My Movie Diary 23 July 2012

Have you been to Letterboxd.com yet? You should, it's ace. Aside from the social networking for film geeks aspect of it all it has the extremely helpful feature of creating a film diary, enabling you to document your thoughts quickly (essential blogging tool) before fleshing them out for a bigger review later. It also makes this much easier.

Tyler at the award winning Southern Vision hooked me up with an account last Sunday and since the 15th July I have logged 15 movies as watched. In a week that saw me go to the cinema for the first time since my Prometheus debacle for Dark Knight Rises it would be safe to say that some of these were superb whilst others were absolute garbage.

Let's get the garbage out of the way shall we?

Why Did They Even Bother?

Treasure Guards (2011) is a pan-European production starring Anna Friel that sounds a lot like The Librarian or National Treasure. At this point you may ask what exactly I expected and you'd be right. Poor Anna Friel has been in a series of awful films since Pushing Daisies got cancelled and this is right down there with Land of the Lost for worst movie of her career. My review on Letterboxd covers it quite well I feel:

"Just awful. Completely and utterly shocking in every aspect. It's not even one of those bad movies you can laugh along with."

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)  the end of the trilogy. I really disliked the film and struggle to find any redeeming qualities. There's a story surrounding Rob Zombie and the making of Halloween 2 that says he deliberately made it in to a giant pile of shit so that nobody could ruin his brilliant reimagining of the horror franchise after he was done. The combination of the studio forcing a sequel and Zombie not wanting to do it led to a poor movie and as far as I know they haven't gone back for a third film, Zombie got his wish. This story stayed with me and is the first thing I thought of upon walking in to the bright sunshine after watching TDKR, surely this would be the only way such a revered film maker as Christopher Nolan would create something so exposition heavy, something that was all effect and no cause? I wasn't surprised to later read that he didn't really want to make a third Batman movie.

"There was so much wrong with this movie I don't know where to start. Just a horrible waste of 3 hours and the good will built by the previous two movies. "

Blade: Trinity (2004) the end of another trilogy. I can't claim that this was any surprise. I'd previously turned it off after 5 minutes for crimes against the original film and excruciatingly bad performances but it was on Fox movies and Leah hadn't seen it so in one of our moods for mindless action we pressed play. Oh how we wish we didn't. Written and directed by David S. Goyer, the man responsible for the majority of TDKR script failed to entertain us in any way.

"Honestly worse than i remember. I can see why Dark Knight Rises was so poor with the majority of the script written by the exposition happy writer/director of this piece of junk."

There was a whole bunch of non events in the fifteen films, mostly old Bogart movies played on TCM but from the middling bunch I should highlight a few pieces of not so bad cinema.

 It Passes The Time

Treasure Island (2012) looks and feels like a TV movie, or a mini-series or something. It is a nice looking one that obviously had a very high budget. The adaptation is faithful and at three hours long probably too faithful.

"Izzard is good as Silver but I can't get his standup routines out of my head whenever he speaks."

Teenage Paparazzo (2010) is a documentary by Entourage star Adrien Grenier about a teenage boy in LA who became a Paparazzo (it's not just a clever name you see.) At 90 minutes it shouldn't have felt as long as it did, there were some real pacing issues that the 30 minutes of deleted scenes shows the film makers were aware of. The narrative drifted away from the subjest and in to a study of the relationship between the media and society which brought up a few interesting points but at other times felt contrived and obvious. I feel like it was worth watching though, not least for the way the relationshio between director and subject develops over time.

The Andromeda Strain (1971) was based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. A small town is killed by a space borne virus, scientists investigate. I enjoyed it for its content but not for its cinematic qualities. There was definite potential for this to be great.

"Great story. The whole time watching it I was thinking with better direction/creative vision this would be fantastic. I'm thinking oscar potential.

But sadly this was 8 years before Alien revolutionised the thriller and it suffers dramatically in comparison thanks the slightly campy attitudes of the early 70s. In the years after this we would see dramatic improvement thanks to Logans Run and Soylent Green and next to those this stands up well as an historical artefact."

Blade (1998) is cool.

"Stephen Dorff is great at swearing even when it's not really necessary and so he swears in every sentence of dialogue he has. Wesley Snipes as Blade is a total badass and so he acts like a total badass at all times. Tom Cruise is going to try delivering lines like Blade has in that movie Reacher and is going to fail, simply because he is a whiny little bitch and Wesley Snipes could kick his ass with one hand behind his back and the rest of him in jail for tax evasion."

Paper Heart (2009) has some fun with the documentary format. It's a documentary style movie about a girl making a documentary about what it is to be in love and who falls in love whilst making it whilst at the same time being a documentary about love. The seemless blending of interviews with real people and performances by Michael Cera and Charlene Yi playing versions of themselves provides an enjoyable experience that I'm very glad to have found hidden in the documentary section of the local video store.

"A really fun and cute mockumentary for fans of Michael Cera. Cera plays on his screen persona but It's Charlene Yi's movie."

Beyond that there were only a handful of fims that were truly worth my time.

Sometimes They Make Something Great

Cabaret (1972) based on the semi-biographical writings of Christopher Isherwood in Goodbye To Berlin. Starring Liza Minelli as the simply fabulous cabaret star Sally Bowles opposite Basil Exposition in the Isherwood role. I know you;ve heard of this movie and if you haven't seen it you simply must. Even just for the show stealing performance of Joel Grey.

"I don't go in for musicals in general but this is done so well and the songs don't interrupt the flow of the story in the way I usually find them to.

A fabulously entertaining film with tragic undertones and a sad ending."

Fat City (1972) is a late John Huston film starring a very young Jeffrey Lebowski opposite a superb Stacey Keach. Recommended to me via By Kubrick's Beard I shall point you to his fantastic review as there's nothing that I can say that will come close to the brilliant job done over there.

"Whenever you hear someone telling people about the great run of films America made in the early 1970's, and they get to the list, and they begin to feel fatigue, just wait for a pause and say "And Fat City. John Huston's Fat City." At that point the kids frown, and they admit they've not even seen Fat City. "Right," you say, "and you never even heard of "Fat City"
David Thompson - Have You Seen? "

Hombre (1967) a revisionist western starring Paul Newman and based on a book by Elmore Leonard is nothing like the Tv serials I have in my mind when I think of western movies. It comes close to being noir with the existential nature of the lead character. Highly recommended indeed.

"I'm a western novice but I reckon I could watch a hundred more and not find a better or more enjoyable one.

Newman is subtle yet powerful but the impressive Diane Cilento steals the show as Jessie the innkeeper. Its rare enough to find a strong, independant woman with brains and class in a film let alone in a genre typified by misogyny. I am surprised that this performance didn't shoot her to stardom, instead she returned to the relative anonymity she came from."

