Finally!

So the Oscars are finally over. No real surprises in the major honours based on pre-Oscar forecasts and awards shows in the last month or so. My only disappointment was that Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Film, despite winning Oscars in other categories.

Scorsese finally won his first Best Director gong, though by my guess more on a kesian basis. Don't think that The Departed is as good as The Aviator or Gangs Of New York, let alone seminal classics like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Liked it when the great Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola presented his award though.

Review: The Holiday

Director : Nancy Meyers
Main Cast : Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Rufus Sewell

Supposed to be a nice little family-friendly romantic comedy made for the holiday season, about two women on opposite sides of the Atlantic swapping houses for Christmas. In fact it turned out to be a dreadful film.



The worst mistake made was having two separately independent storylines. If ever it were possible, it made the film feel both too short AND too long at the same time! You are sat there in the cinema, PRAYING for the film to end, looking at your watch every 5 seconds or so. However, each half of the film is given so little time to have any sense of development of plot that it leaves it feeling rather hollow.

A shame though, considering the likes of Winslet and Law, both underused and a waste of their respective talents, and though I am a BIG fan of Jack Black, I honestly think that he was horribly miscast and proves that no way can he repeat Jim Carrey and do "serious" roles. Don't get me wrong though, I do enjoy the occasional schmoozy holiday romantic comedy, and really liked Love Actually, and not Crap Actually which The Holiday is.

Review: Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny

Director: Liam Lynch
Main Cast: Jack Black, Kyle Gass, Tim Robbins, Dave Grohl

This is the film that Jack Black was born for! It's an air guitar-playing, side-splitting, foul mouthed comedy musical which is brings out the best in Jack Black, especially for those familiar with his Tenacious D songs.



Admittedly, the plot is a bit absurd, if there is one to speak of in the first place. But who cares, with scenes that would make you laugh your arse off. The opening pre-credits sequence, featuring none less than Meatloaf and Ronnie James Dio, is in my opinion one of the best Rock & Roll scenes ever put to screen, beating the likes of anything in Spinal Tap or even the Bohemian Rhapsody head-banging scene in Wayne's World.

A movie purely only (and a must-see!) for fans of Jack Black and/or Rock & Roll, or better still, both. Definitely the This Is Spinal Tap of our times. Jack Black kicks a$$!!!!

Review: The Prestige

Director: Christopher Nolan
Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson

An overall interesting film by Christopher Nolan, director of Memento and Batman Begins, about 2 rival magicians trying their vicious best to outdo each other and come out tops. While the storyline is simple, the editing is a bit unusual, which is no surprise coming from the director of Memento. There are lots of flashbacks, and more flashbacks within those flashbacks, which at first do make you somewhat confused, but adds to the fascination of the film and at least stops you from dozing off!



What does intrigue me, not only in this film but many others, is why producers can't just cast Americans in American roles, and English in English roles, rather than torture our ears with horrid fake OTT accents. For example, The Prestige:

1. Hugh Jackman (Aussie) doing American
2. Scarlett Johansson (American) doing English
3. Andy Serkis (English) doing American
4. David Bowie (English) doing East European (Serbian to be exact, but who cares!)

Anyway, good film. Very gothic, with a plot that kicks dirt in the face of linearity. Shame about the last act though, felt cheated a bit when the film came up with something out of fantasy that cannot be explained. Took away a lot of the "magic" of the film, so to speak.

Eagle-eyed

Just finished watching Return Of The King on the telly, first time I've seen it since I saw it at the cinema. And then too I didn't watch it fully, as I dozed off a third of the time! Anyway, watching the ending again, I'm compelled to ask the following:

If Gandalf can use the giant eagles to go rescue Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom, if it seems so easy, why not just use the same damn eagles to send them there in the first place? Would save a lot of humans, elves, dwarves and whatever creature from dying, me reckons.

All you Lord Of The Rings fans, I expect your answer!

Review: The Departed

Director : Martin Scorsese
Main Cast : Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg

Yet again I have to start a review by apologizing for the crime of abandoning this blog for so long. The excuse is really simple, really. Going to the cinema was such a horrible experience that I actually STOPPED going to the cinema again!

However, things have turned for the better now, and my how things have turned! I’m proud and happy to announce that I’M NOW BACK IN LONDON! Finally! No more subtitles that take up half the screen, no more bad prints, no more being directed through some dodgy backdoor route at the end of the film, no more censors, and no more crying babies in a supposedly 18SG film! Actually, the only thing I’ll miss is the fact that I’m now unable to have one of those tasty 1901 hotdogs in the cinema.

So what better way to kickoff this return to the good ‘ol days of film-going than to write a review of The Departed, surely one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year in terms of director and cast. And it can’t get more mouthwatering than having Martin Scorsese directing Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio, easily the best actors of their respective generations. Add Matt Damon, Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg to the mix, and you can understand the hype surrounding the film.

To the uninitiated, The Departed is a Hollywood remake of the Hong Kong smash hit Infernal Affairs. The plot is quite interesting actually, the story of two moles on the opposite sides of the police and the Irish mafia. They are played by DiCaprio and Damon, two actors in my opinion who still look in their early 20s after so long a time. This I feel is partly why they were cast in the film, two young apprentices, both trying their best – for different objectives, and through different means – to impress mafia boss Jack Nicholson. I would have to say that they both had familiar, clichéd roles, which weren’t a real change from what they’ve done in the past – DiCaprio, the boy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, a livewire, prepared to fight his way through any problem, and Damon, the smartly-dressed, clean-looking all-round good guy. It’s interesting to note though that DiCaprio has taken over from the great Bobby De Niro as Scorsese’s muse, this being their 3rd film together, after Gangs Of New York and The Aviator.

