Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 1

As The Great Soprendo used to say, ‘Piff, Puff, Poof – the first 40 minutes of this are amazing’. After that, he got bored, lost loads of weight and divorced Victoria Wood. Same thing happened to me. Apart from the crash diet and ‘hilarious’ ex-wife bit.

The early scenes are inventive, exciting and exhilarating. I was hugely impressed. But then our heroes go off on a road trip to look for magicky stuff and the fun just stops. Completely. They just mope about in tents and stare wistfully across foggy landscapes. Ocassionally other things happen like a baddie stops the Hogwarts Express and the passengers tell him he’s a bit of a meanie. Then Harry and Hermione have a little dance because they’re fed up and miserable (I knew how they felt).

This is the first Potter film that we’ve taken Luke to and he was really excited. He looked away a couple of times in the scary bits but he did really well. Even he got bored though – two or three times he said “Is it finished yet?”. We had a ton of popcorn and chocolates to keep us going though.

One of the best bits of the film was the specially commissioned animation to show the story of the Deathly Hallows. This had a really quirky style to it and was a real treat after watching some kids hiking for 3 hours. At times it felt like they were doing an amateur dramatic’s version of Lord Of The Rings.

I didn’t hate the film. I just found it really, really dull. All the great characters are barely in it and they were sorely missed. Stretching the book to two films was a definite mistake in my, er, book.

I still reckon the second part could be a bit tasty though.

Skyline

Quick summary, Independence Day in a posh block of flats.

Slightly longer summary, a very silly sci-fi movie with excellent special effects and some of the best, unintentional laughs I can remember in a cinema.

The first half is pretty good and does a decent job of building the tension until the big reveal of the baddie aliens doing their baddie alien thing. From then on, it’s a sprint to the finish full of screaming, Ferrari squashing, running and (from the filmmaker’s) “how the **** are we going to end this?”. The ending they went with is one of the funniest, worst endings of all time. I could sense where it was going but thought there was no way they’d do it. They’re not going to make her say that are they? Yep, they did. I actually laughed out loud at the sheer bravery of its awfulness. Bravo!

I also thoroughly enjoyed the bit where goatee man goes apeshit, mental on one of the aliens and punches it in the face about 300 times. Also the fact that the evil alien bastards all have loads of eyes and yet not one of them spotted the red brain and thought “that one looks a bit off to me”.

A pretty rubbish film then. But rescued from bile by the superb VFX and the downright silliness of it all.

A Nightmare On Elm Street

The 1984 one which 'introduced' Johnny Depp. Watched it with two horror loving chums as wifey was away doing something girly in London. Can remember seeing this as a young lad (got into horror films at a very early age – thanks Lol) and being both scared and fascinated by Freddy.

Didn’t have quite the same effect this time. In fact I found it all a bit silly – especially the bit where Nancy sets traps for old razor fingers which just came across as a weird version of Home Alone. The music was a bit mental too. The main theme is painfully overused and then either sped up or slow down for dramatic effect. Oh and the actress who played Nancy’s mum is absolutely terrible.

Having said that though, the movie’s iconic scenes are just as strong as I remembered. The body bag girl with the bug crawling out of her mouth, Freddy’s claw reaching out between Nancy’s legs in the bath and the freaky marshmallow stairs - definitely the stuff of nightmares.

Quite fancy watching Dream Warriors (part 3) again actually. That was always my favourite.

Sweet dreams…

Jonah Hex

Blimey it's late. Or early. Or something. Definitely struggling a bit now. If I can get through one more film we'll be getting very close to landing back in good old Blighty. Jonah Hex looks like it might fit the bill and the excellent comic book style intro has got me interested and more awake already.

Josh Brolin is a civil war soldier bloke who has a run in with Malkovich's nasty bastard bloke. Never have a run in with a movie Malkovich. He murders his family, scars up his grizzly face and leaves him for dead and stuff. The near dead-ness gives him supernatural powers and he returns with a vengeance, a scarred up grizzly face and an awesome horse-bound big clanky gun.

So far so good then and I found myself quite enjoying it. One of Brolin's new 'look at me , I'm not dead' tricks is that he can reanimate corpses for interrogation and these scenes are really good. Very creepy. In fact, the whole supernatural vibe of the film was well realised.

Suddenly though, being up for almost 24 hours caught up with me and I started mini dozing which meant I had no idea what Megan Fox's prossie was up to or what all the red dust scenes were about. It's a pretty short film too so before I knew it, it was all over. Still, I quite enjoyed it and best of all there's only 90 minutes left now till we land. Breakfast soon and then sunrise.