Letterboxd.com is great by the way. Go get yourself some of it and don't forget to follow me.

What You Been Watching? 1 July 2012 - 6 July 2012

I lied. I said the next post was going to be the incredibly titled "So Toby, Now That You're Back On BBBG What's Happening?" one but I'm sitting on the sofa contemplating how much I've enjoyed the Josh Radnor film Happythankyoumoreplease and thought I'd write about it a little instead. It turned in to this. Darwin would be proud.

It's almost a week in movies post but not quite.

I saw the Woody Allen Documentary this week. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. It was two hours of "then Woody made this film, people liked it but they didn't like the next one." There was a bit of new interview footage of the great man himself, it's sad to watch, he's old now but still a genius.

The fact that he's old made this an important step in preserving him, making him immortal; his opinion on life and his career are now saved for all time. But there's no way that the film maker could have been unbiased as part of getting this exclusive, highly sought after, rights to this footage. Skimming over the low points, of which anyone aware of Allen's career will know there have been many. We all have our own particular choice of worst Allen film and some of us refuse to acknowledge his faults, gushing endlessly about why Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a masterpiece or that Jason Biggs is the perfect Allen surrogate in Anything Else (that's my one) and not acknowledging this aspect of Allen means we might have to wait another twenty years for a full and accurate portrait.

And that's ignoring the whole Mia Farrow's adopted daughter thing.

So two hours wasted I would say. Sorry folks.

Have you ever heard of this talented young actor by the name of Val Kilmer? 1989 saw him appear alongside then wife Joanne Whalley in the debut film from director John Dahl, Kill Me Again. A key film in the film soleil ouevre it features Kilmer as a seriously down on his luck PI, Whalley as the dame with a heart of stone using Kilmer to secure her escape with the takings of a bloody heist from psychotic boyfriend Michael Madsen.

It's all pretty standard stuff plot wise, crosses and double crosses keep you wondering who's going to come out of it alive and whose side will they be on when they do? But it's an enjoyable ride through the sleaze of Nevada, film soleil's version of New York, with some good performances all round, most notably from Mr Blonde. I mention QT's debut here as there's no doubt in my mind that he was influenced by this film. Michael Madsen towering over a guy strapped to a chair as he tortures him for information. You all know the scene, only it was done here first folks, with more blood.

John Dahl demonstrates he has some talent to lend to the genre (going on to make the superb thriller The Last Seduction with Linda Fiorentino) with some beautiful dark noir interiors contrasting with the fabulous washed out exteriors. He literally reverses film noir cinematography staples with this film.

On to the pseudo mumblecore behaviour of Josh Radnor with the entertaining to say title of Happythankyoumoreplease. It's about growing up and shedding the cycincal approach to life in your twenties as you rapidly approach death (otherwise known as your thirties.)

Radnor shines in the role he wrote and directed himself in. He's aloof yet lovable and has a really wierd situation with a young boy who he meets on a train. And he surrounded himself with talented actors who all put in strong performances in what oculd have become cookie cutter roles in the wrong hands. It helped that there was a trio of beautiful women to look.

The shaky camera technique is occasionally adopted but for once doesn't become annoying or distracting, instead simply enhancing the mood, the way cinematography is supposed to work.

Enough talking about films. I've got a book to finish reading (so I can finally read Snuff by Terry Pratchett), three short stories to redraft and a new sofa to pick up. Stop distracting me!

The Week In Movies 10/10/11 - 16/10/11

It's getting worse. This week we saw the movie for the Noir-a-Thon, Murder My Sweet AKA Farewell My Lovely and nothing else. It's a tough time trying to fit things in around here. But I'm not going to moan about it, my priority was to go to the beach with our new deckchairs on my day off this week.

Pasty thighs, I know. But beer, book (currently reading Shoot The Piano Player by David Goodis - the influence for Francois Truffaut's movie Tirez Sur Le Pianiste, the latest addition to our Noir-a-Thon alongside Drive,) music and good company in between pages of my book and it's pretty much a perfect way to spend an afternoon. In the spirit of Leah's What Indie Nights? page I am modelling a straw hat from Kenji (department store own brand, I don't care if they try to pretend otherwise) white tee from Topman (only 5 years old) and shorts from Acadamee via Pigeonhole (in the sale, obviously.) Deckchairs only $50 each at Bunnings and home made nautical deckchair cushions thanks to my beautiful fiance.

I'm gonna spend a bit of time on the blahblahblahgay turnoffs today as there's not much else going on. Saturday night was a disaster, we tried watching the excruciatingly dull Captain America. Once more I have been so uninterested in one of this years big budget blockbuster flicks. This one felt so run of the mill, comic book movie by numbers with a plot that existed solely to get us to The Avengers next May whilst having an interest in somebody other than Robert Downey Jr. The trailer pretty much told me everything I needed to know about this movie and by turning off with an hour to go I don't feel like I was missing out on much. There might've been some OK action scenes still to come but from the uninspiring sequences experienced to that point I wasn't going to hold my breath. One fun thing we noticed, Hugo Weaving was playing John Smith or the German equivalent and delivering his dialogue as he always does; it wasn't great acting as Agent Smith in The Matrix, it was just great casting from The Wachowskis finding the guy who can only act one way.

Cars 2 didn't last very long at all, the opening sequence upset us by not feeling anything remotely like a Pixar movie and then the thing with the machinery being sentient yet subservient to the cars doubled it and then the rest of the movie having no charm at all right up until Larry The Cable Guy called the TV show to harass the Formula 1 car in typical American fashion. Blah, if I could pretend it didn't exist and go back to a world where Pixar could do no wrong I'd be a very happy man.

Hands up who thinks I should have at least got a tan before uploading beach photos. I'm pretty sure I am in the minority on Captain America but the majority on Cars 2. Has anyone ever seen Hugo Weaving not playing Agent Smith? Discuss in the blahs by all means.

The Week In Movies 3/10/11 - 9/10/11

Wow, so this week is a first, I have reviewed every single movie I watched. All two of them. I guess it's lucky, life has been hectic which means this post doesn't take too long to write. It's the worst week in the history of this blog. So if you are worrying about me as my good friend Scott (of Kind Of A Big Deal Front Room Cinema fame) has been, please rest assured it's nothing personal I'm just frying my brain.


I saw Drive earlier in the week and wasn't thoroughly impressed yet did enjoy it, if you didn't see my moaning review feel free to go read it.

This weeks film for our Noir-a-Thon was Phantom Lady, a film which was good and most entertaining indeed. Review should be ready tomorrow.

That's it. No turnoffs, no links either because I don't think I've read anything other than looked at some lovely Criterion covers from And So It Goes and Southern Vision.

