In this early effort from Danish director Paul Verhoeven ("RoboCop"), the director engages in his love of melodrama and genre conventions, as well as his even greater love of undermining these elements. The film consists of a deep-seated tension between the filthy and the sweet; it's a crude and scatological love story between a vulgar artist (Rutger Hauer) and the girl he's obsessed with (Monique van de Ven). Verhoeven is, as always, very interested in the physical and the visceral, and the film is saturated in bodily fluids and naked flesh. Love, in this film, is not an abstract concept but a physical, visual one, and the love scenes have a startling tenderness and realism, especially in the context of the darker undertones also running through the film. There are many beautiful and touching scenes, like the one where an argument between the lovers turns into a reconciliation in the middle of a downpour, or the way that Verhoeven outdoes the traditional romantic comedies he's parodying by filming perhaps the most gorgeous sunset-at-the-beach scene in cinema history. "Turkish Delight" is a complex film, always hard to pin down because it never quite settles into any one mode for very long. It's romantic, bitingly hilarious, satirical, touching, tragic, and brutal. It's a slap in the face to the idea of "tasteful" entertainment, a ferocious cry for the visceral and intense, rejecting bourgeoisie conventionality in favor of a wild, messy individuality that privileges emotions and in-the-moment living.
"Manhattan Murder Mystery" finds Woody Allen having a ton of fun with a premise he'd long wanted to film -- a murder mystery set in New York -- and equally enjoying the return of his costar and former lover Diane Keaton, starring in a Woody film again for the first time since the late 70s. The comedic duo play a long-married couple who have settled into routine, only to have their marriage and their lives shaken up by the dawning realization that their next-door neighbor has murdered his wife and seems to be getting away with it. The film is a gentle spoof of the noir genre, with Woody especially referencing "Double Indemnity" and "The Lady From Shanghai." This loving tribute to the 40s noirs of Wilder and Welles culminates in a stunning final sequence that quotes the funhouse finale of "Shanghai" with its multiple mirrors and fragmented screen. The film is a visual stunner, contradicting the common assumption that Woody is a funny man but a limited director. For a light thriller/comedy, this is both hilarious and visually intriguing, utilizing the noir style and references to older films. It's Woody at his best.
This brilliant farce takes an inauspicious foundation -- an effort to position of Jayne Mansfield as the next Marilyn Monroe -- and turns into an enduring classic of sexual comedy, as well as one of the best encapsulations of the 50s rock n' roll era on film. Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) is an out-of-luck talent agent who's hired by a gangster (Edmond O'Brien) to turn his outrageously gorgeous moll (Jayne Mansfield) into a singing sensation. Director Frank Tashlin amps up the sexual exaggeration and visual humor of this scenario at every chance, bringing to features films the wild pacing and surrealist humor that he learned as an animator and director for Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes cartoons. In Tashlin's hands, Mansfield has a literally cataclysmic effect on the men she encounters, whether she's causing an old man's glasses to crack, a nightclub manager's eyes to bug out unnaturally, or a milk bottle to foam over. She's truly something to behold here, squeezed into a form-fitting red dress right out of a Tex Avery cartoon or squeaking gleefully in her best Marilyn impersonation. As if Mansfield's delirious performance wasn't enough, Tashlin also brings a keen eye to the film's many live performances by classic 50s rock acts. There's a certain inherent documentary quality to seeing classic acts like Little Richard, Fats Domino, and the little-known Treniers at their absolute peaks, but Tashlin goes even further with these sequences. In fact, these are some of the film's most stunning scenes, carefully designed and filled with lavishly colored sets and costumes. The scene where jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln croons against a rich blue backdrop, looking curvy and elegant in a bright red dress, is as much a painterly study in color fields as it is a celebration of the great music. This is a classic rock n' roll film and a classic sex farce, a film that only seems lightweight on paper; on the screen it's an irresistable delight.
Bruce Willis is good in this however such an accomplished actor can be good without it being near one of his best.
All the acting is pretty reasonable, and the story is not bad but definitely not original.
All in all pretty fun and well paced so worth renting but perhaps not buying just to watch once.
