seen any good flicks lately?

Saw the trailer for 'The Hobbit' yesterday... It looks wow!

Released December 2012 - my toes are curling in anticipation already...

Oooh, incredibly early release for a trailer.

Very much looking forward to another rendition of 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' not least because I never get bored looking at Daniel Craig.

Otherwise, there appears to be a load of poop on over the christmas period.  

I watched Black Swan this week fully expecting to pick up a book halfway through and leave the other half to it........But its actually rather good.

I loved the last Harry Potter movie ! (again i thought i would hate it)

And my guilty pleasure has to be Machete ! ( only blokes will understand that one but Robert Rodriguez can do no wrong in my mind )

Saw a very strange Czech animated film on Wednesday called, "Surviving Life." Vaguely remminiscent of Monty Python. It DID make sense in the end, but it was seriously weird! I don't think I could sit through it again.

I saw My Night With Marilyn last night.  It was well acted and entertaining but didn't wow me.  The portrayal of Marilyn was very convincing but the story line wasn't exactly gripping.  Worth seeing  but I wouldn't give it a "must see" rating.

"Another Earth" is rather good. Beautifully shot & lit, and the actors aren't A-listers at the moment, though the male lead was Ethan in Lost.

Watched Tamara Drewe on the telly last night.

A bit light and frothy but some funny moments, and Gemma Arterton is a fine piece of English totty. This reviewer approveth,

7/10

Ah, yes Gemma Arterton. Grrr. She is, unfortunately outside my .5+7 range otherwise we'd probably get married.

The shot of Gemma Arterton in those shorts makes film a 9/10

So, 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' was interesting.  Beautifully produced, it was a much slicker affair than the previous version.  The story is compelling but the strands took much longer to come together in this film,   It left us wondering if those who hadn't seen the previous film or read the book would be able to follow the plot.

Daniel Craig is beautiful but he didn't fully convince as Blomkvist.  The actress playing Salander was better but I think I still prefer the rawness of Noomi Rapace.

Worth a watch.  7/10 

MI4 - Ghost Protocol

I suspect the Ghost Protocol term is totally made up.

Went to an Imax to see this with my two lads. Well, very loud, what with the sound system being about 12,000 watts or summat. Truly excellent stunt work and great action sequences.

The basic storyline was reasonable but some of the stings/setups in the film must be some of the silliest ever committed to celluloid, and the plot had more holes than you could drive a routemaster bus through. I thought little matters like "military grade firewalls" to protect, erm the elevator server room in a hotel were spectacularly ridiculous.

So, impressively made but the suspension of disbelief necessary for a film to be truly successful was blown out of the water. Plus the film suffers from the James bond issue - which is that being a franchise, you know the hero will survive anything the baddies throw at him and be up and running again in time for the next action sequence/sequel. Tom Cruise gets caught in a huge explosion, hit by a car, falls off buildings etc etc and comes up trumps every time

Stunts 9/10

Storyline, plot, dialogue, character development 2/10

For anyone who hasn't seen it or even if you have, Bolt is on BBC1 today at 17:30. It's a must see

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I'm not a big fan of David Fincher. Of the 5 other films I have seen from him he ranges from overblown (Se7en) to overrated (The Social Network, Fight Club). When I found out that he was doing another version of the Swedish original of this film, I wasn't exactly thrilled. (Rule 1 page 1 of the film critics handbook - 'Hollywood ruins originals' - that should be tattooed above your heart). I read the novel in one balmy and whisky fuelled night time sitting about a year ago and found it scintillating; it stayed with me for a few weeks. I've also seen the original Swedish version of the film and whilst not a classic; it was atmospherically satisfying and pushed all the right buttons for me .

A brief plot outline - Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Daniel Craig) is asked by the retired and stupidly wealthy Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to do some detective work for him. Blomqvist agrees, and gets cracking on his investigation. He ends up finding out about Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a girl with incredible hacking skills and a very distinctive tattoo. She helps him with the investigation, and the rest of the film is them trying to solve the case... at least on the surface that's what it's about - but this film runs deeper than a Tennessee coal seam. I'll not give away any spoilers - but if you've read the book, there's a major change that doesn't really detract from the film but left me slightly miffed.

My overall impression is that the film is stylish and sexy with great cinematography. It has a very well written and clever screenplay and a throbbing techno inspired score- the acting is superb, with Mara in particular shining throughout; though Craig's initial attempt to add a Swedish lilt to his dialogue was a bit silly - luckily he reverted back to English accent in later scenes. The subject matter is a bit grim in parts and those of a sensitive nature might be a little disturbed by a few scenes and the general theme.

