The Midnight Meat Train

This has terrible reviews but I liked it.

Based on a short story by Clive Barker and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, it looks nice and icey and reminds me a bit of Candyman (the best film based on a Clive Barker story)

The horror is completely over the top cgi eyeballs flying out of heads and shit but I'm kind of glad otherwise it would be pretty full on. It's a disturbing enough premise and could have been truly horrific if handled in a more subtle way.

Bradley Cooper (before The Hangover) is a photographer. Brooke Shields tells him he needs more edgy shots so he starts going out at night and taking photos of women getting harrassed, bums and butchers. Brooke loves it and gives him a show but he's becoming obsessed with the mysterious butcher played by a mute Vinnie Jones.

Bradley is pretty solid and so is the directing but the tone changes from B to an A- to a Z back to B then finally a Z all in one movie.



YES - suprisingly good maybe it's the non american director?  

Zombieland

This is fuckin entertaining.

Most people are now zombies, the uninfected are the minority. This film follows 4 characters known only by their hometowns, Tallahassee, Witchita, Columbus and Little Rock who meet up, hang out and shoot zombies while trying to find ellusive snack foods and visit a childhood funpark.

Nothing challenging about this one but extremely enjoyable.

Great opening credits which actually contain the most gore in the entire film.


actually this got me to thinking about other great opening credits and here's one that a lot of people wouldn't have seen, all one take with awesome music by Baby Huey & The Babysitters.





YES - slight but fun.  

Bekushiru (Vexille)

In the future Japan is the world leader in robotics, however after it seems that it's heading towards producing androids (human/robot hybrids) the technology becomes banned by the UN. Japan's response is to close their borders and continue research. The country has been closed for the past 10 years.

I heard good things about this and wasn't disappointed. The story is intriguing, smart and doesn't hold the audiences hand at all. The 2 female characters of Vexille and Maria are strong and cool and it's them who save the guy/world which makes a change. Vexille is a female SWORD agent from the US and once her and her team infiltrate Japan things get really interesting. My favourite scenes involve the swirling metal  Jags who are like magnetic sandworms, roaming the desert collecting pieces of metal to grow larger.

This whole movie looks like a cut scene from a PS3 game ie great rendering but clunky motion capture.

The music is by english DJ Paul Oakenfold which includes Prodigy, Asian Dub Foundation, Basement Jax and DJ Shadow gives the whole thing a 1990's feel. I'm not sure if this is advanced or just annoying - I'm thinking annoying.

YES - original story and some great visuals.  

Avatar

This must be seen in 3D.

150 years in the future earth is fucked and humans are now capable of interstellar travel. The planet Pandora is home to the Navi and also a precious metal called (cringe) unobtanium. Humans have invaded and are mining it to use as fuel backed by military support. Scientists are conducting experiments using lab created human/navi hybrids as host bodies for their consciousness.

Using an avatar Jake Sully, a paraplegic, is the only human allowed to take the Navi inititaion to become part of the tribe. He does this initially to gain military intelligence as a reward for a costly leg opperation but later realises he doesn't want to return to his human body.

The story is ahem timley and James constantly reminds us of this by using terminology like shock and awe and pre emptive strike but it's clunky and comes across as terrorism for dummies. The characters are all stereotypes and only Sigourney is good enough to act her way out of it. Sam Worthington is extremely bland, his face is a blank (but 3 dimensional) slab, information that should've been conveyed by acting has to be communicated to the viewer by voiceover.

The Navi are a tribal stereotype and embarrassingly like Star Wars, all have non american accents when they speak, the only really interesting thing about them is they can plug into the trees and animals around them via white stamen like filaments hidden in their long plaits. When they speak in their native tounge it's subtitled in Papyrus font which pretty much says it all really.

Gripes aside this is an amazing spectacle. The forest is awesome and in 3D you feel like you're there among the irredescent plants and flowers and six limbed animals that live in it. Breathtaking. The forest is the star of this show and I could easily spend two and a half hours just roaming through the trees and taking in all the alien flora. I kept expecting the guardian of the forest to emerge from Princess Mononoke as it seems like this is somewhere he'd hang out.