A slightly aging cop who likes more than a odd little drink takes what seems to be a simple job to pick up and deliver a man to court.
Sadly for him it turns out that there is much more involved than a little petty thievery and it all gets quite messy in just '16 blocks'.
Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep" is deservedly a classic of the Hollywood detective genre, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's famous novel that perfectly captures the chaotic plot and confusion of details in this classic tale. Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is a detective who is pulled into an incredibly complicated mystery when he's hired to investigate the blackmailing of General Sternwood and his two beautiful but wild daughters (Martha Vickers and Lauren Bacall). From this simple start, Marlowe winds up involved in multiple murders and overlapping schemes, the boundaries of which are only rarely glimpsed by the audience. The film is famously confusing, so much so that even Bogart and Hawks admitted they didn't fully understand the plot. In fact, the plot is largely redundant to what makes the film great, which is the crackling dialogue, especially in the many classic scenes between Bogie and Bacall. Their antagonistic, quick-witted verbal sparring is the film's clear highlight, culminating in a scene where the duo share a prank call to a police station, interrupting a traditional noir interrogation scene with a screwball routine that could've easily fit into one of Hawks' comedies instead.
The latest film from French New Wave legend Jacques Rivette is both a perfectly executed period love story and a subtly hilarious deconstruction of such historical dramas. It's a film whose placid surfaces belie the complex nature of the emotions at stake and the games being played, both between the two main characters (Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu) and between the director and his audience. The film concerns the on/off courtship between a duchess and a general, who essentially take turns playing hard to get over the course of many years, leading each other on ever more outrageous quests in order to earn the other's love. As a parody of the ridiculousness of social conventions, the film is at times surprisingly funny, the laughs coming unexpectedly and from the weirdest places. Rivette even turns the constantly creaking floors and Depardieu's affected limp into material for subtle humor, filling the soundtrack with the loud thump of the general's stiff leg. Rivette undercuts the solemnity and elegance of a dress ball with the squeaking of the wooden floors, hilariously turning the dance scene into a duet between the string quartet and the cacophony of pops and scrapes. At every turn, Rivette is superficially faithful to the conventions of the costume drama, even as he does everything he can to make this assumed elegance and beauty seem shabby. It's a remarkable film from a director at the peak of his talents.
I thought this was a strange film, seemed like an odd plot but still quite good for just a film you could watch what ever mood your in. It has a bit of action, romance and a bit of a laugh too. Quite good, could watch it more than once.
In 1995, Australian director Roger Donaldson ('Cocktail') was hired by 'Warner' to helm some non-descript, B-style psychosexual sci-fi: A movie whose premise involved a team of diverse personalities trying to stop the violent reproductive cycle of escaped GM alien-in-the-body-of-a-supermodel; Sil (played to the hilt by an often nude Natasha Henstridge). 'Species' didn't have the most promising of storylines, and were it not gifted an exceptionally good cast, would've been synonymous with the words straight-to-DVD, or as it was back then; straight-to-video. And yet there's something about the presence of Michael Madsen as smirking bounty hunter Preston Lennox, Ben Kingsley's dodgy government scientist Xavier Finch, the inimitable Alfred Molina & pre 'CSI' Marg Hellenberger on board as medics, Muslim hat wearing Empath Dan Smithson played by none other than Forrest Whittaker and, of course, Natasha Henstridge's ultra aggressive, bathykolpian nymphomaniac Sil. Couple that with some decent SFX and H.R. Giger's genuinely menacing, cymboceplhalic creature, and you've got a movie that's far more entertaining than it has any right to be. 'Species' makes no bones about its trashy, comic book origins, but stands tits and tentacles above its increasingly inferior sequels, and should appeal to alien aficionados or those who grew up watching the likes of Ripley, Hicks and Vasquez battling reptilian, acid blooded monsters in outer space. 