Feel free to scream at me in the blahs, wake me up, give me some energy, find me some free time to watch movies and read blogs please?

The Week In Movies 26/9/11 - 2/10/11

Another week over, another month in fact, everyone's been writing their monthly roundups, there's been a lot of movies seen around the blogosphere and I feel like I'm a bit light on number of movies seen, comparatively. I will say this though, I've been very lucky, most of the films I've seen have been very good. I've been recommending TOKYO DRIFTER and WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION but that ignores the fact that I also saw RED STATE and ATTACK THE BLOCK. Tough call. I recommend seeing all 4 of them if you haven't already.

This weeks film from the Noir-a-Thon is the Graham Greene/Fritz Lang movie Ministry of Fear, as always that review will be posted on Tuesday.

We're big fans of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in this house so seeing Charlie in the very funny Horrible Bosses was a nice treat. The three TV actors make for a believable group of friends and the three big name movie stars play terribly cliched characters and are possibly guilty of overacting. The humour of the movie is often telegraphed so you see it coming from a mile away but that doesn't actually stop it from being funny. If you read Scott's review over at FRC you may have seen him compare it to The Hangover, it may not be as funny but it's possibly more believable than The Hangover which counts for something when it comes to humour.

After writing my recent 7 Movies To Help You Cope With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Withdrawal Symptoms article I discovered that there were two sequels to my favourite of them, The Ipcress File. The first of which is Funeral In Berlin. It's nowhere near as good as the first one, suffering from a bad choice of director who decided to try to pitch the film as a James Bond clone and a slightly more ludicrous plot than the original. Michael Caine was not as obtuse as in Ipcress File, so a lot of the humour was missing, but as Harry Palmer he is excellent. Ken Russell directed the third part, Billion Dollar Brain, and I hope to watch it next week.

The week ended with two fine examples of non English language cinema. Seijun Suzuki who directed last weeks favourite, Tokyo Drifter, was responsible for the better of the two, A Tattooed Life. He took an ordinary yakuza story set in the early twentieth century and turned it in to something wonderful with the kind of cinematography that can leave you breathless and add meaning to the simplest of scenes. There is a rather spectacular final act which will have you wanting to rewatch it on a regular basis and the influence on Quentin Tarantino is once again apparent. If last week I was a fan of Suzuki this week I am enamoured.

As I mentioned last week I've been wanting to see How I Ended This Summer since last summer's outdoor cinema season and this weekend I managed to grab it from the DVD store at last. It wasn't the movie I expected it to be but it was quite wonderful to look at. The premise of a psychological thriller based around a veteran weather observer and a young protege at a Russian monitoring station near the Arctic Circle is strong, the visuals are the movie equivalent of a Land Rover Discovery 4WD and the acting is very strong. I found the characters and their interactions intriguing but the final act failed to take full advantage of the preceding 90 minutes and in my opinion was the difference between it being a great film and simply a good one. Check out the review from Bonjour Tristesse for more information.

The blahblahblahgay turnoff of the week is the quite awful 50 Cent film Set Up. Co-starring Ryan Phillipe and Bruce Willis, I thought I'd give this heist/revenge thriller a chance to entertain me but it was quite simply appalling after 30 seconds. I gave it more time than I should've because I was hoping the appearance of Bruce Willis might pick things up but alas it wasn't to be. As with a lot of bad movies the major problem with this was the script but you can add some terrible acting to that.

Leave some blah below. Did anyone get a chance to see Tokyo Drifter yet? Anyone got an opinion on the Harry Palmer trilogy? Anyone see anything worth talking about? Or for that matter did anybody finish Set Up?

The Week In Movies 19/9/11 - 25/9/11

The weeks really rack up when you keep track of them this way. The year is flying past. I saw all the Christmas stock at the company warehouse today. That was sort of depressing. But at least a Southern Hemisphere Christmas means generally a nice warm sunny time filled with beer, mojitos, picnics and the beach.

I managed to completely miss the Russian Resurrection Film Festival too. I can't believe it. If this was my job I'd expect to get fired for flagrant disregard of my responsibilities. I know I'm gonna be cursing myself for missing some of those films at the cinema too. I managed to miss How I Ended This Summer at the International Arts Festival in January and it's only just come out on DVD now, that kind of delay is no fun at all.

This week marked my grand reveal as an official contributor to Front Room Cinema which I marked with a look at some of the films that shaped my viewing tastes from my the last 20 years of watching movies.

On the home front I saw some films and I saw some movies, I squeezed them in to every spare second and took several attempts to get some finished in between sleeping whilst forcing myself to stay awake for others.


Starting with the two Japanese films screened this week, Seijun Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter was part of my Top 5 Yakuza movies post a while back and it sat in my mind demanding to be seen ever since. A brilliant piece of cinema whose influence over Quentin Tarantino is so totally and completely obvious. It's a wonderful mixture of violence, ridiculous yakuza movie plotting and French New Wave sensibilities. For a look at some of the incredible imagery on offer go see Leah at What Indie Nights? and her post on this movie. I'm gonna try to see some more of Suzuki's work this week, here's hoping I find some time.

Saturday night saw me sitting alone on the sofa whilst Leah worked and I took the chance to see Pulse after the glowing recommendation received from Jason at Genkinahito. Leah doesn't watch horror movies. I wish she had because this one was excellent. The director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, seems to have a real talent for creating incredibly disturbing scenes through some quite wonderful cinematography and creepy sound design. I hardly paid attention to the dialogue at times and just soaked up the atmosphere. I certainly agree with the 'existential horror' tag placed on it and if you have any interest in Asian horror films this one should be an essential watch alongside Ringu.


This week's Noir-a-Thon is bringing us to Otto Preminger's 1944 melodrama Laura. So tune in on Tuesday for that review. We saw another classic crime melodrama this week too. Billy Wilder's adaptation of the Agatha Christie play Witness For The Prosecution. Starring Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton and film noir icon Marlene Dietrich this movie is pure entertainment. It is both witty and clever with a fantastic ending, so shocking for it;s time that the film ends with a disclaimer that the audience refrain from telling their friends the outcome so that they can enjoy it for themselves. Do you remember when that idiot told you that Bruce Willis was already dead in The Sixth Sense? I imagine spoiling Witness For The Prosecution for people in 1957 would have been a million times worse. This movie is on the imdb Top 250 and deservedly so in my opinion.


Watching Paul Schrader's American Gigolo I was amazed at the concept of Richard Gere actually being a decent actor and quite an attractive man, because let's be honest he now looks quite a lot like a rat and is reliably awful in everything he does. Paul Schrader is known for looking at the underside of American society and in this movie he paints a believable and disturbing portrait of a man, a satyromaniac in fact, whose carefully constructed life falls apart around him only to find true love. I enjoyed it by the time the denouement rolled round but I had some difficulty with the murder storyline seeming superfluous until then.

