What films have you been watching recently?

Drive

Style-over-substance heist movie with all the cliches in place - wafer-thin plot, stereotypical characters and an inexplicably badass protagonist. But it's tense, gripping, and extremely well-shot, and the soundtrack's superb. It builds up quite slowly but when the violence hits, it hits hard.

7/10

Cowboys & Aliens

Loved it, the casting was great and everything on the movie just screamed at my inner neard!

Great script... I just loved it...


9/10

Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo/Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below - Shinkai Makoto's new movie, went to the EU premiere earlier this evening as part of the London Film Festival. 9/10 for the film, fanboydreams/10 for getting to meet and speak with Shinkai in the lobby afterwards.

Watched Knight and Day over the weekend. It's a film of two halves- the first half is great, Tom Cruise is probably the only person who could have pulled it off, the comic timing is brilliant. Cameron Diaz is perhaps a bit miscast but not bad.

The second half loses its way and drops into generic action territory and is worse for it.

I loved the part when Diaz is coming out of the drugged sleep, only to see Cruise hanging upside down being tortured. He says something along the lines of "Hey June, I know this looks bad but don't worry, I'll get you out." Next thing she's on an island in a bikini, wondering how she got into the bikini.

Tintin

Really liked it, even if it felt a bit like Tintin on steroids with a really fast pacing.

The story is nice and easy to follow.

Loved the look of the film! Was brilliant (some times it felt like an promo for Uncharted 3!)

Some very good comedy moments and the action scenes ranged from good to jaw dropping!

8/10

I'm in two minds about seeing Tintin. I love the books and the original animated series keeps its look very close to them. This looks quite uncanny valley from the trailers...

I don't like this new style of animation. It's not too bad for games (like LA Noire) but for animated films, it feels soulless and like it's turning animation into mere Digital puppetry.

I always had it in mind that a big budget Tintin movie would be stop-motion animated like The Nightmare Before Christmas. This all looks too crisp and smooth, too close to live action so it might as well have BEEN live action.

I haven't seen Tintin, but I agree; what's the point of 'capturing' an actor's performance, and then pasting a CGI 'skin' on the top? For me, the whole point of animation is to produce something that looks and (crucially) moves differently to real life.

The same is true with videogames; I'd much prefer a stylised rendering over a realistic one any day, and until we step out of the other end of the uncanny valley, I don't think that'll change for me.

In games I don't mind a bit of a crossover. LA Noire's faces did something very few videogames have managed before - managed to put across a character's emotions. I remember reading a lot of critics slamming the fact that you had realistic character faces and expressions on bizarrely animated lollipop stick bodies but I never really found that at all with LA Noire. It was just the right balance IMHO.

But Tintin, and other movies like Mars Needs Moms and stuff that's trodden down the path to Uncanny Valley, always make me wonder why the movie company bothered with animation and didn't just do the whole thing live action as surely they've got a huge additional budget to incorporate from mocap time and the effort of getting an artistic style right too.

I dunno, I'm an old-skool animation fan. I don't mind CGI done from the ground up but a lot of stuff now just smacks of lazy cash-in

Surrogates: 7/10. Delivered pretty much precisely what I expected. Felt a lot longer than it's 80 min run time. Radha Mitchell looks gorgeous as ever.

Sweeney Todd (Depp version). 9.5/10. Blown away by it; utterly superb at every level. Amazing blu-ray transfer, too. Wish lovefilm had sent it months ago, when I first asked for it.

Captain America, The First Avenger.

Great action film, fairly good WW2 film and a pretty decent superhero film.

8/10

Can't stand the lead in Capt America but quite fancy seeing that.

He doesn't come across as a smug git in Cpt America

The Beginners
Oliver (Ewan McGregor) meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna (Mélanie Laurent) only months after his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father who - following 44 years of marriage - came out of the closet at age 75.

Very quirky, everyone's slightly eccentric like you'd never see in real life, but it is deeply touching. A tad on the cute, light-hearted side, despite dealing with death and cancer. Mélanie Laurent is absolutely gorgeous.


The Tree of Life
The impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt).