'Species II' begins with a welcome dose of 'Robocop'-esque corporate satire, though the humour is short lived, as director Peter Medak inexplicably abandons its predecessor's sequel set up and begins anew. Astronauts Mykelti Williamson (always a good choice) and Justin Lazard return to Earth as heroes of the first manned mission to Mars, unbeknown to them however, is that they've contracted the same strain of DNA that helped create Sil. Lazard soon turns into an insatiable alien fiend; leaving a litter of offspring and many a dead sexual partner in his wake, fortunately (or not, as the case may be), Natasha Henstridge is back: only this time she's Eve (subtlety isn't the film's greatest strength) cloned by those meddlesome scientists to help combat any extra terrestrial threats. Michael Madsen and Marg Hellenberger also reprise their roles, though Madsen appears to be doing prep work for his Mr Chapel character in classic, short lived TV series 'Vengeance Unlimited'. 'Species II' trades suspense for cheap thrills & gore; its reasonably well constructed by the once innovative British-Hungarian Medak, who some will remember also directed 'The Krays', 'Let Him Have It' and cult Gary Oldman noir 'Romeo Is Bleeding'. Natasha Henstridge, though she's no great shakes in the acting department, does well to put a slightly different spin on her original character, though by the time she's filmed running topless in super slo-mo, Natasha's career path clearly defines itself as a flat line riding headlong into an abyss of dead-end sleaze and sexploitation. It could've been an alien allegory for the creation of a new master race, with man as the architect of his own demise...but its not, though super cool stand-up / future 'Law & Order' star Richard Belzer makes a cameo, which was nice. 'Species III' (yep, its not over yet) sees the budget take a noticeable nose dive; as Eve; Natasha Henstridge being a good sport for even turning up in such a thankless cameo, gives birth before being promptly dispatched in a somewhat muddled and confusing manner. Now from what I could gather, Eve & Lazarus's numerous offspring from Part II are still out there, and I liked the idea of how these creatures are, in many ways, the new kind of vampire; designed in the stars and spawned on Earth (mini-series, anyone?). 'Species III' focuses on Eve's daughter Sara (Sunny Mabrey) rescued from the powers that be and taken in by a mad scientist, though its only a matter of time before things go bad, needless to say, the presence of a military death squad sent to kill her doesn't help matters much. A pretty poor effort by anyone's standards, though it may prove marginally divertive at 3:00 A.M. in the morning, but to paraphrase Grandpa Fred from 'Gremlins 2: The New Batch': people who watch TV at 3 A.M. aren't unnerved by monsters, vampires or aliens. Sunny Mabery does as much as can be expected with this role; one shot where they cut between her and the creature inside is particularly effective, whilst the presence of an actual monster (albeit a man in a suit) works better than the usual, ill fated attempts at low budget CGI. This is 'Species' meets 'Saved By The Bell' saddled with lazy, but thankfully limited, SFX, acting of a cue card soap opera standard and marred by an often incomprehensible storyline; loaded with gratuitous nudity employed to keep its audience awake. Good clean fun. Sleaze, sex and wanton acts of bare-breasted ultra violence? No, it's not an after-dinner soirée at the Conservative party conference, but yet another dose of our favourite fertile alien killing machine. Hollywood hacks take another bite out of the budget to ruthlessly roll out 'Species 4: The Awakening'. Completely ignoring the previous three movies, Part IV sees Swedish born starlet Helena Mattsson as Miranda; an attractive, well adjusted twenty-something whose life is thrown into disarray when her uncle (RADA's Ben Cross) lets on that she's actually an alien, and a parasitic sex mad alien at that; not the best of news. Still, Miranda takes it on the chin as the pair set off to find a cure in Mexico. And that's when it all goes tentacles up, for the buxom beauty turns brutal nympho and embarks upon a cross border rampage that can only end in carnage, and take place in the buff. I can now announce that 'Species V & VI' will be filmed in my mate's back garden with a no star cast of Eastern European labourers, some blonde American prostitutes and a sock puppet (operated by yours truly). And its with that exciting bit of news that I can tell you 'Species 4: The Awakening' is utter nonsense, though no better or worse than the sequels that came before it. Mattson is OK, and some of the action sequences are similar in direction to Alberto Sciamma's 'Killer Tongue'. 'Species' is your mother-movie here, its children, in spite of shared lineage, simply can't compare. Alien lite.
