Provoked: A True Story

So, there wasn't much on at the cinema last night really. But that didn't stop me. it was time for something different anyway.

So I saw Provoked: A True Story.

It is a true story (no, really it is - look at the title) about a woman who sets fire to her husband after he has physically and sexually abused her for ten years.

If you just go with the flow, it does the job.

Not bad for a low-budget indie crossover flic.

I'm gonna check out some proper Bollywood stuff soon - the trailer for Ta Ra Rum Pum looked like it should be good for a laugh.

The Phil Mitchell playing a Policeman bit was hilarious! 5/10

Fracture

Fracture is a good, solid, old fashioned dialogue based drama where it is obvious how the film will end, but you have no idea how it will manage to get there.

And it is a lot of fun watching the plot threads fall into place.


They don't make them like this very often anymore...

7/10

Curse Of The Golden Flower

After Hero and The House of the Flying Daggers, comes Curse of the Golden flower. Sumptuous in its intricately detailed pink and yellow sets and costumes, Curse of the Golden Flower is very pretty, and has some very good set-pieces, but none of the heart of the films mentioned above.

5/10

The Messengers

The Pang brother's breakout film, The Eye, is one of my favourite films. I remember seeing it in the UGC(now cineworld) in Glasgow with the volume turned up full and being absolutely terrified.

Crazily terrified.

The Eye (especially loud) is creepy as hell.

So, what about The Messengers?

It was ok, and was efficiently scary, but predictable.

My advice is that if you haven't seen it already, go and rent The Eye (the original one).

And then sleep with your light on.

The Messengers gets 5/10 - mainly for the cool spidery-type guy. If the Avril Lavigne girly had been killed, it might have got seven.

Amazing Grace

This is a film that deserves to be seen - and as such it was a shame that the cinema was empty.

Amazing Grace is about William Wilberforce and his battle to abolish slavery.

It is a story that everyone should know about and proves that, with determination, you can make the world a better place.

8/10

Sunshine

In space, it seems, people go mad, kill each other or get devoured by aliens.

There are no aliens in Sunshine, so you can guess what happens...

Sunshine is about the Astronauts of Icarus 2 - the second mission to reignite the dying Sun after the crew of the Icarus 1 failed their mission.

The film starts as the Icarus 2 is approaching Mercury on the final phase of their mission.

And then the mission begins to go wrong...

Sunshine is a proper science fiction film - there is some action in it - but this is a film about Man and it is almost truly great.

The sound and visual effects are spectacular (even more so as this was a low budget film) and the tempo and scariness really draw you into the film, the ending is bizarre though as so many serious, adult sci-fi films are.

9/10

The Namesake

This is about a family from Calcutta who move to New York and who try to balance the conflicts between their different cultures. The film is mainly seen through the eyes of the son, who by a series of events, is named Gogol.

I really liked this - especially as the last few films I have seen haven't exactly been fantastic.

8/10

Becoming Jane

I was hoping for something snappier then this, the dialogue was great, but there was too many times when nothing happened in this film. It was a waste of very fine actors.

I'm disappointed.

5/10

TMNT

I didn't go into TMNT expecting much (however John was crushed as he was expecting it to be live action so he could see Sarah Michelle Gellar) and was pleasantly surprised that this old franchise actually ended up being quite good.

Some of the animation was spectacular - although the human characters didn't really fit in with the style - and the story - being a kind of rip off of Ghostbusters wasn't too bad.

So all in all not too bad - if you were 7 years old, it would be the most awesome film that you had ever seen!

6/10

The Illusionist

I was glad that this wasn't a copy of The Prestige (which was a pretty decent thriller) . However, they really needn't have bothered with it, it was all great and lovely and pretty and well acted.

And then they spoiled it all with a crap ending.

5/10

300

The cinema manager was pretty cool as there was a bit of a mix up and the film shouldn't have been advertised on their website - this advanced preview was a private showing for a magazine.

Nevertheless, we managed to get in, although with the mix up we missed the start, but I don't think that much was missed.

It's not like it was a plot driven film - Neill Cumpston, a contributor to aint it cool said it best "I can’t spoil the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey."

He's pretty much got it spot on.

