And I agree. He didn't completely 'steal' the show, but he was the best on show. Any movie with Crowe being the least impressive among the leads speaks for itself in terms of the acting involved.

A top 10 movie of the decade for sure.

Great movie. the oil well scenes were stunning!

Wanted - I really liked this. Worth seeing just for Morgan Freeman's expression at the end!

bwahahahahaha!!!

"oh f***", the transition, the expression. Priceless.

Burn After Reading

Thoroughly enjoyable yarn from the Coen brothers. Very well written and its very watchable seeing how these characters attempt to improve their respectable lives and end up botching it all up. Brad Pitt is great. The scene in the car with Malkovich, he looks very weird at first, but a few seconds later you realize he's actually trying to channel Malkovich using his face and eyes! Hilarious.



4/5

Zodiac

The first time I saw this I had problems with it, particularly the flow of the film due to its length and the scenes jumping around with time lapses. The second time I loved it. It's astonishing how Fincher manages to cram so much detail in methological detective work and yet keep it interesting and damn well suspenseful throughout. All the more impressive is the fact that we all know the outcome beforehand, and yet it doesn't stop the film from presenting us with a great, great ending (the scene where the two people just look at each other in the face).

The cinematography, with digital work used extensively in a few scenes, is impressive. The mood of the 70s is recreated with perfection, aided by the very nice 70s-sounding score. Performances by the entire cast are strong. This was my 4th or 5th time watching it, and it's pretty amazing how the suspense and dread is still so evident. I think Seven is still Fincher's best, followed by Fight Club, but I now regard Zodiac as some sort of modern masterpiece.

5/5

feeling a bit like Ebert then?

How did you see this? Screener?

Personally I think all 3 of Mendes' previous works are great, but as opposed to most people I like Road to Perdition slightly more than American Beauty.

I didnt know he was a millionaire at the end! You *******! It's ruined!

I thought that was reserved for Benjamin Button....

Btw, how the hell do you guys watch these movies?

RocknRolla

I like British gangster films, and I'm a big fan of Guy Ritchie's first two movies, so naturally I was very happy when I found out that he was going back to his roots with this movie.

As per usual with his movies, you are overwhelmed by a big cast of characters, and with the frenetic pace it might be hard to understand everything that is going on the first time. But as always once you finally settle in the fun really starts. And there is nothing more to say than that - if you liked Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you will most probably like this too. The formula stays unchanged, and that's not a bad thing at all.

However, what makes the first two movies so fantastic is the cast, together with sharp as a needle and witty british dialogue, and of course the plot which sees characters double cross and triple cross. And all that is still here, but in lesser amount. The cast isn't as fun nor as likeable as the other bunch. That's not to say they are bad, but Gerard Butler and co simply do not compare to Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Brad Pitt, del Toro, Alan Ford, Stephen Graham, Dexter Fletcher et al. I've never liked Thandie Newton, and she definitely didnt do anything here to change that. The strongest performance here is probably by Tom Wilkinson, but even his Lenny is surpassed by Hatchet Harry and Dog when it comes to intimidation, and Brick Top is both funnier and more terrifying than him.

The dialogue itself isn't as smart and funny as well. It is mostly good, sometimes very good, but falls a bit short of my expectations. Something else I noticed is that the movie takes itself just a wee bit seriously this time around, and I wished that it was funnier. The plot is also less punchy than the other two and the little quick jabs of irony is mostly lost in this one.

But it's still a Guy Ritchie Gangster movie, you get all the colourful characters, the cockney accents, some trademark cool Ritchie direction, and in the end the very bad guys get what they deserve, and the less bad guys go home with a smile, and that's enough for me to recommend it. Fun movie, for sure.

4/5

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Jan 17 2009, 08:36 PM

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Quite a delightful romance/comedy, with nice sun-drenched photography which radiates heat, and good performances from all the actors. Bardem and Penelope Cruz in particular are terrific. Very good film.

Happy Go Lucky
I didnt give a damn throughout this. There isnt much which happens in the movie, and I totally found the main character not appealing. I really wanted to give a her a tight slap during the driving scenes. Disappointing.

The 40-year Old Virgin
Utterly hilarious and till now still the best product of the Apatow factory.

Training Day
Denzel Washington is enough reason to watch this. He shifts between charm and terror so effortlessly, you really feel afraid for Ethan Hawke.

Get Smart
I didnt expect to like this so much. Highly enjoyable and funny, it's good to see a spy comedy/spoof which doesnt completely render its hero as a buffoon ala Johny English.

I fail to see how a movie that aspires to annoy its audience can be called good.

When I saw the words "happy go lucky", I didn't think of "insensitive", "living in her own world", "rude", "irritating". Not only does she live in her own bubble, but she wishes to encompass everyone else in that bubble of hers as well! She's like that person who goes to funerals with a big smile on the face, asking everyone else "why the long faces?"