Released in the torrent of controversy and critical acclaim that followed Oliver Stone's 'Platoon' (1986), 'Hamburger Hill' (1987) was a violent, bloody and visceral account of U.S. combat operations in Vietnam, circa 1969. Director John Irving sets out a straightforward story of the 101st airborne; who're assigned to take a hill numbered 937, from 'North Vietnamese Army' patriots. The company is made up of then-newcomers now familiar faces like Dylan McDermott, Don Cheadle, Courtney B. Vance and others; their mission appears to be relatively simple, though it soon becomes apparent that seizing 937 is, like the war itself, going to be tougher than expected. Days go by, casualties mount up and 937, its original name goes unmentioned, which works as a subtle nod to imperial ignorance, is christened Hamburger Hill by U.S. troops; for the wholesale human slaughter taking place on both sides. Not as good as 'Platoon' (1986) or 'Born on The Forth of July' (1989) 'Hamburger Hill' is a template for unit based depictions of modern warfare in cinema, it is, as Kubrick said of 'Full Metal Jacket' (1987), not so much an anti-war movie as simply a war movie, i.e. showing us the chaos, futility, blood & guts of battle, without offering a great deal of intellectual insight into the politics or machinations behind it. Scenes similar to Irvin's violent centrepiece were shown on an almost weekly basis on popular TV series 'Tour of Duty' whilst its' sparse dialogue, sketchy character development, limited use of score and matter-of-fact approach to all out carnage, are motifs imitated in latter day war films like 'The Thin Red Line' (e.g. brief, impersonal conversations / man's forcible disassociation from humanity) and 'Full Metal Jacket' (e.g. indoctrinated banality, rigid routine as a means of psychological escape from the pandemonium of war). John Irvin brings his experience as a BBC war correspondent during NAM to the screen, and his movie still retains a gritty realism that ought to be commended, a far cry from the director's other works such as 'Raw Deal' or 'Dogs Of War', this picture which aims to tell it like it was, albeit like it was during one particular, short event in the war. Not much flag waving here, but an impressive, dyed-in-the-wool cynicism as deeply ground into every reel, as the minced human flesh littered all over Hamburger Hill: A stark reminder that war was, is and always will be hell.
Good dvd . Great return of the Undertaker . Fantastic match between triple h and carlito .I was very happy that orton got a taste of his own medicine . Mvp and matt hardy continue their reign as the tag champs.
Overall , quite a good ppv.
Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler playing Holly and Gerry work brilliantly making their relationship believable and the acting very credible. A definite five star film and I would recommend it highly for an audience looking for a different style of chic-flick but don"t forget the tissues!
Set in an American city, P.S I love you is a heartbreaking film that shows true love and how to cope with a loss. Holly Kennedy is a beautiful woman married to her dream guy, Gerry, until his life is abruptly ended by a brain tumour. Broken-hearted Holly finds it difficult to cope with her loss when, out of the blue, she receives a surprise letter from Gerry. Over the next year Holly holds on to Gerry and the hope that he hasn't quite left but can Gerry keep the letters coming?
I'd read about this film, especially about its influence on FOX AND HIS FRIENDS (such a pity it isn't available on Region 2 DVD, except in a boxed set that I don't actually want) and on FAR FROM HEAVEN, and put it on my ever expanding wish list. Thanks to this excellent website, which I only discovered recently, I found a copy for £5.99 and free shipping, so ordered it.
I watched it on my laptop two days ago on a grey and wet afternoon, the perfect time to see it. The colours are so lush, the acting just right, the music perfectly complementing the story. Yes, it's very American and 1950s, and some of the performances by modern day standards could be seen to be a tad hammy but it's brilliant, well worth a view. In some areas the social attitudes are still prevalent today, some 50 years later. The ending brought tears to my eyes.
There are those who would call it schmaltzy but that's up to them. For me, it was perfect.
Highly recommended.
