500 Days Of Summer

Must be all the pink wine I've been drinking recently but I really rather enjoyed this. But then it's not exactly a 'rom-com' or a 'chick-flick' or some other ghastly pigeonholed moniker. So why the pink wine intro? And the rubbish pigeon moniker thing. Shut up idiot.

Yeh it's pretty good this. It's all about true love but told in a clever timey-wimey way and with a clever spin at the end that makes you go 'ooh that's a clever spin'. Everyone in it is very young and quirky and intelligent though, (is anyone that impossibly cool in real life?) flitting from architecture to karaoke to pancakes to The Graduate to punches in the face to Ikea comedy. Usually whilst wearing tank tops.

You get the feeling the two leads knew this would get them a lot of credits in the Hollywood bank. They're both really good in it though to be fair so good luck to them. Yeah, good luck you movie stars. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.

Really liked the ending though and it happened at the very best time for a film to end. And I liked the screenplay with the talky-talks and the clever bits like the split screen sequence and the musical number.

Bang on 90 minutes too so it didn't interfere with my young and quirky and intelligent evening plans.

Toy Story 3

Finally got to see this, only a month or two after the rest of the world. Well worth the wait though, as I knew it would be. As usual, you get a brilliant short film to start with. This time it was Day & Night which is a gorgeous little thing about getting along with people who are different to you - but sprinkled with Pixar genius dust. Loved it. So clever. Genius.

Then Toy Story 3 kicks off with an unashamedly fun and exciting opening sequence that made this 35 year old misery guts grin like a 6 year old grinning fanatic who's just been given the grinner of the year award. From then on, it's just story, story, story all the way to the end. The animation, the voice cast, the funnees etc are all top notch but it's the story and the characters that get in your head and heart and stay there. This may be the perfect kid's film but it's really more about kids than it is FOR kids. Pixar understand what it is to be young and what, sadly, has to change within you as you grow up and leave things behind that you don't really want to.

This means that anyone could watch and enjoy this and is why it's zoomed past a billion dollars worldwide at the box office. It's also why my 7 year old got so wrapped up in the movie that he couldn't stop commenting on it all the way through as well as laughing as manically as I've ever heard him. And why Mrs Fletch was a sobbing wreck for the last ten minutes or so.

I loved the spin on prison movie cliches and especially the demented monkey with the insane red eyes. Special mention to the groovy Ken too and his wardrobe obsession. Flat out, flipping funny. Just brilliant. Oh and Mr Potato head's journey also made me laugh out loud - but not quite as loud as Luke.

Everyone should see this. It's one of the best films of the year and a brilliant way to end one of the great movie trilogies.

The Sea Wolves

Entertaining WW2 yarn with Greg Peck and Rog Moore. Took a while to get into it but I got there eventually and enjoyed it in the end. Based on a true story, it's about a sneaky German transmitter on a boat in neutral Portugese waters that's passing on co-ordinates for shipping vessels and navy frigates to a U-boat that's blowing them to smithereens.

Being in neutral waters though means the Brits have to find an undercover way of taking the naughty transmitter out. Or they'll get really told off or something. Solution? Get a squad of deniable middle-aged old boys to sort it.

So the first two thirds of the film is Greg and Rog doing some spying secret squirrel stuff  to get the plan in motion and then you get the old boys on a mission routine as they sail into the harbour in a knackered old boat. Will they all make it out though?

For most of the film it feels very James Bond. Glamourous locations, Rog Moore doing eyebrows and ladies with gay abandon. That sort of thing. Peck is good value as the leader of the gang too, being frightfully proper and proper hard - "I'd be delighted to kill you" - whilst judo chopping and machine gunning like an especially angry headmaster.

Despite the rubbish models used for the special effects, it's the ending that makes the film. I definitely felt an urge to get nearer the edge of my seat. 'Come on old guys' I cheered in a quiet sort of way. You can't beat a good men on a mission film though. More please. Especially WW2 set films. There's got to be some more of these to be made.