Cop Out

The trouble with watching lots of films is that you have fewer films to see. That random statement has more meaning when you're scouring an in-flight entertainment system looking for something to watch. Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, Predators - yeh, yeh, yeh seen those. I need something new and undemanding to while away another hour or two. I know, how about Cop Out? Sure it's had some bad reviews but Wincey Willis is always fun to watch with a weapon and a wisecrack. It can't be that bad.

It is.

Christ on a bike, this is (un)comfortably one of the worst films I've ever seen. A complete turd toupee of a movie. Breathtakingly stupid and insulting to the intelligence of anyone unintelligent enough to watch it. A career low for all concerned. I don't know who Tracy Morgan is but as well as having a name that sounds like a low-rent porn star, he is incredibly irritating. And self-referential nods to John McClane are not big or clever either.

The more I watched this, the more it became an endurance event. Despite it being the very early hours of the day on a night flight when everyone else was asleep and I felt dreadful, I was determined that I would see every excruciating minute. And I made it. Just. I deserve some kind of award.

Under 3 hours till we land. Surely whatever film I watch next has to be an improvement...

Prince Of Persia

On the plane back from Florida now. This is bad for two reasons - I hate flying and I hate holidays ending. I have a plan though. I'm going to chain-movie-watch and see as many as I can back to back. First up, the film from game thingy that is Prince Of Persia.

Another Jack Daniels and Coke first. Nom. Right film's off. Jake bloke appears to have dodgy accent but he is good at all the jumpy, swingy stuff. And he looks proper buff eh girls? Must ignore Gemma Arterton, must ignore. Focus on Alf Molina's amusing guy-liner. Or Benjy Kingsley doing malevolent stares and blatantly looking forward to picking up his pay cheque. This is all a bit meh so far. Still can't bear Gemma A.

Disney were obviously hoping for another Pirates Of Da Caribbean style franchise here. Heads up Mickey, you ain't going to get it mate. Too boring and unoriginal. And don't try to be all 'relevant' by throwing in a hunt for WMD story thread.

SNAKES! Hope Mrs F isn't watching this (leans round seat), nope she's watching Friends. Safe.

Film over. Above average only in its ability to be completely average. Just under 5 hrs to go. Time for another film...

Get Him To The Greek

In which the erudite, grandpa botherer plays a gobby, druggy, drinky rockstar who causes grief for a lardy record label bloke. Was supposed to be very funny. It, um, isn't. Though there is a bit with a dildo that made me chuckle out loud. Then again, just the word dildo makes me snigger.

This was another film I watched on the plane. Did I mention my holiday? Oh.

I like Russell Brand. Decided I don't like the other fella though. You know, the chunky one who talks from the back of his mouth. The scenes with him and his girlfriend are all very clunky. Which rhymes with chunky.

Piff, puff, poof daddy earnt a bonus point or two for his silly, shouty record label boss bloke.

Have we arrived in Florida yet?

Green Zone

Watched this on the plane to Florida. Not the best environment to fully absorb the film but me was a bit disappointed. It's just a bit...dull. Another excuse to show what a massive fuck up the hunt for WMDs was - or at least how politically motivated it was.

Angry Jason bloke with his YMCA moustache was entertaining as was the Jack Daniels and Coke the stewardess brought me. But in between straining to hear the dialogue over the cabin noise and taking my sons for toilet breaks, it was quite hard to get into the story. And to be honest there was little encouragement for me to persevere. Damon and Greengrass together on the Bourne films was cinematic gold but they were a long way from Fort Knox with this one.

Conan The Barbarian

Too long has this been an Arnie film I've not seen. Hmm, a Yoda style poem to start with - nice. Boom, boom blasts Basil Poledouris' score at the start and the swords and sorcery shenanigans is underway.

Ooh, look at little Arnie turning into grown up Arnie whilst pushing a big wheel round and round. His physique in this film is ridiculous! Muscle hustle. Aaaah - he's being attacked by a crazy fire witch bitch. Ok now. Right on to a long running montage with his new friend. Bless him. Oh now he's got himself a lady friend. Conan the cuddler.

Two animal scenes made me giggle. First Conan decks a camel (think he was giving him the hump) and then he bites into the neck of a fake vulture.

The spooky nymph thingies trying to drag him off to the netherworld were cool for 1982. Also cool was Conan's lady chum in her Kiss make up. I'm really enjoying this film.

Eeek! Darth Viper attacks!

Everything's ok now. The picture at the end of King Conan on his throne was awesome. A real throne, not a picture of him having a poo.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

You know, the film about the farm boy. First time I'd watched this so closely after Ep 3 and it does give you a different slant on some scenes - especially Obi-Wan and D Vader getting to know each other again.

I dozed off in a few places. I know I've always found the Tattooine scenes a bit dull but the snoozage was a surprise. Unfortunately I was awake for the special edition gash that is Han talking to crap CGI Jabba. Don't mean to sound like the Star Wars nerd that I am, but christ on a bike that's shit.