Long before King Henry VIII became a fat b******* he almost fathered a few of his own: in an apparently entertaining, if fruitless and often shambolic, bid to produce a male heir. 'The Other Boleyn Girl', adapted from Phillipa Gregory's bestseller by director Justin Chadwick in his feature film debut, isn't the kind of movie I usually go for, and though I've got nothing against period drama per say, I just find the genre somewhat repetitive and rarely rewarding. That said, 'The Other Boleyn Girl' is an irreverent, well paced romp centred on ambitious young siblings Mary (Scarlet Johansson) & Ann (Natalie Portman) Boleyn's sordid quest to bed Henry (Eric Bana). 'The Other Boleyn Girl' or 'Oh What A Lovely Reformation' is a bit like a Tudor equivalent of 'The Apprentice'; with a pair of ruthless, highly strung debutantes vying for the approval of a bearded, surly old curmudgeon, but then again, the Boleyn girls aren't entirely to blame, seeing as they're pimped out with nauseating disregard for human decency by their father Sir Thomas (Mark Rylance), The Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) and, albeit reluctantly, mother Lady Elizabeth (Kirsten Scott Thomas). After cleaning his apartment, Matt Dillon's 'Factotum' Henry Chinawski took a step back, sighed and dolefully remarked: "I must be turning into a fag". Similar thoughts crossed my mind, as I found myself admiring Sandy Powell's sumptuous costumes and evening gowns; Portman's tree green and turquoise silk were particularly stunning, for they're some beautiful designs on display here and the cast, Portman in particular, wear them with style. We learn a little bit about life in the king's court, and our leads acquit themselves well with presumably accurate dialects/RP, though Bana, in spite of his pitch perfect performance as Hector in 'Troy', can"t quite keep the Adelaide out of his English accent, and sometimes struggles with Peter 'The Queen' Morgan's screenplay. Johansson's Mary Boleyn is clearly positioned as our heroine despite attempts at an even handed narrative and poignant dénouement that laments the futility of sibling rivalry. Bana makes for a strapping, generously handsome Henry who, though he may be laudabilis in his court, is horribilis in the sack whilst Portman's Anne Boleyn is portrayed as somewhat of a scheming super bitch, and it almost seems as if we're supposed to be willing fate to cut this hot-headed harlot down to size. Heads roll, hearts are broken and religions changed, though Henry himself, comes out relatively unscathed and blameless, which, to modern audiences, will seem bizarre at best, and hopelessly anachronistic at worst. 'The Other Boleyn Girl' is a fairly well made and reasonably well acted picture with some fine cinematography from newcomer Kieran McGuigan. I think the lesson here is 'Refrain From Whoredom At All Times' because you'll most probably end up dead or in exile, whilst your exploiters; be they politicos, kings, clerics, false friends or family will simply fade away when push comes to shove, and shove comes to summary execution. And as for those who reside and flourish within that parasitic institution of decadence & deceit known as monarchy? Well, they'll go on as long as society continues to nurture the moral weakness, ignorance and insecurity that exalts blood over merit, status over deeds and power over truth. It's good to be king.