I was reluctant about the move to total 3D for film remembering the 3D I've seen with spears jutting out at me and elephants trunks, but this is a whole other level - if they can work out how to watch them without wearing glasses then count me in.

I couldn't help thinking about Ender's Game while watching this. I'm not entirely sure why - maybe the guys at the start floating around in spaceships, maybe the Navi being able to communicate with the dead via trees reminding me of the piggies in speaker for the dead but I hope someone sees this and and realises it's time to make Ender into a movie in the meantime I'm satisfied knowing that 3D Battle Angel Alita is on the way.


YES - you have never seen anything like this.  

Adventureland

This is by the same people who did Superbad and has a similar tone but much quieter (and better)

Nerdy but nice James has just graduated and was going to New York but his dad has been demoted and can't afford to send him. James has no work experience whatsoever so ends up working at Adventureland funpark. James spends his days giving out pandas and nights hanging out with people from the park - Joel, Em and Lisa P and trying to avoid his childhood friend Frigo.

I really like this - the characters are all great especially Martin Starr's (Bill from freaks and geeks) Joel who smokes a pipe "A disgusting affectation I know" and realises that although he's smart his options are somewhat limited. Kristin Stewarts Emily is cool but fragile and makes bad choices. Jesse Eisenberg's James is naive and constantly asking for reassurance. This characters fell like real people, drink and take drugs like real people and don't always do the right thing.

I've worked shit jobs and some supposedly good ones but you know what - it really is the people you work with who make the difference. I'd rather work stocking supermarket shelves with decent people than in a better paying job with arseholes.


YES - lovely.  

Terminator Salvation

Christian Bale what happened to you?  when did you become such a dick? watching this it's like he hasn't even seen the first 2 movies, his John Conner is just like a fucking robot.
Maybe this was some kind of actor choice he made, trying something different and making him more like a robot than the robots he's fighting? the irony? I'm just looking for any reason his performance is so dead. John Conner has to be charastmatic, a little crazy like his mum and not so serious that he can't fuckin smile at least once - he has to be a real human driving humans to want to survive and this John Conner couldn't inspire me to do shit.

There is some good robot action of course but suprisingly it's the low tech 1st generation terminators that are the most sinister with their fake looking frankenskin faces. The other robots don't look like robots designed by robots - they look like robots designed to be toys sold to human children.

I watched the extended version although I don't know what the extra stuff I got was - maybe more of the topless rain scene and more of the really shitty robot eels.

Kyle Reese is the only decent character in this. I feel sad. I wish Kathryn Bigalow directed this.



NO- $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

You, the Living

All the reviews I've read about this are glowing and a friend that I respect the opinion of loves it and bought it on dvd. I also heard this was hilarious - really? was I watching the same movie as these people?

It's weird watching a film made by someone who hates you but this is the feeling I got watching this. Every character in this film is living a relatively safe kind of life and goes about their day to day business of creeping along in traffic, having unrequitable crushes, buying the right rug, taking their pet's for a drag and attending ridiculous formal dinners.

It's trivial, banal stuff but that's exisistance. We ignore the fact we are going to die and piss around buying  jeans and watching screens.

I found it slow going and I didn't enjoy spending time with any of these people.

The surreal climax featuring a phalanx of planes flying over the city is a fitting ending. Are these mysterious planes flying a reconnaissance or are they a bombing raid? Nothing like a bit of crisis to make one realise what's actually important and start appreciating our 80 (give or take) years of living.

NO - Nice colour palette and clean scenes but too pretentious.

Reign Over Me

Named after the Who song, Love Reign O'er Me, this is the story of dentist Alan (Don Cheadle) who runs into an old college friend Adam Sandler. Adam's wife and three daughters died in a plane crash and he is mentally effected by his loss. They end up hanging out - going to Mel Brooks movies and playing Shadow of the Colossus but Alan ends up trying to get him professional help which sends Adam over the edge.

