Reviews

Having read the book, made a Mr Tumnus' house collage at school and watched the BBC series I was looking forward to this movie a lot. I must say, and I apologize if Sophie Wilcox reads this, that the Lucy in this film is a lot better looking than the girl in the BBC version - no buck teeth and bowl cut for a start. The whole movie was very beautiful, the effects, scenery and costumes were great. However, despite all of its great attributes, I didn't emotionally connect with this film as much as I thought I would. Aslan's death was rather scary, and sad, yet it did not cry. I am not sure if it was because, subconsciously I knew he would rise again or not. I'd like to think that is the case. The White Witch was a departure from the usual "snow queen" image. While she did have an icy crown of sorts she wasn't swathed in furs and, for once, did not have dark hair. She had blond dreadlocks and dead looking eyes. Very effective. Mr Tumnus was younger than I usually pictured him but still very cool. He wasn't as treacherous as I remembered either, though it has been more than 10 years since I read/saw Narnia last. Edmund was a little weasel and the boy who played him - Skyander Keynes (interesting name) did a great job. The beavers added some comedy and were very well animated. I thought through the whole movie that Aslan was voiced by Patrick "And-I've-seen-everything" Stewart, but it was Liam Neeson instead. I am not sure why I don't rate this film higher, I can't think of anything wrong with it, I just didn't come away thinking it was spectacular. A great film though, one that will no doubt spur on a revival of C.S Lewis' works.

I watched this over a month ago so forgive me if I am a little hazy.

This film was very much in the vein of Fight Club and Momento, saying that I have probably ruined the twist. Christian Bale (the fab new Batman) plays Trevor, a man who works in a dingy factory. He operates machines funnily enough. He is also an insomniac, so his concentration is poor; one day, he gets distracted by a man at work which leads to his workmate getting his arm caught in a machine. Trevor explains what happened but everyone denies the man that distracted with him works at the factory. This sends him into a spiral of paranoia. The film is quite dark and the colours all looked a bit washed out.

I certainly wasn't expecting the ending, it was rather good. The acting was great and Christian Bale was very dedicated to his work. He lost heaps of weight to film this, he looks frightful to be honest. I read on here that he: "dropped an amazing 63 pounds [28. kg] for his role as the emaciated insomniac Trevor Reznik in the film The Machinist (2004) with only a single vitamin consultation with a nutritionist to guide him. For the most part, he only ate salads and apples, chewed gum, smoked cigarettes, and drank nonfat lattes." Healthy.

Sorry about this crappy review, the film deserves better.

NEWSFLASH! Paris Hilton not terrible at acting! Whilst on holiday we had in house movies, no, not those kind, (but with Paris on the bill you could be forgiven for thinking so) newish movies and so we decided to watch House of Wax when it was on. I fell asleep through a bit of it but the bits I saw were OK. (The movie is based on House of Wax from 1953, which starred Vincent Price who did the scary voice on Thriller by Michael Jackson - A little fact for you). Paris and some friends go off to watch a football game and it is a weeeee bit of a drive to get there so they decide to camp out for the night. They soon wish they hadn't! Their car breaks down and they wander into town but they all start dying in a variety of ways because two mad brothers who lives there turns real people into wax sculptures. Everything in the house/museum was also made of wax, as was the house itself. My husband wants it to be known that he thought it was lame when the killers who used to be conjoined twins, died, they died in the same position that they had originally been joined. (One had been joined by the face to the back of the other one's head so he wore a wax mask to cover his scar). Yes, that was a little lame I must agree. What I saw was your average teen horror movie, though no boob shots as I recall. I may have been napping.

