. The rest of the cast also give good performances. Marc Warren I will be looking out for again, although hopefully he'll lose the overdone cockney slang and Mary Poppins-esquire accent (no, it wasn't that bad).

But all in all the film is quite predictable, and nothing to write home about. It also takes the side of the GSE, and so lessons their violence, turning their actions into more of an acceptable form of violence as it is only against other firms, and not the general public.

Sometimes directors really make you think, make you stop and consider their work, make you want to never ever see anything in the cinema ever again because they have killed any desire you might have felt for moving pictures. Wright has almost managed to do this.

I mean, how does one go about transforming Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a book full of wit and humour, into something so dreadfully boring? And I can't blame the dialogue, because a lot of it was lifted directly from the book. And I can't blame the actors because I've seen them do so much better in other works, and there is one scene in this film that hints at how good this film could have been. Who is left to blame? Well, the director who instead of giving us a romantic comedy instead decided to show off his camera skills.

Ohh, look at the countryside. See the strange camera angle. And what was with the porcine fetish? Did I really need to get that close to a pig's testicles? The one good thing about this film, it was so terrible I was actually in fits of laughter in the middle of it. Never before has seeing some one walking, walking, walking through the misty countryside been so humorous. I'd swear I laughed for ten minutes. And I so wanted to just shout out "How lame is this entire film" but I resisted out of courtesy, although I'm not quite sure if anyone who enjoyed this film deserves any respect at all.

It may seem like I'm being a bit harsh on this film, but that is only because it deserves it. Knightly looked ridiculous in her costumes. All they did was emphasize how flat-chested she is (something that didn't crop up in Pirates…), and made her look, well terrible. And speaking of terrible; Matthew McFadyen, what the hell happened to you? A man who was great as the taciturn, withdrawn character in Spooks, is here a pasty-grey faced twit.

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where the teachers (I think) put on a show, and Bart said that although he "didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows." Well Serenity is the exact opposite of that remark

I went along with a friend who had never seen any of Firefly before, was totally unfamilar with this whole 'verse, but after the film she's heading out to buy the DVD.

It's got everything in it. Crime, violence, death, guns, love, comedy, shocks and surprises, spaceships and a whole lot more.

"Been more'n a year since I had anything twixt my nethers didn't run on batteries!" (Kaylee in Serenity)

The great thing about Whedon's work in Firefly and Serenity is that he is prepared to go to some dark places, and there are quite a few in this film. Suffering and death are not absent here. But always he somehow manages to get a laugh out in the middle of those dark moments, and yet without losing the emotional impact of that darkness.

There were a few things that I was a bit "hmmm" over, but they were mainly how the film related to the series, and aren't major problems anyway. I've since read that the storyline in the film was originally going to take two years of Firefly, and however much I adored, loved this film I wish Whedon could've had those two years, and then some more.

With this film you constantly hear people comparing it to the previous film version starring Gene Wilder. Well not here, because although I think I've seen it at some stage, I don't really remember it all that well. So obviously it didn't make a great impression on me.

For the few who don't know this is based on the book of the same title by Roald Dahl. The plot is centered on the chocolate factory of the title, its owner (Willy Wonka) and Charlie Bucket. Charlie, played by Freddie Highmore from Finding Neverland, comes from a family so poor that all they seem to eat is cabbage soup. His four grandparents share the one bed, and never leave it. Every year for his birthday Charlie gets a bar of chocolate, the only one he'll have all year. He always gets a bar of Wonka's chocolate and loves the stories his grandpa Joe tells about the factory, and its mysterious owner Willy Wonka.

When a competition to allow five children to enter the factory is announced the chances are slim that Charlie will get a golden ticket…

Now my memory might be faulty here, but wasn't Charlie supposed to be English? So why did he find a dollar bill? Why does he use the term candy? But those are just minor quibbles. All in all I really enjoyed this film. Depp's Wonka is wonderfully weird and, well, just plain wacky. His disdain for the children is perfect for the film, as are the Oompa Loompa's crazy routines. Certain reviews have compared Depp's Wonka to Michael Jackson, but I have to say I don't see the similarities. Yes both are unnaturally white, but Wonka is not interested in the children at all, he doesn't care about them, all he cares about is chocolate and sweets and inventing.

From the outset it is obvious that this is a Burton film, there are all those weird but great visuals, not to mention Depp's take on Willy Wonka. Although I did think that the music wasn't especially Burtonesque, and in most places didn't really stand out. Having said that I did enjoy the Oompa Loompa's songs.

The children are all well-cast, Highmore especially is perfect as the scrawny underfed Charlie. But my favourite was the spoiled-rotten "Veruca Salt, the little brute, Has just gone down the garbage chute".

Up for the award for weirdest film I've seen in quite a while. You don't believe me? Okay, the plot revolves around Dick, who seems to have no friends at all and who lives in a small, nameless town in America that is totally centred on working in the mine. He buys a toy gun as a present for someone he doesn't like, but doesn't give it to him. Eventually he discovers that the gun isn't a toy at all, its real. He falls pretty much in love with this gun, names it Wendy, and forms a type of gang; The Dandies, who are pacifists although they do love their weapons.

Obviously, things do not work out well.

The whole style of the film is strange. Virtually all of it is narration, which is then developed in a few conversations or, and for the most part, shown and illustrated through what we see occur. It is also rather on the surreal side. I don't mean melting watches or anything, just, well surreal.

And I really liked it. The detached position the audience is placed in by not being able to engage with any of the characters except through the letters Dick writes/narrates. And the very fact that we're never quite sure what the film is about. Is it anti-gun, or just anti the culture that seems to love guns and violence yet wants to hide it away? Or is it a praise of their idealism? And lets not forget the humour. If you can't laugh at this film I don't think you'll enjoy it.