I'm not saying it's a bad performance by Sally Hawkins, I'm saying the traits inherent to the characters itself makes this unwatchable (for me at least).

About the only thing I really liked in the film was Eddie Marsan as the driving instructor.

I'll agree with you that the film was better (or could have been better) after the argument, but too little too late...

Body of Lies

Quite a bore. The film is uniform throughout, with a few cool scenes spaced out far in between, and they are too short in length to make any real kind of impact to this otherwise monotonous film. It's a very talky film, more so than I expected, and half the time I didn't know what the on-screen characters were doing or trying to do, and in the end it doesn't amount to anything much either. It didn't jolt me, it didn't surprise me, it didn't entertain me much. It's simply flat.

DiCaprio is good, but he basically plays the same role as he did in The Departed. he needs to reinvent himself, and I'll be looking out for him in Revolutionary Road which people say is his best performance yet. Crowe's role doesn't require much out of him, and he doesn't go beyond what is required. Mark Strong gives a strong performance. Other than that, it's very average stuff. Photography isn't very good, and this is coming from the guy who made visually arresting films like Blade Runner and Alien.

A letdown. 2/5



Changeling

Now here's a good, solid film, but one which could have been so much better. I agree with the review in Saturday's The Star. The story about police corruption and the chicken coup murders is such an engrossing one, that I really did feel Eastwood wasted it by telling the story with the focal point being the mother. What's worse is that I did not like Jolie's performance. It feels artificial and manufactured. Looking at it, I can't say it's a bad performance, but one can see through the fakeness of it. At least that's how I felt. John Malkovich plays the good guy here, though I didn't know that when he first appears. His voice plus the way he speaks make it seem like he has ulterior motives, and that was what I suspected for half of the film, but no, he's the good guy till the end.

Still a solid film. 3.5/5

Hellboy II

A damn fun movie. Better than the first from what I remember. 4/5

It's opening here next week.

Role Models - Quite a fun movie. I dunno what kind of message it wants to send out though. And the climatic "battle" had me with contradicting feelings. Part of me felt that they did a good job of making a fake battle feel exciting, the other part of me kept saying "this is the lamest thing I've seen ever!" 3.5/5

Milk - A really good biopic, but not exceptional. It keeps things interesting always without quite reaching any real highs. Sean Penn and Josh Brolin do some great job here. 4/5

In Bruges - For the second time. Awesome awesome awesome! Gleeson and especially Colin Farrel (and later on Ralph Fiennes) are so much fun to watch, and the humour and lines are as quirky as they come. Plus this film has a dwarf who snorts coke! That counts for something for sure. My second favourite movie of 2008. 5/5

Synecdoche, New York - I'm not going to pretend and say that I understood this. I didn't. The opening 20 or 30 mins were slow and didnt really motivate me to watch on (though at some point later I realize I was absorbed), and often it was confusing. But I do know this film made me feel sad, really sad. A very tragic film. Gotta watch it again for sure.

I also watched Seven Pounds halfway. Was pretty bored by it. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Mar 7 2009, 10:46 AM

Seven Pounds - What a bore. People have been incredible secretive about its story, like "I cant tell you anything or I might ruin the whole thing!". But it was quite obvious from the opening 10 or 15 mins what was going to happen in the end. I'm beginning not to like Will Smith. Here he has this expression on for the entire span of the movie, an ugly, sad face which he makes and the wind blew and it got stuck with him permanently. If I want to watch a movie about guilt, I will watch The Machinist instead. At least it's not all sappy and boring.

Btw kobe, re my dad's taste in movies. He saw Milk yesterday and said it was "missable" and the academy was "stupid to give Sean Penn the best actor".

Bolt - Story is quite a ripoff of Toy Story 1 and 2. If you want to see the gulf between Pixar and all the other animation studios, this is yet another one you can watch. It aint bad, but we've seen it ALL before, and much, much better. Really, just watch the Toy Storys after watching this, and see for yourself. 2.5/5

Damn, the more assignments and tests I have, the more movies I seem to be watching. :/

Capote was another bore I watched. I thought this was supposed to be really good.

Let The Right One In - A Swedish vampire/horror movie. Oddly, I found it a bit unsatisfying in the end yet there is a lot to admire here. The plot itself is rather simple - a young, lonely boy who meets a young (in appearance) female vampire and some kind of love/odd friendship kindles, but it is very well told. The first half is rather too slow for my tastes, but the mood is excellent, and this is a damn well shot film. Some of the scenes are so effective because of how they were shot, key amongst them the swimming pool scene. There isn't a lot of blood and violence, but coupled with the atmosphere and cinematography, when the gore does come, it is very jolting. Twilight this is not. A film I will probably watch again a few months down the road. 4/5

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Mar 12 2009, 01:42 PM