Saturday 31 October 2009

The Ruins


What starts out looking like a shitty teens in peril movie, slowly blossoms into a brilliant hour and a half of slow, drawn out nastiness with a modicum of wit about itself.
Written by the same bloke who wrote A Simple Plan, it's best watched knowing as little as possible about what's going to happen, for there are some genuinely neat moments of realisation in here.

Fantastic Mr. Fox


A children's film refracted through the prism of cynical, oh so clever, american indie film making.
The end result felt like somebody had held a bitter sixth form film student, with no friends, at gunpoint and forced him to remake Bagpuss.
But then what do I know, the child loved it ("equally as good as Bolt", apparently).

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Untraceable


(Saw + Internet) x Total Idiocy = Fail

Sunday 18 October 2009

Destricted


Art masquerading as porn. Or porn masquerading as art.
Or possibly just an excuse to get hard willes onto the shelves of HMV.

Up [3D]


Has joy written through it like a stick of rock.

Friday 16 October 2009

Zombieland


Fluctuates wildy between crazy frat-boy comedy and the inevitable pathos that comes from setting your film in a world where everybody has died, but haven't quite realised it yet.
Add to this a startling paucity of zombies, given the title, and you end up with a big brown plasticine ball of disappointment.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Death Race


Certainly shit, just couldn't decide which type; Fabulous shit, incredibly shit or just total fucking shit.
Actually, that's a lie, I did decide.
Option 3.

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Equilibrium


A visually sumptuous, often overlooked gem. Compares favourably to modern takes on dystopia by demonstrating a willingness to stop and investigate some of the deeper notions that are raised, not always successfully, but a nod in the right direction is better than the braindead fuckwittery we currently put up with.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Grotesque [Gurotesuku]


Due to this being the first film banned by the BBFC in quite some time, I watched it simply because a finger wagging moron in a suit told me I couldn't.
It's nothing more than a modern update of the infamous Guinea Pig series i.e. a tissue paper plot propping up a huge amount of torture, sexual humiliation and dismemberment. The end result being that the part of me that enjoys watching a film mainly tutted and rolled its eyes a lot whilst the part of me that enjoys extreme imagery sat back and gawked in admiration.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Surrogates


The director of Terminator 3 contines to demonstrate an uncanny knack for taking an idea that could be shaped into a deep, absorbing, intelligent concept and instead pissing it up a wall.

Shutter [2008 Remake]


An american studio gets a japanese director to remake a thai horror film, and guess what ? It's crap!
I will of course now hunt out the original.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs


Scores points for trying really hard, but it's just not enough.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Torso [I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale/Bodies Bear Traces Of Carnal Violence]


Despite being a flimsy whodunnit stretched around a series of girls in short skirts being brutally murdered and sawn into pieces, Torso has an undeniable charm that is difficult to explain.