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.

Gamer

Noise me up. One of the loudest, most incoherent films you'll see. If you see it. With your eyes. Certainly had a few quid spent on it. Action sequences looked impressive and G Butler does gruff machismo very well (ooh he's dreamy girls eh). Nice concept but, like the Partridge Green Badminton Club invoices I keep getting, poorly delivered. Had nice bottle of wine with it - crisp and dry with a hint of sweetness. Yes. Did lead to minute or two's nap during one bit though. Overriding memory of the film is that skater girl's bottom in tight blue hotpants. Unclear if that says more about me than the quality of the film. Possibly not actually.

Blindness

Christ on a bike - this came out of leftfield, not at all what I was expecting. An unexplained disease suddenly begins to make everyone go blind and it seems to spread on contact. The earliest to be infected are thrown into quarantine in a run down hospital. Amongst them are a Doctor and his wife but her vision is unaffected - she's pretending just so that she can be with him. Left to look after themselves but joined by more and more blind sufferers of the disease, the quarantined population gets ever more 'Lord of the flies' as primal urges take hold.

A fascinating, compelling but brutal film. Its simple premise grows into a studied view of what lies just beneath the surface of civilisation and it rings horribly true. Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo are sodding brilliant in their roles - utterly convincing. Brilliantly directed by Fernando Meirelles too who also made City Of God (you must see that if you haven't already).

Me like, me like a lot.

Max Payne

Demons are cool. Mark mark is Max Payne - a double glazing vendor from the valleys. Based on a videogame that I haven't played but feel I have done now I've seen the movie. John Moore has obviously watched The Matrix and Sin City and films. Did all look very pretty and noir. One of the guys in it is called BB which made me go heh everytime someone called him it. Who's this being all like a bird and wanting to fly away - it's only flipping Nelly Furtado! Demons are cool though. I really enjoy films like this even though my critical nuggets are screaming no. Sorry. As a treat you get to see almost every baddie bad shoot in slow motion so you can see just how much more difficult it was to miss M WBerg than drop the muddyfunster. I want a pet demon.

Surrogates

This film was 80 minutes long. That probably says enough. Lack of ideas or realisation that poo-ness abounds leading to drastic edit-me-do. Some goodness is in it though. Brucie's hairy head and placky face causes some chuckles. It's brevity meant we could watch two episodes of 24 afterwards - a Brucie bonus.

Astro Boy

Entertaining kid's animation made all the more enjoyable by watching it with six year old son. Lots of voicey people in this. Ooops - popcorn spillage but still enough left to last us until after film. Luke's commentary during the exciting bits was very sweet. Went to McDonalds before and ordered a veggie sub - kerazy. What's with the noses though? B Nighy's scientist bloke had an obscenely large proboscis. Brighton Marina cinema is pretty poor. Seats are all on same level and this screen was teeny teeny. Why did Samuel L. Jackson pop in to voice just one line? He once said 'this is a tasty burger'.

Body Of Lies

Hello me. A porky Russell Crowe satellite watches an urgent LeoCappucino track badduns in the middle east. Ridley Scott film - nice. How can you make a sweaty, crowded marketplace look pretty? Liked Mark Strong's ever so polite Jordanian. Was expecting a bit of a yawn-a-roo but turned out to be a decent film. Low expectations are always the best.

Curry at the beginning and yoghurt with eclair dirty combo 2/3rds in. Very pleasant end to a day. I'm going to start scanning the sky for glinting objects - they're watching YOU. Oooh the hammers though. Wince.

Thank You For Smoking

Rented this after seeing Up In The Air - really like Jason Reitman's films. This was very enjoyable. Great cast. I'd watch anything with William H. Macy in it. Bit disturbed by the Katie Holmes shagging scenes though. Don't know why....she's too elfin/pixie like for bang bangs...?

Cool opening credits and quirky soundtrack too - more bonus points there.

Interesting how a film all about lobbyists and committees and anti-smoking can be so unpreachy. That is a word right. Smoking's a sodding stupid thing to do though eh kids?