Following up one movie about a sex industry with another we saw Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights next. I'd seen it before, but when I was much younger, and I never really appreciated it for what it actually was, finding it a little long among other negative things. Watching it again from a much more mature point of view I realised just why everyone who loves it does so. An often fun and occasionally poignant but always honest look at a group of disparate people linked by their choice of occupation. Julianne Moore is incredible, as always, but this is another fine example of PTA's work with a great ensemble cast.

And then there was Green Lantern. Ordinarily a movie this dull, this un-entertaining and unimaginative would be found under the blahblahblahgay turnoffs heading but as I was alone with some rum and it starred my guilty pleasure Ryan Reynolds I sat in vain hope that at some point I might start to enjoy it. Sadly I couldn't even bring myself to laugh at it's lack of redeeming features I was just so bored.

Another week of a single blablahblahgay turnoff on the list, and for the second week in a row it was a really poor adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel that got turned off. The Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone starring Sphere is over 2 hours long and incredibly boring throughout. A really bad performance from Stone dragged the acting quality of everyone else down but where this movie failed was in it's direction and its script. A really poor adaptation of a book I've read several times.

There were some great films here, of the less obvious/recent films I highly recommend Tokyo Drifter, Witness For The Prosecution and Pulse. If you've seen them already what were your thoughts? Am I too gushing with praise? I'm always open to recommendations so feel free to suggest something you think I might like in the blahs. On the subject of recommendations if you haven't been over to see Tyler at Southern Vision recently he has a great post to recommend movies based on your own personal taste, check it out here.

The Week In Movies 12/9/11 - 18/9/11

My busy lifestyle continued this week, with me managing to miss out on a couple of screenings at The Russian Resurrection Film Festival but finally getting some time to relax and watching some movies from the comfort of our sofa. Ideally there will be some actual posts in the next week to break up the run of these weekly catch up posts.

Back at the start of the week we had some noir based trouble, we had to remove Shadow of a Doubt from the noir rundown because of a shoddy DVD provided by some cowboy eBay seller but we did fit in a double feature once more, complete with comfort food and beer to raise our spirits after a tough few weeks. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake starred in the first of this weeks films noir This Gun For Hire followed by Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, reviews to come on Tuesday as usual.

We tried out the new Irish film that's been getting rave reviews, The Guard, but were only mildly impressed. It had moments of great humour in an enjoyable performance from Brendan Gleeson but when it wasn't making me laugh, 80% of the time, I was quite bored, which I blame on the pacing of the script which was filled with many moments that felt completely irrelevant to the story and perhaps were supposed to be funny. Check out the Blondoner review for more.


We took quite a few days of trying to watch Star Wars again but falling asleep every half an hour, we can't help but love the film despite its melodrama and massive amounts of exposition. It's a movie that we've seen so many times that it feels so much more than mere entertainment when we watch it.

Jerome Bixby's Man From Earth has been on my MUST SEE list for a while, it's considered a great piece of Science Fiction writing and after reading the review from Chip at Tips From Chip I went out of my way to find it. I'm very glad I did, it's a simple film, almost a stage play, with a one room setting and a group of people discussing one characters life story. Some of the dialogue and acting is a little bit OTT but overall it's a thoroughly enjoyable film.

Classic pre Star Wars Science Fiction came directly after Man From Earth on a day of laziness and was a perfect lazy day movie. I'd never actually seen all of Forbidden Planet but I can tell you now without any hesitation that this was an impressive and enjoyable film. The special effects were better than a lot of CGI films you get now, but for 1957 it was astounding. The influence on the science fiction of later TV shows is obvious as well, Star Trek would not have looked the way it did if it wasn't for this movie. The fact that Anne Francis didn't go on to be a superstar after making the most of her minuscule amount of dialogue and equally minuscule level of clothing is a travesty. If you haven't seen it and want to know more or just enjoy reading good movie reviews check out Kevyn's excellent review over at The Most Beautiful Fraud.

The blahblahblahgay turnoffs this week happily consists of a single movie, Timeline. Recommended by Ruth at FlixChatter repeatedly recently, including as part of the Groovers and Mobsters time travel blogathon, the film had enough ideas on its side to get me interested, including being written by my favourite author of the popular novel, Michael Crichton, but I just could not get on board with any of it, I just kept picking holes until I got enraged and switched off. Blah at Paul Walker, blah at Ethan Embrey, blah at Gerard Butler with his own accent.

And that is the week that was. Feel free to share your weeks viewing or your opinions on my opinions in the blah below. Did anyone other than Ruth enjoy Timeline?

The Week In Movies 5/9/11 - 11/9/11

I'm late! By a few days too. First off I'll apologise. Sorry. Second I'll explain the situation. I'm very busy. Work is tough and long right now. I'm sitting here 14 hours after I left my house this morning. For the fifth day in a row. It's not even a film job, for which I might expect to be working those kinds of hours. Our bookshops are under staffed, coupled with a recent pseudo promotion this means lots of responsibility for me and a huge (partially self imposed) pressure to improve, fix, tinker and generally leave my own mark on the place. I shall add to that the fact that I found myself visiting over 50 blogs daily through sheer enthusiasm for reading everyone's great reviews and articles on a subject which I have such a huge passion for, which left my real life empty, devoid of any trace of me, just the detritus (and Leah) awaiting my return from self imposed exile.

I'm a pretty competitive guy, whatever I do I want to do it well, I want to do it very well, to the very best of my abilities in fact and this blog was/is no exception. I started taking it very seriously; planning weeks in advance, counting traffic, plotting advertising and marketing strategies with the vague idea that if I was going to be writing then I wanted to be huge. I wanted the entire world to be hitting my page twice daily with so much traffic that I could crash Google. It's not possible is it? Google is pretty powerful right? And anyway all of that is taking away from the fact that I quite like my real life, I really only got writing this thing to break my writers block and it's possible that I don't care enough to be constantly creating new (recycled) content for you all. I'm not going to be the greatest film blogger who ever lived so I'm going back to having some fun. It's ideally a change of mind frame for myself that shouldn't see too many changes in what I post. I've accepted one offer to write elsewhere online, which is a lovely bonus that was not something I ever thought about doing before and I'm looking at some other options with regards to writing occasional pieces online and IN PRINT! To quote a friend of mine, "I'm kind of a big deal around these parts don't you know?!" but only in my mind.

Now on to last weeks viewing history.