I still think the Death Star was real though. The corridors and hangar etc are so convincing that I like to think I'm watching some sort of space documentary.

I love Star Wars I do.

Cobra

Sylvia Stallone was in full lazy 80's mode here. Probably why he spends most of the film with stupidly reflective shades on (spot the film crew) so he can shut his eyes when the other characters are doing stuff. Or so you can't see his eyes roll when Miami Sound Machine come on the soundtrack again.

Mr Cobra is a tough cop who has to protect Brigitte Nielsen from an evil gang of evils, led by a baddie with the most baddie looking face I've ever seen. And an awesome chin. After an excruciating glamour photo scene where Brigitte poses with 80's robots, the plot gets a bit Tom and Jerry all the way till the industrial ending. Oh and there's a bit where about 50 people fall off motorbikes.

Mr Cobra's cop boss was the baddie in Dirty Harry. That can't be right.

All a bit rubbish but rescued by the line "This is where the law stops and i start, sucker".

The Ghost

Blessed with an incredibly distracting accent, Ewan McGregor is hired by a fat, bald Belushi to do writing stuff for ex PM. Ex PM is ex Bond who excels at gesticulating wildly when on the phone. Ex PM's ex Ghost writer is now extinct but why exactly? Excuse me but I didn't really care.

Dull film this. Lots of blah, blah. Rains a lot. A bit like Bladerunner then but a lot less interesting. Even figuring out one of the plot points pretty quickly was boring. Had hoped for a lot more from what looked like a pacy, intelligent thriller. It ain't. Deffo not intelligent like what I is.

Speaking of which, how the hell was a glaring typo allowed to get on the scene where a Sky News report comes on a telly and the onscreen text refers to the 'Bristish' Prime Minister? It's shown about four times too! Gah. Bad spelling AND bad accents.

Why make Ewan speakytalk like that? And why is Belushi in it for about 3 minutes? Random bit of stunt casting there. The BMW satnav system gets a lot of airtime though. Might have been the best thing in it. At least it had a sensible voice.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith

First Star Wars film I've watched all year - bad form that! They'll be kicking me out of the Tattooine super-geek club soon. Anyway, Luke was desperate to have a 'movie-night' and I figured he was just about ready to deal with the darkness of Anakin's fall to the dark side.

This prequel trilogy has had a fair old pasting to be sure and a lot of it is completely justified. There's a lot of scenes that would be better off in a trash compactor - particularly almost every single one between Anakin and Padme. God they make me cringe. But apart from the glaring badness I think a lot of people miss the best aspect of the series which is Palpatine's rise to power.

I genuinely believe the story arc that Lucas came up with of how the Emperor manipulates everyone and everything around him is borderline genius. Forget Darth Vader, the real star of these films is the wrinkly old dude in the black hood.

Away from the Machievellian plotting (that took some typing), there's so much else to enjoy as well. The opening sequence is a whizzing rush of space battles leading straight into lightsaber duels and finally on to thunderous crash landing. I could watch it on loop all day. John Williams' score is as awesome as ever - it never lets you have any doubts as to the motives or emotions of the characters. And you get to see a lot more worlds in this film too, all of which are brilliantly imaginative and vividly realised by the ILM boffins (now there's a word I've not used in about 15 years!).

Order 66 is still chilling. Luke didn't like the 'death sensations' (as he put it) of this sequence - good phrase that, would make a great band name. That was the only time he flinched a bit during the movie though so he's reached another stage in his movie watch career. Might have to give Lord Of The Rings a go soon.

Revenge Of The Sith is a great film and provides thrilling links for Star Wars geeks between the old and the new. It really stitches the two trilogies together and I enjoyed this viewing as much as ever - it flew by in way less than 12 parsecs.

Four Lions

In a previous career I had to write a feature on Chris Morris, during all the Brass Eye furore. At one point in the, close to excellent, write me up I labelled him as a 'comedy terrorist' and now here I am doing another, far from excellent, write me up on his film comedy about terrorists. It's almost like things have come full circle or circle of life or summink.

Considering how highly I rate Morris, I was expecting this to be the best film EVER so was surprised that it took me a long while to get into it. An attack of the snooze-a-tron didn't help either as it made me a bit foggy and this is a film that is brain funny not HaHa funny. A bit of rewind action later and I was back in the swing of things like a jungle VIP and pleased to see that Morris' eye for the absurd was as sharp as ever. The sight of suicide bombers running around in ostrich and ninja turtle costumes just challenges you not to laugh at it.

More challenging for me though was the balance of the silliness against the endearingly supportive family of one of the hapless bombers. The scenes between father and son were uncomfortably sad - aided by the film's naturalistic style.