I enjoyed it quite a lot and it's without doubt Fincher's best film and, dare I say it, even better than the Swedish original and by a country mile.

9/10 (Wear a cardigan - it looks freezing!)

What a weird name for a girl.  Wouldn't it've been better to reverse it?  Mara Rooney .... p'raps her folks were big football fans.

Funnily enough, you're not far from the truth - there is a big 'football' element - her daddy and grandaddy before him owned some American gridiron franchise and her first name is her granddad's surname... not proper football but near enough

I can't decide if it's marginally worse or marginally better than Stockard or Sigourney.  The hideous names of Hollywood .....

Saw Tamara Drewe at the flicks - entertaining, easy watch.  I like homegrown films.

Saw half of Danish flick Pusher at the weekend.  Hoping to get to see the rest of it on Friday eve.  Good so far.  Lots of profanity and a young Mads Mikkelsen.

Contrived to miss much of what was on telly over the festives, but got through some DVDs.

Cowboys and Aliens.  Daniel Craig is our stone chiselled hero (cowboy) and the film contains most of the stereotypical characters that you would expect in a Western (Harrison Ford does a nice turn as the cattle owner that the town relies on for it's livelihood).  As the title suggests this is not a run of the mill western, but the resulting storyline is entertaining and noisy.

Ingloreus Barsterds (this is probably not the correct mis-spelling).  Maybe it was because I was dipping in and out of this while cooking but I couldn't warm to this one and gave up about half way through by which time not a lot (apart from introducing the principle actors) had occured.

Seen a few over the past week.  I've copied and pasted from a list I'm keeping on FB so nothing in depth.

Thor (BluRay) - Loud, bright, silly, Natalie Portman.  Nuff said

True Grit (BluRay) - Not the typical Cohen Brothers.  Fab performances all round.  Not usually a fan of westerns, but this was spot on.  On the purchase list.

Sherlock Holmes (Flicks) - Not as good as the first one, bit still good fun.  Story was raced along a bit too quickly at times, and Ritichie needs to stop doing so many slomos.  A thumbs up though nevertheless

Cowboys and Aliens (BluRay) - Silly, silly, silly.  But sort of good.  Harrison Ford doesn't have a good range really.  He plays slightly grumpy pretty well, but his angry grimace, which all directors seem to love as they always get him to do it, is bad.  Look out for it - you'll laugh from now on.  Anyway, the film is silly and loud and too long but entertaining enough.

Lavender Hill Mob (TV) - An Ealing classic.  Alex Guiness at his best and Syd James doesn't go "yha-yha" once.  If only crooks really were that nice.

For some reason I have objections to the remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  I just object to Hollywood coming and trampling it's high and mighty self all over a perfectly good film.  I think they saw something good and decided to steal it. I won't be going to the pictures to watch it but I expect I'll watch it on DVD when it comes out.

I like a silly film but I thought Tamara Drewe was a pile of poop.

Over Christmas I watched:

Sherlock Holmes - the first one, for the second time.  I did think it was rather good, plenty to keep me entertained (though I think I prefer Benedict Cumerbatch and Martin Freeman).  Good enough acting and storyline.

The Hangover II - I was surprised how funny this was considering they followed the same format.  There wasn't the same tension in this one though.

Water for Elephants - a lovely film.  It made me cry.  I like Reese Witherspoon, I'm not so keen on Twilight boy though.  It turns out he's pretty wooden in whatever film he makes.  Again, a nice story, different to those I've seen for a while and well acted (if I bit sterile from R Patz).

The Resident - A woman moves into an apartment block where it turns out the owner has a secret network of walkways behind the walls meaning he can perve over her.  I think it's been done before. And better.

Shrek Forever After - they were all on the telly over Christmas apart from this one so I thought I'd give it a go.  Considering it was the fourth one in the series, I thought it still had the Shrek magic.  I do like a good animation.

The Ghost - Ewan McGregor is the ghost writer for ex-PM Pierce Brosnan.  Overly complicated rubbish, which, despite all the twist and turns was completely transparent and even I saw the end coming a mile off.

Gnomeo and Juliet  - Garden gnome romantic rivalry.  I loved it.  I can see how others would think it a bit silly though.

Horrible Bosses - 3 friends have 3 evil employers and plot to kill them.  Nice idea, poorly executed.

Over christmas the films were:

 Green Lantern - better than everyone ive spoken to said it would be

Sherlock 2 - a good mindless fun fight

Tamara Drew - not what i expected and so enjoyed it more than i would have

Waterhorse - ok a kids film but nice all the same

Sweeny Todd - Second time still love it and amazed people walked out of the cinema when they realised it was all singing

 Dead Snow - a good zombie romp so bad its funny