Attack The Block is superb, so very funny, much fun, very clever and is totally worth watching at least twice. Not for any particular twist of subtleties missed first time around but simply because it is pure enjoyment on a stick. Granted I am English and familiar with the slang that is quite prevalent throughout but I don't think it's essential to understand the actual words as the meaning is quite clear. I've heard stories of Americans having to subtitle English movies before now due to accents and dialects and slang, can anyone confirm or deny reports that this has happened with Attack The Block? I haven't read the post yet but Scotty L from The FRC has apparently just written a mumble about this slang, if you haven't read it yet my reader tells me it is kept here.

The noir-a-thon was a total letdown this week. Having seen The Glass Key this week we were reminded of our previous experience of it; we didn't actually like it too much. This was a year in the planning and purchasing of DVD's so clearly it had slipped our mind during that period. We left it off the list originally but it was added during the purchase stage of the planning as it was thrown in to a large selection of early noirs purchased in one batch on eBay for an extra $1. It's hard to pass up a bargain like that but I sort of wish I had now. As part of this weeks general abandonment of my online presence we have skipped a week in our noir-a-thon which has happily coincided with a movie that we didn't like. It's not getting a review, it's getting removed from the list. Next week This Gun For Hire and maybe Double Indemnity.

I had this overwhelming urge to watch Everything Must Go again during the week. I don't know what it was but it left me with a strange feeling that I get with these smaller movies that aren't amazing but I can't help but champion. Off the top of my head I'll add Roger Dodger and Tadpole to that list. I enjoyed it again, if you missed the review and want to know what the fuss is about please go here.

I was lucky enough to see Kevin Smith's newest film Red State last week and it got me very excited. I admit to being sceptical of him as a legitimate film maker recently after hearing anecdotes about being too fat for plane seats, being too stoned to direct actors and not working with The Weinstein Company anymore plus I don't really enjoy horror movies so my expectations were low. So low that I was ready to end my viewing after 15 minutes of quite awful chatter from three teenage boys trying to get laid. If that had been the whole movie I would have been appalled. However what actually occurs during the next 80 minutes or so was a pretty powerful piece of cinema that questions the nature of humanity. I'm not going to go in to detail as I may just write a full review now or after the advanced cinema preview next month that I've been invited to here in Perth. There are some strong performances from a great ensemble cast but I dare you not to be blown away by Michael Parks.

Now for the blahblahblahgay turnoffs in a busy week of non-viewing; Leah finally finished reading the excellent Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr Ripley so we could watch the Matt Damon starring adaptation of it. To say we were horrified by the movie would be an understatement, too many changes to the story and most importantly the excellent character of Tom Ripley combined with weak direction to say the least. Do not bother with this one. Serious Moonlight was the last script to be written by our latest fascination, Adrienne Shelley, before her murder. Directed by Cheryl Hines (a mediocre debut that should remain her only directorial effort) and starring the once beautiful now horribly disfigured Meg Ryan in a role clearly made for Shelley (nobody can play these roles better than her) opposite Timothy Hutton (a poor poor poor substitute for Martin Donovan.) I wish it were better, Shelley deserved more. Bridesmaids could be a controversial choice for a turnoff award but I got to 40 or 50 minutes of this 2 hour long 'comedy' and laughed once yet groaned many many times. That's just bad stats for a supposed laugh out loud comedy. Something I don;t understand is the cliche of the two friends from different social groups competing with each other for their mutual friends affection. The speeches I could see coming from a mile away but the tennis montage was one of the most painfully obvious attempts at physical situational comedy I've ever witnessed in something that had previously been labelled 'clever' or 'intelligent' by reviewers. I say poo to you.

Be well readers, thanks for your patience over my absence. Anyone miss me? You know where the blahs are.

The Week In Movies (28/8/11 - 4/9/11)

Anyone else having trouble with the blogger scheduling feature? I had to wake up to post this! It's making me want to break something! EDIT: Apologies for the spam in your readers. I can't criticise this scheduler enough.

Can you believe it's September already? Spring has well and truly begun in Perth, the sun has been out, I've been wearing shorts to work and my mind has drifted on to the outdoor cinema season once more. Oh how I love outdoor cinema. But more on that as soon as programs are released.

This week I have re visited 3 movies, reviewed 4 movies, turned off 2 movies and signed up for a Twitter account at last. First up the 4 movies there will be full reviews for.

3-Iron was loved and reviewed here, inspiring Tyler at Southern Vision to bump it up his queue. Fast Five was delicious cheese and reviewed here. The Maltese Falcon is this weeks Noir-a-Thon movie and will be coming on Tuesday as always and Everything Must Go should be reviewed by Wednesday. Something to look forward to.

That only leaves three more films that I finished this week.

Thor. I've been working on some nicknames for this. Bore. Yorn (pronounced yawn.) Not very inventive are they? About as inventive and interesting as the actual movie. I kept telling Leah to turn it off but neither of us did, instead reading interesting blogs such as Film Ha-Ha and The Great Movie Project with Thawn in the background. I appreciate Portman, Dennings and Skarsgard but everything, including the normal posters, is just so dull. That alternative poster commissioned by Marvel is pretty awesome though right?

Rewatching Shallow Grave this week prompted my Ewan McGregor list but could easily have prompted a Danny Boyle list. I loved it. I saw it a long time ago as a wee pup of a film viewer and Leah had never seen it. She always gets a kick out of seeing Dr Who in other things. I wish she didn't have that association as Christopher Eccleston is such a good actor. Anyone see the brilliant BBC series Shadowline recently? An enjoyable low budget British thriller from a soon to be huuuuge director starring one great, one pretty good and one mediocre actor. Watch Kerry Fox closely, her accent travels the globe. I must ask, how did she get cast? Hels at A Whole Load of Blah recently picked it as the best movie of 1994.

And then to Buried. A movie about a guy in a box. I loved the idea and if anyone was going to have the charisma to pull it off it was going to be Ryan Reynolds (I love watching him, I admit it, I haven't sunk to Green Lantern levels yet however.) I never really got in to this one though. It was interestingly filmed, I love the purpose built really tall casket story for example and Reynolds was good at being upset but I ended up not caring about him or his situation. A bad thing for a movie about a guy in a box on a mobile phone. Brian saw it and thought it was a horror and Stevee thought it was her fantasy come true.

This weeks blahblahblah turnoffs are two teeny tiny Ellen Page movies that I thought I would give a shot as Page is great to watch. However it is a shame the same couldn't be said for The Tracey Fragments and Mouth to Mouth. Tracey Fragments is a great idea, a young girl is traumatised by something and we experience the movie in flashback as she pieces together her memories of the event. The problem is that the story is told with multiple shots simultaneously and even multiple dialogue at times, representing her memories coming together; which causes your head to hurt and you to lose a lot of important information. Another problem is that it's noisy, which gives you a headache. Movies shouldn't give headaches. Mouth to Mouth is such a cheap and horrible and dull movie I have nothing good to say about it.