So a rather random film to watch but a pleasant experience all the same. Look at the movie poster up there too. That's awesome. Don't think I've seen 'Wild Geese' but if this team is behind it then I probably should.

Taking Care Of Business

Horrible 1990 'comedy' about an uptight, worky bloke who loses his Filofax and a baseball loving, car thefty bloke who breaks out of prison and finds it and assumes worky's identity. Everything that happens from then on is just bloody annoying. I can't be bothered to explain why and you'll never watch it anyway so that's fine.

Has there ever been a James Belushi film where he doesn't just play James Belushi though? The Filofax itself ends up as the star of the show here. Organisational obsessives will love the close-ups of the lists and indexes and the way everyone whips their organiser out with a flourish in meetings and restaurants. It also gets a 'hero' moment when worky and thefty hang on to it to make a zip wire escape. God damn those things are well made. Which is more than can be said for the film itself.

Piranha

Teeth-me-do this must be be the most gratuitous film I've ever seen. Bad science results in nipple nibbles and flappy fleshy. Once the bad science has done its thing there's barely five minutes let up from lovely ladies jiggling and a-wiggling their bits or limbs, eyeballs and faces getting eviscerated or lovely ladies jiggling and a-wiggling their bits. Again. But it's not all sexist misogyny. Oh no - there's a bit of male genitalia floating around too. Snigger.

Great to see a proper 18 certificate film too. I can't remember seeing a more gory film for the last twenty years or so. Some of it is brutally realistic. The credits give a big thanks to the 'Association of Amputee Surfers' and it's obvious that those guys were very busy.

Surprisingly for a film this trashy, it's really well made and more clever than you'd think. There's also some nice nods to Jaws with the reverse-zoom and a cameo from Richard Dreyfuss. This is a movie that knows exactly what it's doing and its main selling point, the 3D, is particularly good - even if it is mostly used as an excuse to get a succession of performing breasts front and centre. There's oily breasts, skiing breasts, tequila breasts, dancing breasts, surfing breasts and much more. In fact they should have called it Piranha 3D DD. Which brings me to Kelly Brook.

I'll be honest, she's very, very well put together. But what Mother Nature gave with one hand, she took with the other. Here is a woman who should never be allowed to speak on screen or stage. That voice. The strange softy, shouty delivery. Arrgh! Quick - get her doing some bizarre nudey underwater ballet scene or something. Oh you have.....oh yes, that's much better thank you.

Away from the breast-fest though, my favourite moment of the film was the return to the big screen for Christopher Lloyd. He gets to play the usual manic professor type of course but his brief exposition heavy appearance was the icing on a very bloody, funny and enjoyable (fish)cake. Great Scott!

I'm Not There

I'm not the biggest Bob Dylan fan you'll find but I do have five or six of his albums and enjoy catching up with them every now and then. I definitely have to be in the right mood. So I approached this Freewheelin' look at his life with a mixture of interest and caution.

Seems I was in the right mood as for the most part I really enjoyed it. It's clearly going to find a happier home with Dylan obsessives but I knew enough about the man and his history to get drawn into this offbeat portrait of his varied psyches.

There's hero Dylan, inspiration Dylan, celebrity Dylan, wilderness Dylan, protest Dylan and, best of all, Cate Blanchett as villain Dylan. I think I've got all of those right. If not I'm at least due something for 'villain Dylan' because it sounds cool and rhymes.

Blanchett is bloody brilliant and electrifies the movie (that pun alone should win me some points eh Dylan geeks?). The rest of the cast are great too - really quirky and interesting in the best possible way. There were some scenes that caused my mind to wander elsewhere but it's not really the sort of film that you need to focus all your attention on - in fact the freeform style of it almost encourages you to drift off into something like a dreamy, bohemian haze. I don't know, I'm just pretending to be a cool beatnik.