The real star of the show is undoubtedly Jack Nicholson. His character here is nasty, violent, cold-blooded and merciless. Someone you definitely don’t want to mess with. Nicholson also manages to somehow restrain himself for most parts of the film, but there were one or two scenes where we do see the good ‘ol OTT Jack.

Though good the movie may be, I still feel that there was just something missing. Maybe because of the cast, and especially the director, I expected more. Maybe I hoped that this was going to be THE film to finally win Scorsese an Oscar. Sadly it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, The Departed is still a very good film, and I recommend it fully to fans of Scorsese, gangster films, or a combination of the both.

Review: Mission Impossible 3, Cars, X-Men 3

Sorry to those who have been eagerly anticipating my “regular” film rants (yup, all 3 of you). Haven’t been updating my blog, guilty as charged. Reasons? Well, you can say that I have other things occupying my time now (and NO, we do not have a baby yet!). Maybe some day soon I’ll post a blog on this other hobby of mine. But anyway, I HAVE been to the movies, and have seen all the hyped-about major films. So rather than going on an extended rant on films that everyone has watched and argued over a looong time ago, I’ll just comment briefly on each.

Mission Impossible 3

It’s basically a movie-length version of Alias, which is hardly surprising considering director J.J. Abrams is the creator of Alias, but instead of Jennifer Garner in kinky S&M costume we have Tom Cruise wearing latex masks. Saying that, J.J. Abrams doesn’t fail to deliver, the film’s fun and full of explosive action, though recent Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman was criminally underused as the bad guy. Certainly the best of the Mission Impossible trilogy.

Cars

I’m personally not that fond of the Disney-Pixar animated films, as compared to those generated by Dreamworks. Yes, they look really nice, the characters are cute and funny, but there’s always some sort of moral to the story to be told, which really makes parts of the film tremendously boring. Thought that those slow scenes pulled Cars down for me. Disney-Pixar should just stick to entertaining from start to end, like what Dreamworks aim to do every time as seen in the Shrek films, or even the recent hilarious Over The Hedge.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

It was doomed to fail ever since Bryan Singer opted out of directing it in favour of Superman Returns. Action buffs and the comic geeks may like it though, as we have more new mutants and bigger action scenes than the first two films combined, which also however contributed to the mediocrity of the film from a more serious point of view.

Comas not realistic in movies

Now there's a surprise. In a report by the BBC, a "leading" US Neurologist has said that movies are "grossly misrepresenting" the comatose state. Part of the report reads as:

"For example, they often showed miraculous awakenings - often within seconds and as if from a terrible nightmare - with no long-lasting effects at all.
Other flaws included:

• A lack of feeding tubes
• Unrealistic muscle contractions
• No sign of a tracheotomy to help breathing
• 'Comatose' patients remaining muscular, tanned and well groomed"

Click here for the full report.

Review: The Sentinel

Director : Clark Johnson
Main Cast : Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria

A plot to assassinate the President of the US. A mole in the Secret Service. Kiefer Sutherland as one of the good guys, fighting against time to uncover the plot. Sounds like yet another season of 24, right? Wrong. It’s essentially what The Sentinel is all about, with Michael Douglas playing the lead as the Secret Service man wrongly accused as the mole.



Main reason why I was interested in watching The Sentinel was because it had in it the stars of two of my favourite TV shows (downloaded via BitTorrent, of course). Kiefer Sutherland from 24, and Eva Longoria is hands-down my favourite Desperate Housewife (for obvious reasons). However, both were a pale shadow of their TV selves, and gave unmemorable performances. Eva Longoria in particular was oh-so-boring, dressed in a pant suit for the whole film, though the sight of her brandishing a gun might appeal to some. Michael Douglas was his usual self, playing the type of role that he’s familiar with. Nothing special, but still effective.

The main problem of the film to me though is having Kiefer Sutherland as a Secret Service agent trying to uncover a plot to kill the President. Sutherland is, like, one of the most iconic TV star in the past 6 years. I mean, he practically is 24, and if he intended to shake off the Jack Bauer image and do something else for a change, well he couldn’t have chosen a worse role. The film literally just needed his character to torture someone for information, and we would have 24 – The Movie.

So is The Sentinel worth watching then? Well it’s a good film, but you’ll get LOADS more drama, suspense, action and pure unadulterated fun watching a season of 24 instead.

Review: In Her Shoes

Director : Curtis Hanson
Main Cast : Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette

So here goes, my first DVD review. Got a feeling that there’ll be more reviews of these for the same reasons stated in my previous post. I just don’t look forward to going to the cinemas anymore!

In Her Shoes is basically a “Chic Flick” based on a “Chic Lit” of the same name. It stars Diaz and Collette (the mother in Sixth Sense) as sisters; one a responsible, workaholic lawyer, the other a party girl who’s drunk more often than sober (hey, it rhymes!). I have watched and enjoyed a few similar films in my time, but I just didn’t get In Her Shoes. It was boring from the start, and didn’t take me too long before I was playing on my trusty ‘ol PS2 to help me through the ordeal. It’s not some guy thing, you know, the typical “oh these kind of films are not made for you guys, it doesn’t have any guns or explosions” remarks. It. Just. Is. Boring. Much like this review, then.