Leave me some blah, I'd love to know what you think of my turnoffs this week, that awesome Thor poster and whether you are as excited at the thought of trapping Ryan Reynolds in a casket as Stevee is?

The Week In Movies 22/8/11 - 28/8/11

The week started off well with a quickfire 3 films but then descended in to anarchy and lack of sleep as i only managed to watch another three in the following 5 days. I really must watch Tokyo Story today or it will be a late return to the DVD shop.


I saw The Merry Gentleman on Friday, a movie that is much loved by me but generally unheard of by the general population. Drawing similarities between such classics as Le Samourai, Michael Keaton's debut film is reviewed by me here for those who missed it.

Noir Night was a wonderfully entertaining double feature this week and the Tuesday reviews for Shanghai Express and Pepe Le Moko will hopefully be nearly as enjoyable.


Robocop was practically a first time viewing for me, I remember so little about having seen it when i was much younger. And I was a little disappointed to tell you the truth. I was expecting something, more. Perhaps it hasn't aged well? I do highly recommend you go see Edgar at Between The Seats for a full review from somebody who didn't seem to think it had anything lacking.

I saw I Am Love finally. I've been wanting to see this movie ever since I saw a poster for it on the underground at Cockfosters in 2009. I found the poster quite compelling but managed to miss it at the cinema and then as if by magic I was looking in the Japanese section at Starland and there it was. I Am Love is an Italian movie. It stars Tilda Swinton as a Russian matriarch. She learned Italian with a Russian accent specifically for the role apparently. It's a shame as the movie was a little too much style combined with not enough substance. It wasn't bad but once I got past the fact that every single shot looks like a work of art it wasn't that good either. Tilda Swinton is an entirely separate matter. She was great. As usual. Robert at His Eyes Were Watching Movies initially had the same reaction but changed his mind later, Stevee, yes, THE Stevee stuck to her guns and continued to dislike it and had this to say on the subject and BT gave it a 7.1 whilst including some of the beautiful images from the movie.

Final film of the week was a revisit to my least favourite Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I initially saw this on the one and only date I had with a girl I met whilst horrendously drunk at a VIP party in Covent Garden. When she sent me a message the next morning I had absolutely no idea who she was, I could barely remember getting home. Tequila girls and an free bar will do that to you by 9pm apparently. Anyway I was enamoured with this particular Anderson at the time and thought it would be a good way to show off how awesome I was with my taste in quirky indie type films. Backfired. Big time. We were both obviously bored throughout, it just didn't feel like a Wes Anderson at all. I never saw her again after that.

Leah hadn't seen it and I thought it was about time gave it another shot and I was much more impressed than the first time but I still can't place it anywhere near the level of his other movies. Leah however loved it, she laughed at it a lot more than me that's for sure. Bill Murray was especially great. I may not watch it again however. For a nice contrast of opinions check out a positive (Defiant Success) and a negative (NerdVampire) experience.

So that's it, a quick roundup and on to other things, like more work. What you guys been watching? Have I missed the point of Robocop? Can anyone offer any explanation for Life Aquatic other than the Noah Baumbach script? Who missed The Merry Gentleman review?

The Week In Movies 15/8/11 - 21/8/11

I feel like I've outdone myself this week. A fair few movies seen. Perhaps I should've used the time to write my novel or my script? Oh well. It'll happen when it happens.


The second noir night means we saw Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's brilliant M, review to be posted Tuesday as always. And my favourite movie of the week was Quiet City, which was reviewed here on Friday in case you missed it.


A bizarre combination of movies you may think but these things are always going to occur when you watch so many films and then pick based on what mood you're in.

Continuing my love affair with Adrienne Shelly I went back to her directorial debut and final film before her murder, Waitress. Strangely after seeing her earlier work I didn't enjoy this one quite so much but for Leah it had the opposite effect and she liked it a lot more, even singing the pie making song performed by Keri Russell in the movie, all day. It's a sweet tale of love and hope and pie with some enjoyable performances from Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion amongst others.

The newest Studio Ghibli animated movie is known either as The Borrower Arrietty or simply Arrietty and was based on the Mary Norton novel The Borrowers. It's another piece of beautiful animation as you would expect from the studio and the story is sweet and faithful despite it's slight update and switch of locales. I highly recommend it as I would any of their movies but for me there will only ever be one adaptation of this novel and that was the BBC TV version starring Ian Holm or Bilbo as he will almost certainly be known as forever. For indepth analysis go see thecynicalgamer at Film Ha Ha for his great review which gave me the push I needed to actually get around to seeing this one.

Another recommendation from Bonjour Tristesse this week, the Rupert Everett starring zombie movie Cemetery Man. With a tagline of "Zombies, Guns and Sex. Oh My!" you'd be a fool to miss this one. It was low budget and strange but very good. At times I had no idea what I was watching, it felt like both an existential dramedy and a surreal zombie flick with moments and connections reminding me of Angel Heart and Shaun of the Dead amongst others. It was based on a novel by the same guy who wrote the Dylan Dog graphic novels which raised my interest and there's some similarities between the main characters and the worlds both stories use but aside from that they are very different beasts indeed. This is not horror and is worth seeing for people interested in strange and little known movies.


I actually went to a cinema twice this week, a rarity indeed. I took myself off to see Senna by myself because I could find nobody even slightly interested in seeing a documentary about a formula 1 driver and loved it so much that I had to write a review straight away.

We got free passes from the very excellent Pigeonhole hipster boutique in Perth to see the Mike Mills movie Beginners. To be disappointed would have required expecting something from the film but when the movie ended the mood in the full auditorium was something approaching apathy, I've been to the cinema when the crowd have been unimpressed and when they've enjoyed themselves but never experienced apathy before. I got the distinct impression that they were happy it had finished but weren't unimpressed by what they had witnessed. I thought it was OK, solid film making with a generic indie hipster girl opposite Ewan McGregor and his once more ridiculous American accent. They were both good and they had good chemistry but I didn't really care because their story was interspersed with the uplifting sad story of his recently out-of-the-closet dad living life to the full before dying of cancer. I could have watched either story on their own and enjoyed them but together they cancel each other out and I ended up not too fussed about either of them.

And then came the evening of watching movies we love, love, love.

Two of my favourite movies of 2009 and two of the most underrated movies of recent years in my opinion. You could class me as a film snob, in fact I regularly use the term in self defence but I have no problem in defending Jennifer's Body. Diablo Cody's follow up to Juno is a pitch perfect teen comedy that plays with the conventions of teen horror movies. Yes it probably helps to get a lot of the references and find them funny and enjoy the emo soundtrack but how can you not love Adam Brody in this movie? He is perfect as the lame indie singer who desperately wants to be like that guy from Maroon 5.