One thing I do know though is that this film made me realise just how much I want to run alongside a goods train in the USA and jump into one of the cargo wagons. Yeah man.

Highlander

Saw this was on TV and intended to just watch 10 minutes or so before having an early night. Fat chance. If you're a movie geek of a certain age I defy you not to watch all of this once you've heard Connery's echoey voiceover at the start.

I've seen this loads of times and even though it somehow manages to get slightly more rubbish with each viewing, I still adore it. I realise that doesn't really make sense but who cares? Highlander is pretty much the perfect example of a 'guilty pleasure'. Here's some of the good/bad specialness that makes me love it so:

• The incredibly lame first fight between Kurgan and MacLeod. Like a couple of kids re-enacting a battle at a school play.
• MacLeod's cutesy-wutesy way with the ladies - "Aye blossom, the way you like it", "Aye, blossom I will".
• Director Mulcahy's overuse of the clever fades from one scene to the next. My favourite? Christopher Lambert's funny face merging into a massive wall mural of the Mona Lisa.
• Christopher Lambert's funny face in general.
• And his terrible, terrible acting.
• Garfield, the brilliantly antagonistic cop - "You cruisin for a piece of ass?"
• The moment MacLeod realises he's immortal. At the bottom of what is clearly a swimming pool pretending to be a loch with rubbish fake reeds.
• "You look like a woman you stupid haggis".
• The awful, collapsing foam walled castle with the crappy drawn background of the night sky.
• Tooled up vigilante guy - "Ok marine, this is for real".
• Rubbish autograph matching software on a computer that looks like a BBC micro.
• Bizarre animated monsters attacking MacLeod as he dangles on obvious wires whilst going through the orgasmic rush of the quickening.

I could go on and on and on. Like an immortal film reviewer or summink. It's just ones of those films where even the bad things about it are so endearing that they make you wub it even more.

At its heart though is a bloody good story. A group of individuals who (for reasons unexplained) are immortal and can only be killed by having their heads lopped off, are drawn to seek each other out in battle over many centuries - beheading away like whirling dervishes until one is left to collect 'the prize'. This rather brilliant concept provides the film with a canvas that includes vicious clans in 'Braveheart' style battles, a World War 2 flashback, a drunken 18th century duel and, um, a fight in a car park.

All of this is bloated out with some extravagantly hammy acting, an omnipresent soundtrack by Queen (seriously - everytime anyone puts the radio on its one of their songs) and a training montage. Every guilty pleasure has to have a training montage. Here you get Connery and Lambert having a right chuckle running after deers and insulting each other whilst their stunt doubles do swordy stuff on top of various cliff tops.

I should add, to make myself sound intelligent, that Highlander also raises some chinstroke-inducing questions on life and death in a couple of poignant scenes. Set to a Queen ballad naturally.

Highlander is a great film. Better than that, it's a great, rubbish film. A self-invented genre I have huge affection for and one that grew wonderfully out of control in the excess of the 1980's.

Oh and bonus points to anyone who can name two actors from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace that also pop up in this.

Law Abiding Citizen

Had a bit of a crappy week this week so seeing Gerard Butler raging against injustice felt like quite an appropriate way to see off a Friday night. What a very silly film this is. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed it but you need to be able to disable your 'critic mode' to enjoy it to its best. It's an absolutely stupid film.

Basically in a nutty shell, nasty things happen to nice bloke's family and nice bloke become bastard and wreaks excessively violent revenge on everyone he thinks is responsible for nasty things. Even though he's banged up in prison and stuff. And strips naked when the coppers come to get him. I don't really know why he did that.

Watching the film was a bit of a stop and start affair as it was interrupted by phone calls, the DVD freezing and my need to keep getting more beers and finish a bottle of wine. I'm actually as drunk as I've been in a long time. Hahahaha.

I liked the "**** you and your pommes-frites" quote and the bit that made wifey cack herself when someone's head got surprisingly messed up.

Sorry, if you want a better review you should probably do a Google-me-do.

