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Reviews
The Dead of Night (2004)
A beautiful depiction of the human condition
And so it is that, after over a century of film history, the medium has finally reached its zenith in this, unquestionably the greatest film ever made. No small feat you might say, and you'd be right to do so. Why, such classics such as 1983's seminal movie, Krull, or even that masterpiece of cinema Dungeons and Dragons (2000) must represent the peak of film-making! But even these pale in comparison when held up to The Dead of Night. There. I said it. In fact, such is the sheer genius of this film that Krull and Dungeons and Dragons barely deserve to be mentioned within the same review.
Alas, however, for I must confess that I have not seen The Dead of Night in its entirety; the tears of sheer joy that it drew from me blurred my vision, and such was its power that I could hardly stand to be in the same room as the film for more than five minutes at a time. This is not a fault of the movie, rather it is a fault in me, and in all humanity, for truly this film is astonishingly ahead of its time, and at present it is quite impossible to take in the truths that it reveals to us. That we have been blessed with such a film is remarkable. Every aspect of it has changed my life; the depiction of the zombies; the chaotic yet hypnotic editing; the purposely bad music with its varying degrees of ironic usage; the mumbled, incomprehensible dialogue (for the filmmakers knew that if we were to have heard what was being said, our heads would quite literally have exploded from the sheer beauty of the speech); the script! My God, you have never heard anything like this script before! ... This, surely, is a film for the ages.
No life is complete without a viewing of The Dead of Night, no review for an almost unbelievably, spectacularly awful film complete without a *lot* of sarcasm =P
Extinct (2006)
X-tinct factor
So I was flicking through the channels one night when suddenly there's a whole load of monkeys on the screen. 'Ah,' I thought. 'This must be that Extinct program on ITV.' And, D-list celebrity presenter aside, it seemed like ITV had actually made a decent prime-time TV program for once (not up there with the likes of BBC's Planet Earth but certainly above average).
But then... it all went wrong. Gone was the wildlife documentary and the monkeys, and in came the big studio with Trever McDonald and a cheering studio audience. And of course there was the obligatory interview with the D-list celebrity about 'how they've come to realise how important these animals are to the planet'. Ugh! Now don't get me wrong, the fact that the problem of extinction is being addressed to a wide audience is undoubtedly a good thing, and it would indeed be a huge loss if these animals were to simply disappear forever. But this isn't the way to do it! That studio with that audience just undermined it all and turned the program into just light entertainment.
That said, I still might not have minded this had I not had the misfortune of seeing the 'final', in which the public had to vote which of the eight animals they wanted to save. COME ON! They might've well have got Simon Cowell to join them in the studio and judge the animals! Basiccly they were suggesting that all you had to do to save your favourite animal was to text in, hope it won and that would be the end of that. Animal saved. Job done. You could forget all about it.
Better luck next time ITV.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Don't believe the critics!
Well, actually to be fair they were right about some things. This movie definitely could've done with losing quite some stuff towards the middle that dragged on a bit and sometimes the plot got a bit muddled up. Also there were a lot of times when the film makers recycled jokes from the first film just to try and get a few more laughs out of them. I wouldn't have minded so much if they had restrained themselves a bit but there's only so many times you can joke about rum before it gets old. And they definitely could've improved the ending: I'm fully aware that things will be explained in the third film but all the same the plot twist felt a bit forced.
However all that said the good aspects of this film more then outweigh the bad ones. For me the highlight of the film was definitely the Kracken: it was amazing! I'd go so far as to say it was the best movie monster I've ever seen! And the action scenes were especially well done (like the three way sword fight on the run-a-way water wheel). It was a film you could just lose yourself in and just purely enjoy (even if it did get a bit dark on times).
And even if you don't enjoy the story or the acting then you can just lose yourself in the wonderful sets and fantastic effects. All in all it was a pretty great film, not quite on the level of the first one admitadly but certainly a worthy (if flawed) sequel
The Wedding Date (2005)
Never again
Wow, there's a few hours of my life I'll never get back.
Quite possibly my least favourite bit of this movie was a few minutes into the beginning. I was already regretting ever having to sit down and watch this film (and yes, I DID have to watch it) when all of a sudden one of the characters lists every boring thing that was going to happen. Worst moment of my life! I have absolutely nothing against these sort of movies. In fact when done well I can really end up loving them. But I thought that this was a sorry excuse of a movie; it just borrowed elements from other movies and didn't do anything new or exciting with them and the end result was something that was incredibly dull.
Disagree with me if you like but that's just how I feel about this film.