The Boat That Rocked

Sweet Jesus this was dull. Middle-of-the-road, middle England dull. Only interest for me was trying to figure out if the news bloke was actually Will from TFI Friday. Turns out he was. There's a character in it whose name is Twat. Ha ha isn't that funny ha. Thank Satan's slippers for the soundtrack which at least prevented me from head butting the telly. Awful nicey-nice awfulness.

Up

Such a brilliant film - probably enjoyed it even more on this, my second viewing. Funny, thrilling, poignant, SQUIRREL. God knows what they have in the water coolers at Pixar. Imagine working at a place like that where everything you do is bloody good and everyone loves it. This is easily the best thing they've done in this bloke's opinion. Maybe even one of my favourite films. Story, visuals, characters, music, SQUIRREL - all completely bob on.

Watched it with Mrs F and Luke and all three of us were laughing all the way through. Dug the Dog is new family hero. In a perfect world this would win Best Film at the Oscars and not just Best Animated Film. Sadly, that won't happen but watching Up lets you believe in all the great possibilities life can offer - if only for a little while.

Quadrophenia

Somehow missing from my film stomach so thought it about time for a watch. Much fun to be had from watching all the brit acty types when they were ickle peeps. Look there's Ray Winstone when he was Raymond Winstone. And D.I. Carver. Seems that hanging about in gangs and taking the drug pills makes you wear guy liner. But you do get to whizz along the clifftops on a cool silver moped in the best shot from the film. Nice that. Vintage Brighton looks great too. Suspect some of the editing was done by a work experience boy though. Sting is very otherworldly - like he's just scootered into Brighton from the set of Dune. Minus his odd blue pants thankfully. I don't mean that little Sting is flapping about. Although little Raymond makes a cameo early doors in the bath. Quadrophenia is a very good name.

Lakeview Terrace

Racial tension simmers in suburbia between cop bloke and loved up coupley couple. There's a proper big fire on the way too that's eating up LA and the nearer it gets, the stupider things become. Jack L Samuelson is all in-yo-face and self righteous of course but, despite some subtle menace in the initial neighbourly exchanges, it's all a bit run of the mill from him really. You don't need to see this film to know that racism sucks.

I Love You, Man

Amusing blokey nice comedy with that Paul Rudd man. He should do more films like this really - oh, he has. It's got the funnees and the vomit and the girly ahhh bits. "He's got a bush like a forty year old Serbian" made me make this noise - sstthxxxx snigtheee...heee! Some decent pastiches of male kinship rituals. Is that right? I mean, you know, it's funny how it shows how us blokes do stuff when we're doing stuff with blokes and that.

Pastiches > pasties. Maybe a pasty pastiche? What's the singular of 'pasties' - is it pasty with a Y? Or is that pasty as in - "ooh are you ok? You look a bit pasty'. A pretty funny film though. I want a man-cave. And a bat-cave. I am sorry for my greed. Jon Favreau's fuzzy hair freaked me out a bit in this. Chocolat was a delightful film.

Inkheart

Clumsy family film with B Fraser as a chap who can bring parts of stories to life by reading them out loud. Also stars an assorted collection of Brits and am impressive smokey baddun at the end who had more money spent on him than the rest of the film. Enjoyed as a Movienight with Luke and we shared an Easter egg halfway through - in February. Yep, deal with it. He liked the firey handed dude. Brendan Fraser is pretty rubbish. You do get to see Helen Mirren do Gandalf though. Not like that - dirty boy. Smokey baddun must have looked lovely in the trailer. Smokey bacon's nice too. Maybe Fraser should have read the back of a bag of crisps and seen what happened. "Oh no, here comes the crisp monster" he would have said unconvincingly. Nice chap though.

Taken

Wonderfully European version of Commando with Qui-Gon Jinn meticulously hunting down his kidnapped daughter in le Paris. Entertaining from start to finish. All the better for having the lead role played by a guy you wouldn't think of as an actioneer. He do good with the whams and the punch-me-ups and the shooties but the dude can properly act. I think I might love Liam Neeson a little bit. Star Wars and the A-Team? The guy's in all the things I devoured and obsessed about as a mini-Fletch - those made me the man I am today. Which is a man who writes dribble about films on a blog no one reads. Sob.

It is Commando though really - there's even a bit where he steams the face off some ungood with a broken pipe. He doesn't eat green berets for breakfast though. Or have an ice cream splodged in his face. Or request lots of body bags. Or sneer at someone who didn't smell them coming (snigger). Or wonder why they don't just call him girl George. Or ask Bennett to throw away that chicken shit gun.