Love you

Salt

Mrs Fletch and I took our Dads to go and see this. She said we were doing our bit for 'care in the community'. Amusing age related insults aside, this is just the sort of film that should find quite a wide audience and deserves to do good business because it's great fun.

Angie Jolly is pretty. Oh. I meant to type she's pretty damn good as an action star but my mind wandered and the sentence ended where it did. She is pretty though. And Jesus H Pitt can she kick bottom. She barely stops running and climbing and punching and leaping and shooting the whole way through. She could do with eating some pies though.

This filmy film was originally written for Tom Tom Cruise but he couldn't be bothered so they rewrote it for Angie. I think they did a good job. It's more fun seeing a girly girl kick people all over the screen sometimes and it adds a bit more of a dramatical edge to it somehow. It's as daft as a brush but it's really good fun. It's perfect for a guess-me-do competition with your mates. See if you can predict what's going to happen. I smugly admit that I scored very highly on this and figured out a lot of the plot very early on.

I must be honest, I've had a bit to drink tonight and feel a bit wibbly, wobbly so that'll do you for this write up. I liked Salt. It's a good condiment for an entertaining evening.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

A swifter than expected return to Hogwarts as Luke was desperate to see it and Mrs Fletch and I both fancied seeing it again too. He couldn't believe his luck.

This is the one where the teenage angst and moods really kick off. And Harry has his first snog. The performances are definitely improved all round this time too. Think getting his wand out on stage in that horsey play definitely helped Radcliffe improve his acting chops ( I have no idea what chops are in that context and freely admit to reusing that phrase from some film mag or other). Imelda Staunton is excellent too as the tea sipping, chintzy, witch bag who tries to turn Hogwarts into Colditz. A truly hateful character excellently brought to life.

New-comer to the franchise David Yates, directs with a nice mix of flair and common sense. There's some good shots that feel 'handheld' and bring a bit of urgency to things. He must have done a lot right anyway as the directing gig was his from this film onwards.

There's not so much villainy on screen in this one (till the big smackdown at the end) and instead the story revels in the hubble, bubble, toil and trouble as unseen dark forces gather strength. You really get the feeling that badness and bad things are on their way. With that and all the teenage grumpiness going on, you could sum up this film with the word 'brooding'.

I asked Luke to give me his review of the film over breakfast this morning. "I really like Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix" was his considered verdict. He's a master of brevity, my son.

Day Watch

Crap in a bun! What is it with this series of films? The Snooze Demon got me again. Was having a lovely time, swigging beer and cooking a curry (ok, heating up a ready meal) whilst watching this when suddenly - slump - the eyelids turn into shutters and I find myself nodding on and off for the whole last act of the film.

This was doubly annoying because most of the film was a bit, well, odd. And odd for odd's sake it seemed. I really wasn't getting into it at all. But the last 20 minutes were mental! Every time I emerged from my sleepy haze, my tired little eyes were subjected to increasingly frantic and impressive scenes of carnage and destruction as buildings were obliterated, trucks jumped through each other and a penthouse of guests jumped around oblivious to what was going on. I knew just how they felt as I didn't have a scooby doo what was happening.

A few chapter selects and rewinds later and I'd managed to piece it all together. Just about. It was a really strong finish to a movie that didn't seem to know what to do with itself for the most part. Definitely not a patch on Night Watch but still a very strong visual showcase for the director. He's got some crazy sounding projects in the pipeline too. Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter and Moby Dick sound awesome. Bring it on Mr flashy, whizzy Russian dude.

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

What better way to follow a near three hour car journey than by watching a near three hour film? Was a bit hesitant about letting Luke see this one yet as it gets a bit dark to say the least. Thankfully our many hours playing Lego Harry Potter on the Xbox meant he had a good idea of the story already and the worst thing about it in the end was Ron's potty mouth, everything's 'bloody this' and 'bloody that'!