Don Cheadle is great I always like him and wish he was in more starring roles. His character in this is really decent but boring, he spends his evenings making puzzles with his wife so it's understandable that he finds hanging out at bars, record stores and going to movie marathons more interesting it's just hard to understand why he would care so much about a guy he hasn't seen for 10 years. Adam is in his serious acting mode which equals a lot of mumbling and occasional shouting, actually some of his mumbling borders on ventriloquism. He's just not right for this part and unbalances the movie.

Everything is slightly unbelievable from Liv Tyler's psychiatrist, Donald Sutherland's judge to Don's dentist stalker there's too much quirk.

NO - needs less Adam Sandler

The Rock-afire Explosion

I'm the right age for this but unfortunatley I'm in the wrong country. I have no idea what Show Biz Pizza is or who any of these characters are but it doesn't actually effect the viewing. This is a human story of obsession, childhood memories, faded glory, an inventor with possible aspergers and acheiving your dreams.

Show Biz Pizza was a restaurant chain in the 1980's that children loved and I'm sure most parents hated. It included video games, rides and an anamatronic band that sang while you ate. This band was called The Rock-afire Explosion and featured 2 bears, gorilla, wolf, mouse and something that plays the drums (I'm not sure what animal he is a mouse - bear?)

This documentary is about the man who invented the band and a man who loved the band.

When Chris Thrash was a child his mum used to drop him off at Show Biz while she went to see a movie and that place became his Mandalay. As an adult he lives in Alabama and works at a car yard and as DJ at the skate rink (where he met and married his wife) Chris bought the band Rockafire from it's inventor Aaron Fechter. He set's it up and programs it to play to modern songs which he posts on youtube. His part of the tale is glorious, a man who actually achieves his dream. There's a great part in the film where he tells of how he realised this and had a bit of a cry once he had set up the band.

Aaron Fechter remembers the glory days of his company Creative Engineering when he was king of the world and even Michael Jackson visited his workshop where he employed 300 people to make the rockafire characters, costumes and anamatronics. Today he is trapped in the tomb which is the CE warehouse surrounded by tools and the decomposing characters of rockafire. He takes fans on tours and still sells some of his robots - recently to Jordan but he had to make the gorilla character "whiter"

It's about preserving the past and being trapped in the past.

YES - Chris Thrash I salute you sir.  

This is the awesome logo of Aaron's company and his website - Creative Engineering (which features a picture of his young wife who he met after she made a fan video for him)

Lost Boys: The Tribe

Light a man a fire and he's warm for a day, light a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

I hate sequel titles that include colons. Imagine Alien: Hive Queen or Godfather: Flashbacks.
Just call it part 2 or something completely new (Empire Strikes Back) if it's any good at all it doesn't need to use the title of the first film at all. If a film title includes a colon this should be taken as a warning of high levels of shitness like Robin Williams without a beard.

The worst part of this is the music. Horrible soft rock, mix it up for fucks sake. One of the reason's the first film is so great is the different styles of music - Echo and the Bunnymen, INXS, Roger Daltry and Tim Capello.

Nods to the first film dont work at all - overweight sax man, a remix of Cry Little Sister and a kookie relative - oh and Angus Sutherland?! the second twice removed cousin of Keifer, has 0 charisma and can't act for shit.

NO - way.

Nothing But Trouble

This is one bizarre fuckin movie, let me break it down - Chevy and Demi end up in an old junkyard mining town which is populated by a noseless white hotdog eating Dan Akroyd, cross dressing John Candy and a rollercoaster called bonestripper (with it's own themesong) Chevy and Demi must escape from the trap filled funhouse that is Dan Akroyds mansion.