My husband and I watched this one while we were on holiday in Australia, which was rather fitting as this movie is set in the Australian outback. Three holiday makers, two British ladies and an Australian man are driving through the outback. They decide to go to Wolf Creek which is the site of a meteor crater. It is in the middle of nowhere and they discover when it is time to move on that their car won't start. Eventually a very helpful outback-type man comes along and says that he will tow them to his hut and he will fix their car for them. How kind. Or maybe not. One thing is for sure, if I ever go near the Outback I will be going on a tour bus. Especially considering this movie is meant to be based on actual events. The film was rather slow moving to start, but I read an interview with the director - Greg McLean - which said that he intended it to be slow to build up the suspense, in the same style as older horror films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fair enough. I think it was my pre-viewing reading that prevents me from giving this film a 10, I had read that people were leaving because it was too scary - rather like I had read before The Blair Witch Project. I could handle the gore, though that must be because I'm tough. However, this film did its job once it got into it, delivering a feeling of loneliness and isolation and offering hope and snatching it away. The death the man had planned involving vicious dogs was very inventive and would be a foul way to go. The film even caused the grown man sitting behind us to become so involved that he was urging the characters on out loud.

Fantastic, Fabulous, Fantabulous. What a great film. I'm afraid I won't be watching it again for a long while though. I sobbed my little heart out for the final hour and I have to give myself time to recover. It was so upsetting, I even felt sad today just thinking about poor Kong chained up in the theatre, and when he reached his hand out to Anne when they captured him on the island, OH! My mum is waiting for the video so she does not have a similar public snot and tears incident. Even though the film was 3 hours long, the time didn't drag. I have been in movies that were only 80 minutes getting numb bum and a twitchy watch arm. I was glad Kong got to kick some ass, he deserved to. Stupid humans. I think the reason I did cry so much is because he is an animal and it's not his fault. If Kong was a giant human I wouldn't have given two hoots. The CGI was of course brilliant, having been provided by Weta. Their work is miles ahead of other studios, they deserve another Oscar. The love story element was also quite good because it wasn't mushy or tacked on the end just for the sake of it like in some other movies (i.e Speed, National Treasure). The natives were rather terrifying, it is a great scene where they offer Anne to Kong. If I was Anne I would have stayed on the island with Kong. It would have been great hanging out with him, better than New York in the Depression that's for sure, acting in the chorus of rubbish plays. Silly girl. Jack Black did a marvelous job as Carl Denham - the man who captures Kong. I had thought, like many others, that he would make the film dumb but he did an awesome job, so much so I wanted to slap him so hard at the end. It must be said that the actors and the writers did a brilliant job, they stirred so much emotion in me (and the two girls sitting beside me I noticed). I haven't cried that much in a movie since Disney's Robin Hood when I was about 7.

Jackson has done it again, Spielberg can had his battered happy-ending loving crown over. Jackson is the king of directors. Or maybe even the kong, he is hairy enough.

This had absolutely no storyline whatsoever apart from a love interest thrown in for no reason at all. Snoop Dogg did his usual drugged up character, there were so many black stereotypes that I lost count - Loud ladies that say "Mmm-m-mmmm, Giiiirl!", large penises, ladies with huge arses, fried chicken, and bling are just a few. There were four white people on the plane who have various levels of fun aboard the flight and are there to be mocked. Put it altogether on a plane and what do you get? This crappy movie. It was just one huge pile of stereotypes and dancing thrown into a pile and filmed. Rubbish rubbish rubbish.

40 year old virgin is about, wait for it, a 40 year old virgin. He seems quite happy, he works in a shop that is a bit like my work - though we don't get to watch movies like they do. He plays computer games and watches Survivor and has a grand old time. His workmates find out he is a virgin and decide to help him get laid. The story was rather predictable and dragged a bit in the middle but it was still quite funny. Not hilarious though, I have read reviews in magazines that say it is the funniest film all year. No. (Now, even though Napolean Dynamite is technically a movie from 2004 it only came out in NZ this year so that is my pick for funniest movie of the year, by far, with Nestle's Milky Bar). Where was I? Oh yes - considering most of this film was improvised they did do a good job. The scene where Andy gets his Tom-Jonesesque chest waxed was real. I will file this under the same category as Anchorman and Wedding Crashers - only worth watching again if shown on TV, and then maybe as background noise.