Parental concern aside, I was really surprised by how good this was on second viewing. This might be the first Potter film that's better than the book. It certainly benefits from trimming off some of the fat, like the hundred odd pages on the Quidditch World Cup at the beginning. Here that bit's just used to give the film a punchy start and set up several of the plot points for later on.

Whilst I still think that JK Rowling lost it a bit with the later books in terms of excess, you can't deny that she's a brilliant storyteller. Watching this film with the knowledge of what's going to happen is a lesson in how you introduce characters and devices and motivation to lead the audience to an exciting ending. Kudos to the filmmakers too for bringing it all so vividly to life especially as this is one of the more magical instalments - with dragons, mermaid things, a sunken galleon and Eric Sykes. And Jarvis Cocker.

The kids are still a bit awkward with some of their lines. It's the. Pauses. They put in for. Dramatic. Effect. Bless them though, they ARE the characters though and you can't imagine anyone else in their wizarding shoes.

I think the only real negative about the film is the lack of John Williams doing the score. Instead you get some random bloke who serves up an anonymous, sludgy bit of orchestral meh. I think that's how Classic FM would describe it anyway.

Looking forward to watching the next in the series with Luke now. He's completely obsessed with all things Potter and ran off at the end of this one to read the back of the DVD sleeve for Order Of The Phoenix. Can't remember much of that but as long as Ron doesn't start effing and jeffing all over the place then I'm sure we'll both enjoy it.

I Love You Phillip Morris

Sweet little film. Jim Carrey loves Ewan McGregor in and out of prisons and mansions and speedboats and fake careers. J and E are both superb in it but I couldn't help but wonder why you needed to get straight actors to play the characters. I suppose their star power ensured the film got the cash to be made. Maybe it's an easier sell to a wider audience too? I don't know - I just felt a bit annoyed that my cynicism got in the way a bit.

Anyway as I said, both actors do a great job. McGregor gives the film its sweetness (and a very convincing gay run that isn't camp or 'look at me, I'm being gay') whilst Carrey is all wild eyed and obsessive and endearing. Amazing that it's based on a true story as well. Some of the cons he pulls off are enormous. And that's not a reference to any of the inmates in the jail scenes.

At only 90 minutes long, you can enjoy this in an evening and still have time to wash up, pick a fantasy football team, get your camera ready for a trip and watch a meteor shower. Well that's what I did, you can do whatever you like. But you should definitely watch this film. If it was a letter, it would be the letter V. It starts brilliantly, sags a bit in the middle and then ends brilliantly. I'm not sure my new alphabet based reviewing system will last so make the most of that. I would love to see a film that got a Q though.

The A-Team

In 2010, a crack paternal unit was sent to the kitchen for a crime they didn't commit. They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade (or at least their beloved wives and kids) to the Cineworld underground and tonight, these four Dads who make up The D-Team actually made it to the cinema as a foursome for the first time ever. As the planner of this ambitious escape attempt I naturally see myself as Hannibal (I would have gone for Murdock but, in a perfect 'Howling Mad' combo of craziness and flying, Nick took that role when he fell down some steps on the way out).

Being of a 'certain age', there was always a pretty good chance that the four of us would enjoy this film. We're old-skool. We were there for the original series at 5pm every Saturday during the 80s - to see pretty much the same story each time and always the same army jeep getting flipped over as stuntmen leapt out in slo-mo waggling their arms for all they were worth. I can still remember the toys I had too. Face's Corvette and a random HQ set with loads of stupid oil drums and hay bales that got lost.

So was this new movie version any good? Yes. It was bloody great fun. All four of us were grinning and laughing the whole way through. This is not a film that takes itself seriously. They've taken most of the basic elements from the old show and bolted them onto the usual prove-your-innocence storyline with a modern day setting. Oh and loads and loads of ridiculously over the top action scenes (with some impressively 'weighty' special effects) which are completely stupid but gloriously entertaining. It's a bit like a blokey version of 'Charlie's Angels' sometimes. Bradley Cooper as Face definitely gets the Cameron Diaz role - his tanning obsession being the perfect excuse for him to get his shirt off in several scenes. He doesn't wiggle about in a small pair of Spider-Man pants though. Which is probably just as well.