One of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen. I'd quite love to see this in HD, actually. Both the scenes of suburban 1950's America, and the scenes of the history of the universe (yes, this film includes the a brief overview of the entire history of how life came about). If for no other reason, watch this film for the gorgeous camerawork. Plotwise, there's not so much a story as there is snippets of an ordinary life.

The film supposedly poses some grand existential questions but I didn't really get that. It's mainly a feast for the eyes in its delivery.

Watched The Matrix yesterday for the first time in ages, and for the first time in HD. I know it's utter nonsense, and the dialogue and acting is wooden beyond belief, but it's still a fantastic film. Twelve years old now, and bullet time still looks great.

Black Dynamite.

It's the Saints Row 3 of spoof blaxploitation movies. Still grinning from ear to ear.

Seen a few over the last few days or so.

Monsters was quite good - film about a guy escorting a girl from Mexico into the US but having to contend with freaky stuff along the way. Some lovely photography and nice interaction between the characters.

This is England - very good. I'm sure you've all seen it by now, but if you haven't I'd recommend it.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - quite enjoyable. Was watching on a shitty TV in a hotel room, but was good fun. One memorable laugh out loud moment for me too. Ron Perlman's great and Selma Blair is very watchable.

Tintin

Big fan of the books, so was keen to see how the film version would turn out, and I wasn't disappointed. Very Indy-like at times, funny, and full of great set-pieces - the Morocco chase scene in particular was stunning.

The CGI really surprised me, thanks to the animation it looked amazingly life-like at times, the illusion only breaking when you saw the character's faces (Tintin looked a bit too fresh-faced, imo). However, with the look of the film being so far removed from the comics and animated series, I still wish they'd gone with live action - the potential is certainly there for a popular big budget franchise. Still, can't complain when this turned out to be much better than I expected.

Anyone else think Daniel Craig's character looked and sounded just like Ben Kingsley, btw? I was convinced it was him, was surprised when I saw the credits!

8/10

I just didn't like it. I can't quite put my finger on why, I think the animation's just too throwaway, too close to live action to really feel like animation at all.

Could be because I was brought up with the animated films (that were direct lifts from the art style of the books) and these were brilliant. Spielberg's take on Tintin just feels like a watery, soulless version.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Visually striking. Tedious in parts.

Was waiting for a clever conclusion and then the credits rolled and I raged.

transformers 3- shit

Green Lantern- so shit it makes transformers 3 look less shit.

Super 8- great film.

The Goonies- a really great film. Considering all they do is go down a tunnel and find a boat, it's brilliant.

G.I Joe, Rise of Cobra

What...did...I...Just..Watch?

Great vehicles and the nano bits were cool. Christ though, HOW many people from the Mummy films could they get in to cameo?

Rubber

It's bonkers. It has no point whatsoever. It will have your mrs asking questions all the way through and looking at you in disbelief. It's 1 hour 10 mins long.

10/10

Life As We Know It

Let's just say I'm asking the bomb squad to make a controlled explosion of my girlfriend's lovefilm list.

Up tonight: Thor!

Why, yes, I will be watching it alone. How did you know?

Crank 2

I loved the first one, but I think my jaw was on the floor for most of this. What the hell did I just watch? :)

Crank 2 must rank as one of the most mental films I've ever seen. I mean, they didn't exactly leave the first one open for a sequel in the first place did they?

Definitely want to see that...like a bit of Statham, he's an excellent mindless goon in movies - but yeah, difficult to figure out how they managed to squeeze a sequel out after the way the original ended :)

Loved the bit in Crank 1 where he meets up with his girlfriend (and she was very nice indeed)

Crank 2 is great! it also has a amazing mike patton soundtrack.

Watched never let me go - great, but really quite depressing, stuck with me for a few days

Crank 2 is so awesome I've ended up buying it twice on Blu-ray.

Not because I'm mad but Crank isn't available on BR in the UK but a double pack of both films was recently released dirt cheap* in the US so I bought it from Amazon.com.

I'll be going along to see the new Ghost Rider film next year on the basis that Neveldine/Taylor are directing it, the trailer is bonkers.

*it was $10.99 when I ordered it

I'd like to watch the new ghost rider film but my hatred of the first one is giving me problems...