The same goes for Gamer, Gerard Butler is awesome in this movie but that is not reason enough for me to love it (otherwise I'd love Law Abiding Citizen too) Neveldine and Taylor have created some superb near future sci-fi with this film. So rarely does it happen that people can take current technology and societal behaviour and make assumptions about what might come next to create a wonderfully funny and realistic science fiction idea. I loved the concept of Society as the next step for Second Life and Slayers as the next step for all this reality TV we're inundated with. Michael C. Hall owns his role and the musical/dance number comes out of the blue and is brilliant. Great performance from Logan Lerman as well, he was totally wasted in that Percy Jackson movie. How people can't enjoy this movie for the good time it is, is beyond me. I happily place it alongside such classic films of the genre as Running Man and Total Recall.

Last but not least, today is the wonderfully talented young blogger Stevee's 16th birthday, go over to her great blog Cinematic Paradox and wish her a happy birthday. If I had her taste in films when I was 16 and was writing half as well as she does I probably wouldn't be here blogging about film.

A heavy week, please discuss in the blahs, I do love it when you leave me blahs. Any suggestion on what I should watch this week? I have two days off work and I might hide from the rain.

The Week In Movies 8/8/11 - 14/8/11

Not a very busy film watching week. We tried to watch a couple of films but neither of them really captured our imagination. Should've stuck to the noir-a-thon.


Josef von Sternber's The Blue Angel is the first movie from the noir-a-thon and was viewed in the week as preparation for the review tomorrow.

A screening of the Robin Hardy original version of The Wicker Man inspired my horror chapter of the DVD guide earlier in the week. As I mentioned in that post there are some truly horrifying moments in a very well crafted police investigation movie with spiritual overtones. Christopher Lee, despite being well known for his Hammer horror roles at the time, is extremely subtle as Lord Summerisle, the nemesis to Edward Woodward's straitlaced copper on the hunt for a missing girl. If you haven't seen this one because you saw the terrible Nic Cage remake or any other reason for that matter, please go and find a way to see it, it's odd but powerful stuff. A true classic of British cinema. For a more indepth look at why you should see this movie Edgar at Between The Sheets has a great review on his blog.


I followed up last weeks viewing of Trust with another Hal Hartley movie, this time his debut feature The Unbelievable Truth, also starring the amazing Adrienne Shelley. Recommended by Alex at Film Forager once more I am afraid to say that it wasn't as light and enjoyable as Trust yet still a good film. Essentially it's the story of a scared, intelligent, young girl finding her own path through life and the group of people who are connected by her gravitational pull. Shelley really was somethig special, the camera loves her, and everyone else just pales in to the background when she's on screen. Alex has also reviewed this one in another Hal Hartley double feature. Speaking of Alex, did you all see her review for Tabloid this week? A rather wonderful anon was happily leaving crazy all over the place in the comments. It made my weekend.

Bonjour Tristesse wrote a great review for an indie horror film called Red, White & Blue on Wednesday which sounded like my kind of film so off I went to find it. Whilst I can't agree with all of it in this instance I do agree that it is a well crafted and powerful indie film. It's not going to be for everyone. A remarkably simple film that evoked a multitude of emotion throughout it's 90 minute run time. By the time you come to the shocking conclusion you've been taken on a strange journey through the lives of some unpleasant people in small town America and seen the tone change from slow burn character study to shocking revenge payoff. Special mention for a second superb performance seen in the past month from Noah Taylor, the film is not as mesmeric when he's not on screen.

I shall now call this feature blahblahblah turnoffs. The movies which don't hold my shortened attention span for whatever reason, causing me to turn them off.
Repeaters is a low budget Canadian film marketted as a "mind bending thriller" with a trailer that makes it look like Groundhog Day with guns and drugs instead of a weird rodent thing and Andie McDowell (Leah says these are the same thing.) I gave it a go but the screenwriters clearly cared more about the intricate plotting to make a time travel concept work than making the characters believable or likable and so we gave up caring about the fact that they had to keep repeating the same terrible day in different ways. A controversial turnoff this week considering how much everyone seems to love it but Super 8 just isn't my cup of tea (strong, white, two sugars, preferrably PG Tips.) There was nothing wrong with the movie at all, it was obviously good solid film making, I just wasn't enjoying it and the train crash was way over the top. As previously stated around the place I am not a fan of Steven Spielberg movies in general. Perhaps the product of a different type of childhood but movies like ET and The Goonies just never had any appeal to me back then and sadly Super 8 doesn't appeal now. I wanted to like it, I really did. If you want a good review of it though go see Custard, he loved it.

The Week In Movies 1/8/11 - 7/8/11

So what you all been doing this week? Been watching movies? Of course you have. It's what we exist for isn't it. I feel like the recent Revelation Film Festival has revitalised me, in to seeing movies I would usually put off seeing due to their 'difficult' nature. By difficult I mean those movies that require a little more thought and are made with a little more subtlety than your standard blockbusters, or subtitled. Some subtitled films are made with as much subtlety as a brick in the face but I refer to those that are more art than film. Gosh I'm waffling a lot. A long week at work has left me feeling like the sofa is the best place for me this morning.


Did you see my reviews for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension and Dance Party, USA this week? Both very unique movies and both could easily be tagged with that 'difficult' moniker, so not for everyone but thoroughly enjoyable. Don't forget to see Alex at Film Forager reviewing Buckaroo Banzai as they are the enthusiastic insights of somebody who can't stop recommending it. And thecynicalgamer has written an interesting piece on the history of the mumblecore movement if you want some background on the scene that brought forth Dance Party, USA.


Of the other three films I managed to finish this week there was one more new viewing and it was another 'difficult' film, Hal Hartley's Trust. It was my first experience of Hal Hartley and I was completely blown away by his method of storytelling. I particularly liked the delivery of the dialogue, it was quite reminiscent of Brief Encounter, one of my all time faves so that kind of reference always helps. I'd been meaning to watch something from Hartley since I first saw Clerks, my VHS copy had a trailer for another of his films, Amateur, and the other trailer was for Before Sunrise. Having seen both of those highly entertaining movies I knew Hartley was going to be a director worth watching. It's funny and quirky, the performances from the entire cast were pitch perfect, especially Adrienne Shelley and Martin Donovan. It made me very sad to see the talented Shelley in this role of a young girl and think how her talent has been robbed from us and it also made me want to watch Waitress again. I could probably talk about this movie for a very long time it was that good but instead I shall share yet another review from Alex at Film Forager who clearly has a deep love of this film and all Hal Hartley movie for that matter. She's wonderful that Alex.