The cast do a great job of filling some very iconic shoes and there seems to be a genuine camaraderie between them which comes across really well. I didn't find myself pining for the original team at all (apparently Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz have cameos in this but I didn't see them). And despite his dodgy dyed white hair do, my man-crush on Liam Neeson is still intact. Don't tell the rest of The D-Team though or I'll get kicked out and be forced to watch Sandra Bullock rom-coms with The M-Team.

Night Watch

Been meaning to watch this for weeks and with family Fletch camping out in the garden that night, I decided to make use of my free TV time. Brilliant opening scene, really sets the stall out (to use the parlance of an ITV football pundit) as you're thrown into an incredibly stylised battle between good and evil types followed immediately by a superb story-setter featuring a cackling Witch-hag in a very vivid red outfit, a tiger and a creepy spider thingy. Hello I thought, am in for a bit of a treat here.

Think this was the first big budget Russian film. It looks amazing too - director Timur Bekmambetov (who went on to do more show-offy work with 'Wanted') has a great eye for colours and perspectives. And mental action sequences. It's great because you can feel all smug and clever for watching a foreign language film whilst you're enjoying the freaky vampire deaths or the insane truck flips. Awesome!

Annoyingly though, in between thinking that the main good guy looked like David Mitchell and that a vortex of crows looks even better on screen than it sounds - I was suddenly attacked by the Snooze Demon. This meant I had to rewind a few bits to catch up and even had to watch the last 20 minutes of the film twice. In fact, I went on to watch the very last scene again the next day just to make sure I'd absorbed everything (I'm a big fan of absorbancy). What this does prove though is that Night Watch is a really good movie. Why? Because if it wasn't, there's no way I would have bothered going to that much effort.

I'm really looking forward to the sequel which is already at home waiting to be watched. Hopefully this time it won't take me so long to get round to it and I can keep the evil Snooze Demon at bay.

The Prestige

Interestings. Second view of a film I very much enjoyed the first time around. Plenty of magic, illusion and the feeling of a hat being pulled over your eyes. Quite significant hats too. Sorry I'm rambling. It's really bloody hard to write much about this without giving anything away and spoilering and I love you too much for that dear reader. Hopefully one day we can meet up for some warm milk and discuss this film properly.

I will say though that you might not quite understand it even if you think you understand it. If you understand me? What I've just seen for the second time is still swimming around in my brain and simple things have changed into contradictory frown bringers. Which would be a great name for a band.

Mrs Fletch enjoyed it which was pleasing. Although I felt a slight twinge of hurt when she made a derisory comment about the appearance of David Bowie. The man is a legend. I just find him an incredibly compelling personality no matter what he does. Even when he wears decidedly non-child-friendly pantaloons in Labyrinth that leave very little of little David to the imagination. There were some other small parts (oh behave) that caught my attention in this too. I swear the magician at the beginning is Morrie the wig guy from Goodfellas. Actually hang on a minute.....

--------------------- *SHORT BREAK FOR GOOGLE SEARCH* ---------------------

.....hmmm, appears I was wrong. Although I have just learnt that the guy who played Morrie was once Robert De Niro's estate agent and has been in several other films with him. Nice trivia gain there. Where was I? Yes, other small parts in the film include the Piper Perabo lady who still has an odd face and a silly name and still hasn't been forgiven for Coyote Ugly.

You should definitely see The Prestige. It's slow but fascinating, clever but simple and magical but mechanical. And it's directed by the man hero that is Chris Nolan who, not once in this tapestry of type (tripe?) did I praise for his 'cinematic sleights of hand' like some poncey reviewers would have done for this film. So I saved you from spoilers and pretentious/lazy analysis - you can thank me later over a glass of warm milk.