If you like your comedy to be a bit edgy and you don't read the Daily Mail you'll find much to enjoy here. I'll leave it to cleverer people than me to analyse Four Lion's place in these troubled times though. Someone that would never use the word 'cleverer' would be ideal.

Cemetery Junction

Not much of a title is it really? I'm all for avoiding the judging of books by their covers but I can't help but think it was at least partially accountable for the sluggish business this did at the cinema.

That's pretty much the biggest negative that this oxymoron can come up for the film though. Really enjoyed it. Not least because it's gloriously English. Gervais and Merchant again create a bunch of characters that feel completely honest and believable. They really are clever sods. Subtle, poignant and affecting scenes seem to be their speciality.

They get the best out of their cast too. Fiennes and Goode make excellent gits and the main three fellas (all newcomers) are each very good. Definitely got the rock and roll star vibe from the grinny, chinny one.

It's another film that clocks off at the 90 minute mark too which is great. Does everything you want and expect it to do and sends you off with a warm glow in your red pumpy thing. And I don't mean the bodypart that would be affected by a big-titted vampire (see the film before you judge me).

Amusing to spot the round-headed buffoon Karl Pilkington in a blink or you'll miss him cameo too.

The Hunger

Continuing my current obsession with all things Bowie, I thought it was about time I saw this. You could say I was a bit peckish for The Hunger and my appetite was certainly stirred by the weirdy-o opening scenes. Really had no idea what the flibbetygib this film was all about although I knew it was an 80's vampiry thingy.

Turned out to be something far more creepy than that rather kneejerk summary. Proper creepy too. I really liked the slow burning story and the sombre mood for the first half and the fact I had no sense of what was going on. But just as I'd got myself comfortable it lurched off and became a chilling, disturbing melodrama accompanied by mental bursts of 80's keyboards and heavily reverbed screaming. There's some imagery here that will definitely leave a mark on this impressionable, little chap. Nasty stuff - especially the heaven and hell allegory where both destinations are equally unpleasant. Shudder.

Some great make-up on the Thin White Duke and several bits of unexpected sauciness from Suzie Sarandon too. Helped to break up the funereal atmosphere somewhat.

Don't get me wrong lovely reader, it's a really good film - very original and well shot by Tony Scott before he was 'Bruckheimered'. I just found it a bit too unsettling for a Monday night movie. It wasn't what the movie doctor ordered on this occasion.

One more thing - Willem Defoe completely steals the show as '2nd phone booth youth'.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Fight! Jeez what a film! Seems a complete waste of time writing about something as ferociously visual as this but I'll have a pop. Or if you want a 'skip to the end' summary - I loved it but it was a hard fought love. CONTINUE?

Clearly I had a good idea what to expect. I am a film nerd and that's my pretend job. But for the first 20 minutes or so, I found my inner monologue disturbing my concentration with 'you're not really enjoying this are you' sneers. It was true. What was all this hipster talky-talk and self-conscious wackiness? Does Michael Cera have to be so whingey? He sounds like Luke Skywalker moaning about having to go and pick up some power converters.

I resolved to battle on. Fight! Slowly and steadily, the magic started to happen until - POWER UP - I was fully plugged in and ready to play. Which is all really just a ham fisted (mMMmmmm ham) way of saying that it clicked and from then on I was hooked. In some ways, I almost love the film more because it had to win me over.

My cinema-going chum asked me how on earth he'd describe it to his wife. I said he should say that it was a love story in the style of a musical where awesome computer game type fights replace the songs. To me, this makes complete sense. Instead of the characters stopping to burst into a song and dance routine they leap through the air and throw dragon-kicks and fireballs at each other.

Edgar Wright is fab. I've liked everything he's done that I've seen that he's done. The energy he creates on the screen is incredible - your eyes won't be popped anything like it this year. It's also a film that celebrates being young without condascending those lucky enough to still be young (aw bless 'em) but above all it champions pop-culture and the most successful form of entertainment on the planet - video games. Cinema (and mass media in general) usually doesn't 'get' video games but this is a love-letter to anyone that's ever waggled their joystick into the small hours. The coins dropping from the vanishing bodies are beep-beepingly brilliant. LEVEL UP.

Don't worry if the sight of the Universal logo with an 8-bit version of the theme does nothing for you though, there's still much to enjoy without knowing your Commodores from your MegaDrives. The fight scenes are fun and thrilling (like the Matrix when the Matrix was good), there's loads of humour and sight gags, the offbeat cast hit all the right beats (loved the grumpy ginger drummer girl), the soundtrack's cool and the whole thing is just refreshingly refreshing. How could you not enjoy a movie that includes Vegan Police and a battle of the bands that leads to a mental shockwave monster smackdown.

Go and see it. Not enough people have. GAME OVER.

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.