This was the Lindsay Lohan version, not the Jodie Foster version which I haven't seen in about 10 years. I was in the mood for a light movie when I watched this, I also enjoyed the original movie. Furthermore I had never seen a Lindsay Lohan film so I was interested to see what all the fuss was about. The film was actually very entertaining. Lohan could have been any teen but she still held my interest. It was amusing to see Jamie Lee Curtis paying herself out ("I look like the crypt keeper"). This was pretty predictable really, they both learnt a lesson that it is hard to be a teenager/middle-aged woman and that they love each other very much. However, the journey was entertaining nonetheless. Lohan of course was in a band in the film to remind us that she is a singer too. Ah the crossover artist. Very much a throwaway film but good if you are in the mood for something of that sort. Nice family fun.

This is one of my Dad's favourite movies. He sometimes quotes from it in a crazy voice. I now know why, Nigel Terry who plays King Arthur, has a very thick English-farmer accent. Excalibur is a great film, I didn't know the whole story of King Arthur before - it is very sordid. Not only was Arthur conceived when his father was magically transformed into his (Arthur's) mother's husband who was dying at that very moment, there is incest and adultery to boot. The man who plays Merlin, Nicol Williamson, sounds (and sort of looks) like Alec Guiness of Obi-Wan Kenobi fame. I thought it was him at first. The whole movie looked marvelous - lot's of armour, castles and jousting. Arthur went a bit crazy after Guinivere cheated on him, fair enough I suppose, but he should have listened to Merlin, who warned him against her when Arthur first mentioned that he liked her. He sent his knights on a huge quest for the Holy Grail which is not only fruitless but is the only boring wee patch of the film. Don't worry though because it is only very brief. I am refusing to even watch the new King Arthur movie which looks like a huge pile of steaming crap. This movie is true to the legend (even though I admit that I don't know it inside out) whereas the other one has Guinivere (great name by the way) as some sort of Amazon warrior wearing strips of leather. RIDICULOUS!

Life was on TV and we decided to watch it as it looked pretty funny. It starts in the 1930s (very cool style back then I must say) Eddie Murphy plays a thief who ends up getting Martin Lawrence into trouble with a mobster. They have to go on a pick up job to get some moonshine. However, they get framed for murder by a racist cop and end up going to jail for - yes well done! - life. They attempt to escape many times but with no luck and end up growing very old in jail. How unfair! Will they get out alive? You'll have to watch to find out! The make-up used to make the two guys look old was very good, Oscar nominated good in fact, usually it's all talcum powder and and some drawn on wrinkles. It was quite a funny movie but not hilarious. The was a great Spartacus take-off involving an inquiry into who was the father of a baby.

Yet another movie based on a comic book that I have never read. (I was a Beano girl but I doubt the movie would be very good if they made one). John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a chain-smoking exorcist, who has died and come back to life. He is trying to rid the world of demons in an effort to buy his way into heaven, where he is not allowed to go because he committed suicide. The world must be a very scary place if you believe in demons. Thank goodness for Catholicism's warped view of the world, without it we would be without so many movies - The Exorcist 1-3, Stigmata, End of Days. Anyway, Constantine gets involved with a woman who is convinced that her twin was brain-washed into jumping off a roof. He takes a few trips to hell and discovers that sure enough she is there in hell, where she shouldn't have gone because she was a good Catholic who would never kill herself (despite being in a mental institute). I don't remember much else apart from Gavin Rossdale from Bush looking rather camp as a half-breed demon. It was a bit boring you see and I fell asleep. What I did see was alright, the demons were scary looking enough and the effects were pretty good. Hell would be an annoying place if it was as windy as they made it in the movie. I don't like the wind.

I was looking forward to this movie - it came recommended by a guy at work who said his girlfriend had to sleep with the light on after watching it. It also shares its name with a very excellent band, how could you go wrong? Well, you could go wrong in many ways. For a start, the film was pretty much in darkness, (I know it is the name so it is to be expected but it got very annoying after a while - mainly because people kept moaning that squinting at the screen was hurting their eyes). The plot was not too bad, there had been a satanic ritual performed at the house where the family live which is why it is haunted. The dad is losing his mind and the mum is rather cold and unfeeling towards her son who keeps waking up covered in bruises etc. There was a pretty good twist but what with the half black screen and the baffling accent of the Grandad, it was hard to follow. And who that is in the car at the end is anybody's guess. It was a bit clichéd though - spooky children, drawings, scary old house - and the acting was not outstanding. There were a couple of creepy bits but nothing to wee my pants over. If I had actually been able to hear over the complaining and cries of "What's going on?" and "Who's that?" I may have found it scarier, but I doubt it. If you want a good scary film go for The Ring or Saw, one that you can see and follow really adds to the suspense.