In 1995, Australian director Roger Donaldson ('Cocktail') was hired by 'Warner' to helm some non-descript, B-style psychosexual sci-fi: A movie whose premise involved a team of diverse personalities trying to stop the violent reproductive cycle of escaped GM alien-in-the-body-of-a-supermodel; Sil (played to the hilt by an often nude Natasha Henstridge). 'Species' didn't have the most promising of storylines, and were it not gifted an exceptionally good cast, would've been synonymous with the words straight-to-DVD, or as it was back then; straight-to-video. And yet there's something about the presence of Michael Madsen as smirking bounty hunter Preston Lennox, Ben Kingsley's dodgy government scientist Xavier Finch, the inimitable Alfred Molina & pre 'CSI' Marg Hellenberger on board as medics, Muslim hat wearing Empath Dan Smithson played by none other than Forrest Whittaker and, of course, Natasha Henstridge's ultra aggressive, bathykolpian nymphomaniac Sil. Couple that with some decent SFX and H.R. Giger's genuinely menacing, cymboceplhalic creature, and you've got a movie that's far more entertaining than it has any right to be. 'Species' makes no bones about its trashy, comic book origins, but stands tits and tentacles above its increasingly inferior sequels, and should appeal to alien aficionados or those who grew up watching the likes of Ripley, Hicks and Vasquez battling reptilian, acid blooded monsters in outer space. 'Species II' begins with a welcome dose of 'Robocop'-esque corporate satire, though the humour is short lived, as director Peter Medak inexplicably abandons its predecessor's sequel set up and begins anew. Astronauts Mykelti Williamson (always a good choice) and Justin Lazard return to Earth as heroes of the first manned mission to Mars, unbeknown to them however, is that they've contracted the same strain of DNA that helped create Sil. Lazard soon turns into an insatiable alien fiend; leaving a litter of offspring and many a dead sexual partner in his wake, fortunately (or not, as the case may be), Natasha Henstridge is back: only this time she's Eve (subtlety isn't the film's greatest strength) cloned by those meddlesome scientists to help combat any extra terrestrial threats. Michael Madsen and Marg Hellenberger also reprise their roles, though Madsen appears to be doing prep work for his Mr Chapel character in classic, short lived TV series 'Vengeance Unlimited'. 'Species II' trades suspense for cheap thrills & gore; its reasonably well constructed by the once innovative British-Hungarian Medak, who some will remember also directed 'The Krays', 'Let Him Have It' and cult Gary Oldman noir 'Romeo Is Bleeding'. Natasha Henstridge, though she's no great shakes in the acting department, does well to put a slightly different spin on her original character, though by the time she's filmed running topless in super slo-mo, Natasha's career path clearly defines itself as a flat line riding headlong into an abyss of dead-end sleaze and sexploitation. It could've been an alien allegory for the creation of a new master race, with man as the architect of his own demise...but its not, though super cool stand-up / future 'Law & Order' star Richard Belzer makes a cameo, which was nice. 'Species III' (yep, its not over yet) sees the budget take a noticeable nose dive; as Eve; Natasha Henstridge being a good sport for even turning up in such a thankless cameo, gives birth before being promptly dispatched in a somewhat muddled and confusing manner. Now from what I could gather, Eve & Lazarus's numerous offspring from Part II are still out there, and I liked the idea of how these creatures are, in many ways, the new kind of vampire; designed in the stars and spawned on Earth (mini-series, anyone?). 'Species III' focuses on Eve's daughter Sara (Sunny Mabrey) rescued from the powers that be and taken in by a mad scientist, though its only a matter of time before things go bad, needless to say, the presence of a military death squad sent to kill her doesn't help matters much. A pretty poor effort by anyone's standards, though it may prove marginally divertive at 3:00 A.M. in the morning, but to paraphrase Grandpa Fred from 'Gremlins 2: The New Batch': people who watch TV at 3 A.M. aren't unnerved by monsters, vampires or aliens. Sunny Mabery does as much as can be expected with this role; one shot where they cut between her and the creature inside is particularly effective, whilst the presence of an actual monster (albeit a man in a suit) works better than the usual, ill fated attempts at low budget CGI. This is 'Species' meets 'Saved By The Bell' saddled with lazy, but thankfully limited, SFX, acting of a cue card soap opera standard and marred by an often incomprehensible storyline; loaded with gratuitous nudity employed to keep its audience awake. Good clean fun. Sleaze, sex and wanton acts of bare-breasted ultra violence? No, it's not an after-dinner soirée at the Conservative party conference, but yet another dose of our favourite fertile alien killing machine. Hollywood hacks take another bite out of the budget to ruthlessly roll out 'Species 4: The Awakening'. Completely ignoring the previous three movies, Part IV sees Swedish born starlet Helena Mattsson as Miranda; an attractive, well adjusted twenty-something whose life is thrown into disarray when her uncle (RADA's Ben Cross) lets on that she's actually an alien, and a parasitic sex mad alien at that; not the best of news. Still, Miranda takes it on the chin as the pair set off to find a cure in Mexico. And that's when it all goes tentacles up, for the buxom beauty turns brutal nympho and embarks upon a cross border rampage that can only end in carnage, and take place in the buff. I can now announce that 'Species V & VI' will be filmed in my mate's back garden with a no star cast of Eastern European labourers, some blonde American prostitutes and a sock puppet (operated by yours truly). And its with that exciting bit of news that I can tell you 'Species 4: The Awakening' is utter nonsense, though no better or worse than the sequels that came before it. Mattson is OK, and some of the action sequences are similar in direction to Alberto Sciamma's 'Killer Tongue'. 'Species' is your mother-movie here, its children, in spite of shared lineage, simply can't compare. Alien lite.