The film is about 300 Spartans battling the approaching Persian army (roughly totaling a million men). The film goes for it pretty much from the beginning, focusing on epic battles rather than plot.

Not that the is anything wrong with that - the battles were cool, and just got bigger and badder as it went on.

Where it all fell down though, was that the film had the style but it was missing the one thing that elevates such a film to greatness - heart.

I wasn't that bothered when one of the Spartans was killed, which I think I should have been, seeing as it was a film about 300 against a million.

I'll forgive the film for this though, as it got the spectacle bit right and it had a bit of a metal soundtrack (but with the now-obligatory Gladiator-style bits when it was a bit sad!).

6/10

Ghost Rider

I walked into the theatre knowing that this wasn't going to be very good...

...and was shocked that it was awesome.

I'm kidding - It was the usual pointless, uninspired Marvel rubbish.

3/10

The Number 23

When Jim Carrey is good, he is pretty good. In The Number 23, Jim Carrey is good. And it looked pretty.

And now for the cons...

It wanted to be clever but it wasn't clever. And if it was, I still wouldn't have liked it as it spends the last 45 hours chirping about how bloody clever the film was.

I mean, there are lines like "Did you see what colour his tie was? It was pink, that is red and white. Red and white adds up to 92. 92 divided by 4 is 23."

And that is the substance of the film. It was annoying.

I was praying for Jim Carrey to be run over by a bus just so that it would end.

I wanted to like it, but it sucked.

Should I give this film 2 or 3 out of 10? Oh 2 and 3 is 23. IT IS NOT CLEVER

Scenes of a Sexual Nature

This is about a day on Hampstead Heath - the camera moves between various couples discussing relationships. There are quite a few familiar faces, most notably Ewan McGregor, but ultimately, I wasn't really sure of the point of the whole exercise.

5/10

The Science Of Sleep

Romantic comedies suck right?

Well... they tend to do when they are the formulaic tripe that tends to be on at a multiplex, fortunately The Science of Sleep uses special effects made out of cardboard, tri-lingual dialogue and general weirdness and mayhem to keep it out of the formulaic rom-com category.

And that is the way it should be.

One of the best films that I've seen so far this year - 8/10

Hot Fuzz

It was very weird seeing Simon Pegg not playing a slacker, but he pulled it off. I thought that after the success of Shaun of the Dead, that the Pegg/Wright team would make a more International film, so it was a surprise to see an even more British film.

In a weird way, this reminds me of the Matrix - where there's loads of setup just so that the film can get to that bit in the script where Neo says, "Guns, we needs lots of guns." And then they walk into the lobby and all hell breaks loose.

This film is like that, except that the point where all hell breaks loose involves an old woman. And is hilarious.

Awesome!

I need to see this film again!

Cornetto? - 8/10


EDIT - I've see it again and it was even better!

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)

I was lucky enough to get to see my favourite film of 2006 on the big screen again last week.

Since then, it has won three well deserved Oscars.

This film is so brutal, and contains true horror and bizarre images and characters, and yet still retains an innocence and fragility.

It blew me away on first viewing and blew me away last Wednesday.

A masterpiece - 10/10

notes on a scandal

So far this year I haven't seen many bad films, and this isn't one of them.

This is film about a lonely woman desperate for friendship and is creepy as hell.


7/10

Blood & Chocolate

I have seen scarier Always Ultra adverts.

What the hell were they thinking when they made this?

I mean, people turn into rainbows as they turn into wolves. What the hell is that about? It's like the SFX guy found a new filter on Microsoft Movie Maker and thought, "I know, lets make a zombie film. When the people turn into zombies, I've got this dead good rainbow effect for when they change." and his mate Darren says, "nah, that'll look crap, lets make a werewolf film."

And the rest is history.

As is two hours of my life.

3/10 - I'm being generous as an old school friend is in this film

Flushed Away

Aardman animation does it again, although it doesn't have the same soul as their claymation films, it still has the attention to detail and is bloody funny.

I don't think as many people went to see this as should have - so go see it. You'll love it and if you don't love the slugs then you deserve to be bitch slapped by a rat wearing an Elvis suit.

7/10