Two easy to watch, thoroughly enjoyable movies close out my week. Easy A and The Boondock Saints. I've seen them both before and laughed all the way through, both are perfect viewing for a lazy night on the sofa with no need to really think about what you're watching. That's not to say that they're not intelligent pieces of cinema because they are. I'm sure you've all heard (or seen) just how perfect Emma Stone is in Easy A so I won't bore you but I think she deserved at least a nomination at Oscar time, it's a hard task to carry an entire movie and have such excellent comic and dramatic timing. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as her parents are priceless. Stanley Tucci co-starred with Oliver Platt in The Imposters and this fact was brought to my attention by CS in his recent Oliver Platt post, I think this may need to be seen asap based on how much I love Tucci in Easy A. There were some great reviews of it back when it hit the cinema, for those of you wanting more info I suggest The Duke Himself, Constant Visual Feast, Cinema Romantico and Stevee's Cinematic Paradox.

As for The Boondock Saints, it's a cult movie for a reason, it's a seriously flawed film but has so many great attributes that you can't help but watch it and watch it, any time that Willem Dafoe is on screen in this movie is a moment you shouldn't take your eyes from. It's a shame the director proved himself an asshole hack and the Irish accents were so variable. See Boondock Saints 2 for proof of his average abilities behind the camera. Or the great documentary Overnight which has some amazingly self destructive moments featuring those lovable guys The Weinsteins.

I turned some movies off this week too. Free-ish time indeed. Oh sweet relaxation. But seriously I am putting up for dismissal from the movie race the following: Hoodwinked Too (the original was enjoyable enough but this was terrible right from the off, no wonder the original cast abandoned it,) Absolute Power (possibly a controversial dismissal what with it being a Clint Eastwood but jeez it was a tedious opening 30 minutes from which you could see the entire plotting laid out in front of you) and The Conspirator (Andy Buckle said it wasn't any good but I just didn't listen and I got right up to the start of the trial before switching off despite my brain wandering from sheer boredom about 2 minutes in.)

Share the blah below people. I know some of you have seen these films. Will anyone own up to not enjoying Emma Stone in Easy A?

The Week In Movies 25/7/11 - 31/7/11

I spent the best part of this week either in bed with manflu throatyitis or forcing myself to go back to work due to the manflu throatyitis epidemic that has swept Perth leaving our stores massively understaffed. These two states combined to leave me viewing a measly four movies this week.

I've been quite looking forward to Scream 4 for a while, the problem being that Leah just won't watch horror movies and so I have to find time to watch alone. I know the majority of people disliked it and my expectations were pretty low after Scream 3 stinking up my screen as it did but I give it at least one thumb up. Kevin Williamson's script was so much fun but the scariest thing about the movie was Courtney Cox's plastic surgery/botox leaving her looking more like Ghostface than the actual mask. Whether it was the script not containing too many horror elements for Craven to play up or just that Craven put in a half assed job and forgot that the film was supposed to be scary I'm not sure.

And then it ended. I didn't write a review, everyone else did and I apologise to you all for not reading them yet but I wanted to know nothing about the final Harry Potter movie. I hadn't read any of the books and have lived this story solely through the 8 films. What's to be said? I'm glad it's over. I remember find the first 4 quite magical, all of them featuring moments that gave me that seeing the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park feeling but the longer the series went on the less there was. I am blaming David Yates. This one was a billion times better than the snorefest that 7.1 was though. Leah tells me that the epilogue was actually in the book too. That was so unnecessary and for me detracted from the entire 8 movies.

The Smell of Success starring Billy Bob and David Duchovny's wife was directed by The Polish Brothers who created the quite bizarre and beautiful Northfork and it was another quite bizarre movie only this time not so beautiful and filled with many puns and word games all related to poo. This movie is about manure salesmen in the America in the 60's and yeah, not great but not terrible either.

Then I finally got my ass around to seeing Sonatine as part of the research in to my yakuza movie post. This was probably my favourite film of the week and the capsule review of it was submitted to Duke & The Movies new Sunday feature The Best Is Yet To Come, if you're not yet involved send him some words quick smart like.

blah me blah me blah me baby til I lose control.

The Week In Movies 18/7/11 - 24/7/11

A heavy week at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival has seen me watch 8 films, 5 of them at the cinema with full reviews (including those yet to come) so this should be a pretty quick roundup.


It seems like forever ago that we sat down to watch Marathon Man only to find out that the disc was faulty and watched Nic Cage winning an Oscar for drinking his life away in Leaving Las Vegas. It's been so long since he actually acted that it surprises people when I talk about how good Nic Cage is in this and that the Oscar was actually deserved. This is one of those films you shouldn't watch too often; it's terribly depressing, but fantastic. Once every few years however you should remind yourself how wonderful this Mike Figgis film is. Elizabeth Shue as the prostitute on her way to redemption probably gives her career best performance and Julian Sands makes a fun cameo not to forget Danny Huston's blink and you miss it film debut as a bartender but primarily this is all about the subtleties of Nic Cage. Yeah that is what I said.

A few months back we watched the lots of fun but flawed, Carla Gugino starring, Sebastian Gutierrez directed Elektra Luxx about the personal life of a porn star and her group of friends and then we found out there was a film about these characters already, Women in Trouble. So for a bit of light entertainment we settled in. These are not ground breaking movies, there's nothing new or particularly special about them but they're fun all the same with some enjoyable moments and good dialogue from characters you don't usually see in films. Infact one of my favourite characters of recent times, somebody who I could probably watch quite a lot more of, came from these movies; Adrianne Palicki as failing pornstar Holly Rocket. Adrianne Palicki is an extremely beautiful woman and she hardly ever wears much in the way of clothing but her character is so totally clueless and adorable it hardly matters. If you want to look below the surface of these films there's probably even a message and moral somewhere.

Now on to the Don Roos movie The Other Woman, a film which has also been known as Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, hence the two very different posters used, and starring Natalie Portman. I'm a fan of the movies of Don Roos. I saw The Opposite of Sex before any Woody Allen movie so the gimmick with Wednesday Addams breaking the fourth wall was an exciting new cinematic tool for me. Most people didn't enjoy Bounce if I remember correctly but I did and not just because of my guilty pleasure of watching Ben Affleck movies, and Happy Endings was a good, fun, low budget piece of cinema. None of the films are made in a similar style but there's some kind of charm that unites them which must be brought to them by the director. There's nothing particularly new about The Other Woman, we've all seen step-mothers trying to be liked by the child and hated by the ex-wife before but it does have a strong performance from Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow is her usual flawless self in this minor post-Friends role. Enjoyable but nothing amazing, but it has stayed with me all week.



I've already reviewed Charlie Casanova and Vacation! from The RPIFF but seen and with reviews forthcoming are Submarine, Small Town Murder Songs and Autoreiji.


A busy week, how bout you? Do you remember when Nic Cage wasn't a joke? As always I'd love to know what blah is filling your movie minds.