at the movies with me!

feast

incase you didnt know, this little flick is the latest winner of "project green light" over in the states... but dont let that put you off. only made for a million bucks its pretty effing bloody. i think the whole budget went into buckets of blood and guts. story is pretty simple.. "there are some mother fucking creatures coming in here.. you better listen to me if you wanna survive!!!" then the fucking chaos begins. limbs and brains are all over the place as a select group of people try to fight for their lives against these hella weird creatures. the action is pretty full on and frenetic... i wouldnt recommend for epilepsy sufferers. characters are all average and there is alot of fun to be had watching people covered in alien vomit, blood, brains, organs ... limbs ... EVERYTHING! i would be interested to see what the other choices were for P.G 2005 but apparently this was the best of the lot. henry rollins has a good little role and there are quite a few jokes spread through-out the film. no one was safe. not the wheel-chair kid, the 6 yr old child and the cliche HERO character. points for that.

letters from iwo jima

this is the other side to the coin re: "flags of our fathers" ... clint eastwood does it again in creating an epic but simple story that captures the whole war vibe. shot almost entirely in japanese it's basically about kids that dont wanna fight and are scared and write letters. the film has some awesome cinematography... i LOVE the muted colour palette and hand-held camera work by tom stern. i LOVE the choreographed action scenes and all the explosions. i LOVE the japanese way of dying with honour and all that jazz. actually, there wasnt much to this film i didnt like or love. i thought the running time would be a slight annoyance... but the 2 & a half hours seemed to fly by like a bomber air craft. ken watanabe from last samurai & batman begins gives another great performance as the general who is determined to fight to the end. most of the supporting cast is great too... showing us a very interesting perspective to the war. in conclusion letters is a very compelling and fine example of war movies!

transformers

ok. so, there wasnt more to meet my eye in this film. basically an excuse for michael bay to make alot of money and give us all some LOUD NOISES and spectacular action sequences. not that theres anything wrong with that. anyways, kid buys car. its a robot. gotta find cube. dont let bad robots get near it. gotta fall in love with ridiculously hot chick. theres your story.but the action. PHEW! bay certainly delivers on that. having never watched the cartoon as a kid i have no connection to this film, i went in with an open mind just expecting something average and totally kick-ass. yeh, its here... but it certainly wasnt average. michael bay is a boys director and he certainly knows how to shoot a movie for the guys. lots of guns, military is photographed always very patriotically... sun behind them... slow motion... guns going off.. and the women are all covered in sweat and shown from low angles. i was a fan of shia labeouf and am interested in him now that he's in INDY IV ... special effects were incredible and i never thought i would get so excited about car chases... thats until they turn into fucking robots while speeding down the effing highway. hmm... yeh, im sure everyone in the world will see this movie. so, i should just end it with .... SEQUEL!!!

the black dahlia

meh. what a wasted opportunity. all the ingredients were there. but like my scones from about 2 weeks ago they just didnt rise to the occasion. HA! SNAP. anyways... pretty girl gets murdered then detectives all have a go at trying to find out what happened. i was confused and annoyed at pretty much everything in this film. not even scarlett could save me!!! some good scenes and PD are scattered through-out the film but i couldnt get past the fucking accent on hillary swank (sorry to disagree with you david) and her fucking mother who was not even a good nutcase but a fucking idiot acting like someone who had "lost the plot" (embarrassing much?) ... yeh, not happy when i waste 2 hrs of a film and it doesnt deliver. HMM ... i havent seen earlier de palma work so i had nothing to compare it to. the only thing i can compare it to was l.a confidential ... which was so much better. i will give it kudos for some nice cinematography, music, costumes and art direction. but story and acting pretty much all stank. sorry brian!!!

the last king of scotland

finally i got to see what all the fuss was about re: "that performance" ... forrest whitaker got the oscar and it was well deserved. although, james mc avoy does a pretty, pretty, pretty good job of matching his main star!! so... its all about this scottish doc (who is gorgeous) going to uganda to help and then becomes idi amin's personal aide/advisor/doctor and pretty much anything else that goes on. under kevin macdonald's (touching the void) direction the story flows at a great pace and with writing responsible for helen mirrens "the queen" it's understandable why the film has some great moments. the cinematography by hand-held expert anthony dod mantle (dogville, maderlay, 28 days later) and the production design of capturing the whole 70's thing is fantastic. i was impressed that it was actually shot on location in uganda and that IT WASN'T REAL. i thought it was.... but i was WRONG! brilliant writing and story-telling and acting and I LOVE AFRICA!!!