I have an interest in movies directed by actors, it's a strange phenonemon as if dressing up and pretending to be someone else suddenly also qualifies you in the art of directing (money also helps). I admit sometimes it's justified (Sean Penn) but most times it's a vanity project.
This is Dan Akroyds first and only stint behind the camera, apparently this didn't do very well, it seems like he is going for a Romancing the Stone/The Burbs feel but it ends up that gross browny grey colour you get when you mix all the paints together.

There are highlights including the condiment train, spotting a young Tupac Shakur and the cool poster by Boris Vallejo however there's plenty more lowlights including major factors like story, direction and writing.

I don't understand the appeal of Chevy Chase and his humour seems to consist of making lame comments to himself. Dan Akroyd just doesn't appreciate any kind of subtlety and the over the top scene featuring his penis nosed judge playing the electric piano with Digital Underground is a cringe inducing embarrassment.



NO - the humour is so childish that it's insulting.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

The most annoying thing about this film is that is could of been great but it tries too hard.

If your film is about nerds then so be it but nerds dont sit around going "we're nerds" they just are nerds and go about their nerdy business. It should be the unspoken N word.

3 (nerd) friends sit around in the pub. One from the IT crowd, a fatty and a small weasly one. IT  meets a weird woman who claims to be a time traveller and is convinced this is a set up by his friends. Weasel discovers a time slip in the toliet and before Bonnie Raitt can rasply sing "sitting in a powder keg and giving off sparks" they are jumping around through time trying to right what once went wrong.

This is supposed to be a comedy but a lot of the writing falls flat. Intriguing in places, I did wait until this was finished before making a cup of tea but in hindsight if I could travel back to watch it again I'll just go and make the tea.

No - Bill and Ted have more heart.

Mary and Max

I gave this a miss initially because the design of the world and characters is repulsive to me like Shrek but I saw it on a plane recently and was blown aware by the strength and intergrity of the characters. I ended up caring and feeling for these ugly lumps of clay and even feeling a bit emotional.

Mary lives in Melbourne with her alcoholic mother and absent father. Her lonlieness leads her to start a correspondence with a random person in America who ends up being a 40 year old man with aspergers syndrome. They continue their correspondence throughout Mary's teens and into adulthood when she becomes a mother.

The isolation of these characters is heartbreaking. All they want is a real friend and not a rooster called Chips who wears a shrunken chip packed tied around his neck or an imaginary friend who reads self help books in the corner.

It's a story of  real people and not the "chosen" one of most films who have a specific path and destiny and seem to always find true love. Beautiful.

YES - a lovely story of an unusual friendship.  

Spontaneous Combustion

This is directed by Tobe (chainsaw massacre) Hooper and it's a piece of shit.

Made in 1990 it's dated story about atomic bombs and spontaneous human combustion, it's contrived and unsatisfying. I struggled to get halfway through this and only made it that far because I like Brad Douriff and the 90's outfits are very entertaining.

It's pronounced "toby" by the way.

NO - this is so bad it's bad.  

New Moon

There is actually a logical explanation why the wolf boys are half naked for the entire film and that's because as shapeshifters they are hot blooded and also all the transforming means they go through a lot of t-shirts. My cousin who has read the books explained this to me but what about pants and shoes?  

It doesn't matter really and you need to leave all the cynicism behind to be able to watch this.

Human Bella loves vampire Edward. Edward loves her so much he lies and tells her he's breaking up with her to protect her from the dangers of vampire life. While he's gone she starts a relationship with shapeshifter Jacob who is the opposite of Edward and voila love triangle.

You can read between the lines here to make it more interesting - Jacob becomes a shapeshifter (goes through adolescence) Edward won't change (sleep) with Bella until she's older and they're married. She tempts him just by being a woman (he might not be able to stop and go all the way) or you can just sit back and think of first love, it's a romantic drama after all. Meyer who wrote the books is a morman and doesn't believe in sex before marriage so it's the abstinence of this film that makes eveything exciting and the electricity of small gestures that young people can relate to.

This all proved too much for a dad in the theatre who started snoring loudly and I was a bit restless throughout the repetitive "I want to protect you" scenes however there is a standout scene in the forest set to spooky "I'm a creep" Thom Yorkes' Hearing Damage, with the wolves running down vampire Victoria.