"Alien vs Predator" is, bluntly, a stupid movie. Two franchises collide, aliens feed off predators, predators hunt aliens, humans get stuck in the middle (of a teen horror flick), and the special effects are computer generated. Some people lap up that kind of stuff. And it is interesting (perhaps a little sad?) from the point of view of the earlier Alien and Predator films. Ridley Scott"s fussy model based special effects, art design and direction of "Alien" made it something special; "Aliens" had all the tension a horror movie could ever hope for; and watching Arnie charge around the jungle, distressed by the deaths of the other mercenaries, and pursued by a usually invisible, but occasionally dreadlocked, monster from out of space does have an appeal - something a little lacking from "Alien vs Predator". I thin "Alien vs Predator" goes wrong in two places. First, there is no Schwarzenegger or Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) for the audience to get behind, but only characterless monsters often obscured by shadows or blood. Second, the CGI does not live up to the special effects in, at least, "Alien", and the set has none of that films atmosphere - HR Geiger"s twisted visions disappear into suburban USA. And there is no dense Jungle either. (Oh, and the narrative is hard to identify, never mind follow with interest.) This leaves the film with no central human characters to focus the audience"s desires or any sense of place. For me, therefore, the film cannot work. With no where, who and when it doesn"t even become anywhere, anytime, anyone, but rather nowhere, never, no one. I think that the monster meets monster concept of this film is better suited to computer games where the gamer can lend there own character to it, and has more clearly defined interests in it - to survive: I the film I don"t think anyone cares who dies, as long as it is gory. But does an action film have to work as a piece of drama? Am I taking "Alien vs Predator" too seriously? I can"t really say, though I am absolutely sure this film does have an audience.
Brilliant film for fans of Cary Grant - his facial expressions are an absolute must! Reminiscent of the old farces played on stage. Brilliant! One of the best Cary Grant comedies. Never fails to make me laugh.
A re-working of the 1980's classic but with a more gritty edge and stunning CGI, Battlestar Galactica has been brought right up to date. More of a drama than Sci-Fi, the series investigates the hopes and fears for the last group of humans to survive the Cylon attack.
This mini-series is the prelude to the series proper.
Battlestar Galactica is being decomissioned on the day that the Cylons attack the 12 colonies of Man. Old, worn-out and well past its prime, the Galactica is suddenly thrust headlong into a war against the Cylons - to protect the last remains of the human species from extinction. So begins the adventure.
The Galactica becomes both shepherd and sheep-dog to a rag-tag, fugitive fleet whilst escaping from the relentless Cylons. Their last, best hope, is to find the fabled 13th colony of man - Earth.
Within the fleet there are tensions between the military and the civilians. The military have a leader (Commander William Adama) whilst the civilians are left with the Minister for Education (Laura Roslin) who is the highest-ranking politician left alive and the tensions begin to show as the fleet flees from their attackers.
The Cylons. Once machine have evolved into human form. There are many copies and they are rebelling. Within the survivors in the human fleet, there are Cylon sleeper agents ready to be activated - only even they don't know that they are Cylon. Where does their loyalty lie?
The Cylons. Machines. Made by Man. Now the Cylons are on a mission - to destroy those who created them and become God's chosen people. And they are no longer just machines - they have evolved and now they look and feel human. Sleeper agents waiting in our midst to be activated. But some Cylons don't even know that they are not human. Who is your friend? Who is your enemy? Who can you trust? Am I a Cylon ...