This movie came highly recommended, but I am not sure why. I am not really and Adam Sandler fan though, apart from in 50 First Dates where he departs from his usual angry man routine. Damon Wayans is an undercover cop and Adam Sandler is the guy he pretended to be friends with for a year in order to bust him. Naturally Sandler is rather angry about this betrayal. Cue angry shouting and silly facials from the king of variety. They end up on the run and of course they become friends again after a big misunderstanding (involving Sandler shooting Wayans in the head - he survives thus he is Bulletproof). Need I go on? You will work out what is going to happen if you do watch it anyway. When our DVD player kept pausing (hey it was $80 from the supermarket OK?) it was commented that the player knew the film was boring and was refusing to play it.

My friend said she would only recommend this movie to someone who "wanted to bawl their eyes out for two hours." She's not far wrong. The film, a true story, is set in 1994 when the Hutu and Tutsi's began a bloody civil war. The main character is Paul who works in a fancy hotel. His wife is a Tutsi and her race is the target of the Hutu who intend to kill every single one. With the UN pulling out and the world deserting them, Paul ends up hiding about 1000 Tutsi's inside the hotel. This is not a pleasant film to watch, I sat there full of dread waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. There is one scene that is even more horrifying when you remember that it really happened; Paul and Gregoire are driving through fog along a very bumpy road. The bumps turn out not to be the result of poor maintenance but hundreds of bodies littering the road. The acting is fantastic - I am regularly surprised by the talent of child actors, and this movie was another where the children we very believable. I don't really know what else to say about it, no wonder it was a hit at the film festivals. This was an excellent film all round, I have not a single complaint with it.

You and Your Stupid Mate revolves around Philip and Jeffery who live in an Australian trailer park, which looks a lot nicer than any American trailer park you see in movies. Neither of the two guys work, one spends all his days running a website about "Son's and Surf" a crappily acted soap (think Home and Away without the dream sequences, ghosts, montages and flashbacks that make it so realistic). The other is a scout and is in the Gang Show - which I am positive only happens once a year, still it gets him through life. However, one day everything comes crashing down - The trailer park is going to be demolished, they have to work for the dole, and "Sons and Surf" is getting cancelled. What follows is rather predictable - will they save the show? Will one hook up with Rachel Hunter their "fertile" neighbour? What about the work for the dole scheme? Goodness! So many issues to sort. There were some very funny moments - one in the opening sequence involving wees and a pool. The soap episodes are also quite amusing (on the DVD you can watch the episode clips all together). The clothes the guys wear are also hilarious - especially when they go clubbing. Quite a funny film, one that I wouldn't have chosen myself (mainly because Australian comedy tends to get tossed into the same "unfunny" boat as NZ comedy but there are, of course, exceptions).

Two policemen are finishing packing up their police station which is being shut down. I wasn't quite paying attention but I think the old cop was one day away from retirement, aren't they all? They have the secretary (de Matteo) for company and it is New Years Eve. There is a huge snow storm going on outside so a bus carrying some prisoners has to stop off there too. But what's this? People are trying to break into the station to free one of the prisoners – Bishop, a notorious cop killer. Or are they? No! It turns out the attackers are in fact corrupt cops who want to kill Bishop because he is about to testify against them all. Twisty.

There then follows a siege, with rather a high body count. It wasn't an outstanding film but it was entertaining. However, I did fall asleep during the last wee bit, though it was late, about 10.30pm for goodness sake! It was predictable in parts and wasn't especially thrilling. There was also unnecessary animal cruelty at the start for which one point will be deducted.