NO - unless you're under 15 or a virgin or have a massive crush on someone or just starting a new relationship. 

Gimme Shelter

sour scene baby

First of all I'm not a fan of the rolling stones. I watched this movie because it's a documentary of a free concert that went to shit.

In 69 the stones along with some other bands played a free concert at altomonte speedway to a crowd of over 300 000 (that's almost the population of my home town)
The hells angels san francisco were invited to chaperone the stones to the stage, which they do in spectacular style but when trying to stop the tripped out kids from climbing on the stage, booze vs drugs turns into brawls and someone gets killed.

Some incredible scenes in this and it looks amazing, pristine. With older film stock there's a tendancy because of the film quality to be somewhat removed from the watching experience but this is so clean it's easy to become immersed.

My favourite scene is when Jagger is singing the haunting Under My Thumb and the camera kind of zooms in on this hells angel that looks exactly like the terminator. Meanwhile a random guy is having a strange meltdown on stage which no one seems to notice until he starts taking off his clothes and the angels snap into action and throw him off the stage - scary.

This is one of those brilliant documentaries that becomes so much more by happenstance like Capturing the Friedmans and The Staircase. There's a scene where Mick is being interviewed and he says that this event will be an example of how the people of america can behave at large gatherings and he's right, now it seems you can't have a school disco without someone being stabbed or a concert without someone being arrested or taken away in an ambulance so I guess it was all downhill from that 1969 concert only 4 months after woodstock.

 

YES - very good and you don't have to be a fan of the stones.  

This is it

I saw this in New Zealand and I could not fucken belive the quality of the sound, screen and theatre in general and this was a regular multiplex. I asked my sister if this was normal and she said yep pretty much. I'm used to way smaller screens, non soundproof walls, crap sound and lights left on throughout the entire film not to mention ripped seats that smell like BO. This theatre (Reading) was immaculate and the seats were thrones.

This is it contains film  footage of stage rehearsal, some cut together with CG inserts and some behind the scenes with dancers and other people involved. It contains all the songs you want to hear (apart from Speed Demon and Dirty Diana but I think I'm alone in liking those ones) and some seriously awesome dancing.

It's a little disconcerting to see how everyone kowtows to him, sure he's the boss but it's a little shit eating. Also I learnt that his website is called MJJC - hmmm JC eh? 

He's a bit of a cheese ball but still rocking the finger bandages (to hide track marks?) gold pants and kick arse robotic dance moves.

It always surprises me who likes Michael Jackson. My auntie who cried when he died. My cousins husband who at his wedding busted out Billie Jean dance moves EXACTLY like Michael. My friends brother who when drunk starts singing and dancing MJ songs and my gran who thinks he speaks so nicely! hell even I had a Michael J doll and rewinded thriller zombie dance a million times to try and learn the dance moves. He really does have this cross culture/ all ages appeal.

YES - high quality rehearsal footage and a great taste of what the show was going to be like.  

Paranormal Activity

terrifying! this years exorcist. I shit myself.

It's not and you won't.

A norm couple decide to set up a camera in their house to try and catch evidence of the strange noises they've been hearing at night. They succeed in catching some weird goings on and it becomes apparent something sinister is taking place.

The no name actors are fine if a little stage school but successfully create a believable relationship. There are some unsettling episodes, most effective being the time lapse footage of them in bed at night which works because it's so subtle, other over the top scenes involving a ouja board and an internet exorcism are just corny.

It's well edited and doesn't outstay it's welcome but it's just not scary. I watched this in ideal viewing conditionals - by myself in the dark and really hoped to get creeped out but was sadly disappointed.

This feels like a second cousin to the Blair Witch which is actually very creepy and Incident in Lake Country which is actually fucking terrifying (aliens) and if you want to shit your pants I would recommend tracking that down.

NO - an episode of Ghosthunters is more frightening than this.