My new Favourite film. If you like Mike Leighs films, this is Life is Sweet part 2. Sally Hawkins is perfect in the role of Polly. Totally London, totally uplifting, I loved everything about it. In British film terms, Mike Leigh is the Noel Coward of the working class.
An intriguing premise let down by a classic case of miscasting and some portentous, self-indulgent acts of metaphysical posturing. Nepotism reigns supreme as Gwyneth Paltrow's kid brother Jake, makes his directorial debut with 'The Good Night'; an eminently watchable, if not entirely successful, surrealathon focusing on a washed up singer (Martin Freeman), his obnoxious, manic-depressive partner (Gwyneth Paltrow), former band mate now smug advertising agency owner and boss (Simon Pegg), an oddball dream therapist (Danny Devito) and Freeman's literal dream girl (Penelope Cruz). An absurd, occasionally pitch black, journey chronicling the last, desperate acts of a man on the brink; Freeman puts in a reasonably good performance as an anxious has-been who skirts the edge of his sanity: forced to work for Pegg writing soulless jingles and endure an infuriating relationship with dour shrew Paltrow, its no surprise then, that he begins snatching moments of subconscious salvation in the form of his dream girl, who manifests herself in the shapely form of one Penelope Cruz--how many times is she going to play this role? Even if you count 'Abre Los Ojos' and 'Vanilla Sky' as one, Cruz was also the ideal woman in little seen rom-com 'If Only' and wartime melodrama 'The Girl of Your Dreams'. 'The Good Night' was a film I really wanted to like, and did in places, but ultimately, it's a Plastercine monument to Charlie Kaufmann, and reminds you of how good 'Being John Malkovich', his adaptation of 'Adaptation' and 'Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind' really were, even Zach Helm's 'Stranger Than Fiction' and Kaufman's own 'Human Nature' didn't quite work as well as one would hope. Now at the risk of sounding isolationist, I found Paltrow's Anglo-American cast awkward and ineffective, for if I were given free reign to recast, things would be a little different: Paltrow and Cruz could stay, John Lithgow in Devito's role, and though Simon Pegg has the art of playing an arrogant prick down to a fine science (or maybe that's just him), I'd love to see Nicholas Cage there instead, whilst Freeman's character would soar with Johnny Depp in Hunter S. Thompson mode (MILLIONS would see it) alternatively, I'd go with an all home counties cast of Chris Morrus for Freeman, Julian Barrat for Pegg, Kate Beckinsale for Cruz, Scotland's own Kelly MacDonald for Paltrow and Richard Briers for Devito (ABOUT the same amount of people would see it). I liked how Cruz was subtitled in Freeman's dreams, and the way in which this movie shows how reality and the subconscious ideal rarely correlate. Penelope Cruz is to Martin Freeman what Julie Christie was to Tom Courtney in 'Billy Liar', in fact, some of 'The Good Night's' strongest scenes come from successfully imitating John Schlesinger's sixties classic, whilst the dream sequences have a mild Gaudassian blur around the edges and are similar in direction to some of the indoor scenes from 'Barry Lyndon'. Martin Freeman was hit n' miss (for no one tops Kevin Bacon's snooze fuelled psychosis in 'A Stir Of Echoes'), Devito is the funniest he's been since 'Get Shorty' and Gwyneth Paltrow was, in spite of her onscreen condition, oddly attractive; evoking memories of her brief fling with solo credibility in 'Sylvia' and 'Proof'. All it really needed was a little work, and 'The Good Night' could've been something akin to a mini-masterpiece, as it is; Paltrow's movie misses the mark a little too often, and since some of its best moments are scenes & motifs borrowed from better films, looks unlikely to find an appreciative audience. I still like the idea, and I'd recommend it to those who like their drama dark, and their humour off the wall. Worth seeing once, and then its off to bed.
This programme has been fantastic and unmissable from the first episode to the last, it follows the gallaghers a far from traditional family, its funny in a very dark way but highly amusing. The acting is excellent and although sex is present in programe it never over steps the mark. There is some violence but its almost cartoon and never over the top. This gets top marks for any tv show that ive seen in recent years.
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