Hello There

As my cousin Mr knee has decided he wants to be famous and do music reviews over at Mr Struthers site I thought I would show up to help with the movie reviews this week. Hopefully everything is good cause I get dizzy when i am upside down

The Door In the Floor

Combination coming of age/middle life crisis flick starring "The Dude" and Kim Basinger. Nice enough story but almost instantly forgettable. Thumbs in the Middle

The Dancer Upstairs

Really enjoyable thriller following a cop in South America tracking down the leader of revolution. Thumbs Up

Batman And Robin

More cod pieces and nipples, this is so much worse than I remember, every third line is an unfunny one liner. The only way it could be any worse is if the Batgirl suit had nipples on it. Thumbs Down

Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever

Random blowing shit up and I didn't even like it as most of the action scenes are poorly shot and there isn't even a thread of a story to tie it together. Thumbs Down

Monsters, Inc.

Nephew was around and finally got him to watch something other than Shrek. Its Pixar so of course it's awesome, along with a bugs life its the one that people forget but I think its really underrated and probably better than Finding Nemo. Two Thumbs Up

Walk The Line

If you remember my Ray review you will remember that I said I hated biopics, where here is the exception to the rule. Follows Cash's life up to the night June Carter finally agrees to marry him. The performance pieces are wonderfully shot as the direction of them gets crazier and crazier as Cash gets more and more hooked on pills. the bits in between are funny and touching without becoming preachy which usually pisses me off in biopics. Two Thumbs Up

The Ringer

Beyond bad, watching this may retard you enough that you could enter the special Olympics. Thumbs Down

New DVD's

The Shield Season 2 - Best Cop show on TV

40 Year Old virgin - I don't think it is the hilarious classic some make out but was funny enough to warrant the £5 price tag I got it for

The 39 Steps - fantastic early Hitchcock thriller which leaves me with only a handful of Hitchcock's to collect

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid - classic

New CD's

Green Day - Warning - filling in the last couple of gaps in my green day collection

Howdy

After a relaxing long weekend I don't have much to say though I am intrigued by the Ong-Bak drinking game Mr. Struthers is discussing over in his area of madness. However the thought of using his "High Class Hooker" concoction to play the game does not sound as inviting.

Criminal

U.S. remake of an Argentinian film "Nine Queens", I like both of them about equally but that is only because John C. Reilly is in this one and he is a God among us mere mortals. However if you have seen enough con films in your life you will likely see the twists coming. Thumbs Up

Knight Rider 2000

Blasphemy of the highest order, no original theme tune, no original car. Only the Hoff acting all shirtless comes close to saving this. Thumbs Down

First Daughter

Really can't believe Forrest Whitaker made this, watched just to help me over my once crush on Katie Holmes which disappeared when she went mental last year when the scientologists brain washed her into thinking Tom Cruise was cuter than me. Thumbs Down

Eight Crazy Nights

Animated film starring Adam Sandler, ridicuously childish toilet humour which I'm a sucker for so I got a laugh out of it. Thumbs in the Middle

Friday The 13th Part 2

The adult Jason makes his first appearance in the franchise, this time with a bag over his head, the iconic hockey mask didn't make an appearance till the third part. Basic story is a bunch of teenagers have sex and then get killed. Thumbs Down

The Legend Of Zorro

I thought the first one was an enjoyable enough romp, but this was horrible, took an hour and 20 minutes to reveal the plot and they did the shitty thing most Hollywood sequels do by introducing a cute kid, except the cute kid is as annoying as fuck and I kept wishing someone would stab him in the eye. Thumbs Down

The Matador

The first real surprise of the year, black comedy in which Pierce Brosnan plays a fading hitman who is tired of his life. some fantastic dialogue my favourite being after Brosnan flirts with some Mexican schoolgirls "I hate Catholic countries. All blushy blushy and no sucky-fucky". Thumbs Up

The Backyard

Hilarious documentary about a bunch of hicks who think they will make it big in wrestling by starting out in there backyard hitting each other with chairs. My favourite bits where a guy whose gimmick was Big Mac with Spork, and the Retarded butcher who has a match stopped because his mum keeps moving the tables and other weapons out of the way, made funnier by the fact that she is the only person watching it. Thumbs Up

Four Brothers

John Singleton what went wrong, started off with Boyz n the Hood and went right downhill. There are flashes of greatness in here but the rest of the crap just drags it down to a mediocre mess. Thumbs in the Middle

Adventures of Robin Hood

Like most films from the 30's that are hailed as classics they have been imitated and ripped off so many times that when you see them you wonder what the fuss was all about. I enjoyed it well enough but would not hail it as some masterpiece. Thumbs in the Middle

Animationathon

Watched a bunch of animated films over the last few days, 3 Miyazaki's and 3 stop motion animated films, including all the nominees for Best Animated feature at the Oscars, otherwise known as "Holy Shit we can't give some kids cartoon best film it will make us look like retards, lets create there own category award". Anyway I think they made the right decision going with W&G

Lots to cover so some of these will be short

Howl's Moving Castle

Not quite as great as Spirited Away but its still full of wonderful ideas and some crazy ones that make you question what the Japanese are smoking. Two Thumbs Up

Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-rabbit

Enjoyed it even more than the first time I saw it, its so full of sight gags that I spotted a whole bunch of jokes I missed the last time. Two Thumbs Up

Corpse Bride

Not quite up to the heights of TNBC, but good none the less, I really liked that the living were dark and gothic and the dead were colourful and lively. Thumbs Up

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Brilliant, Two thumbs Up

My Neighbor Totoro

Was slightly disapointed by this but that is usually the case with most films that get hyped up, all the bits with Totoro in them are brilliant but that makes up only about 30 minutes of the 90 minute running time, the rest is just a good family story. Thumbs Up

Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

Miyazaki's second feature, but his first original piece of work, his first feature was a Lupin the third pic. Establishes a lot of the themes that reappear in his other films, though his don't fuck with the environment message is a bit overbearing in this one. Great action adventures scenes as usual. Thumbs Up

Non-animated stuff

BoogeyMan

Surprised by this in that it wasn't completely shit, but in the long run it is a story about a grown man who is scared of cupboards. Thumbs Down

Brokeback Mountain

Beautifully shot and well acted but I came away felling a bit is that it?, if the cowboys hadn't have been gay I do not think this would have got half the praise it did. Thumbs in the middle

Into the Blue

My brain hurts just thinking about how dumb this is, if seeing Jessica Alba's hard nips in a bikini for an hour and a half is your thing then you might enjoy this. Despite that I thought it was crap, Thumbs Down

Dark Star

How do you review a film where one of the characters is an alien that is little more than a beach ball with feet. Its the only John Carpenter I hadn't seen and was also on my 100 to see before I die list. Some crazy shit going on in this but not enough Carpenter synthesiser for my liking. Thumbs in the middle

New DVD's

A Very Long Engagement - Been waiting for this to be cheap for a while to round out my Jean Pierre Jeunet collection, so £6 bargain

The Wedding Crashers - a lesson in not buying DVD's when they come out any more at £5 a couple of months after release, bargain

Starship troopers 2 game

Play along its fun for all the family, I really wish it was. Here's how to play, sit down and watch Starship Troopers 2 and see how long you can last without losing the will to live or without gouging your eyes out. Current Score board stands at

Me: 30 something minutes, time is slightly inaccurate due to temporary blindness brought on by film, I did fast forward through the rest in an attempt to get an idea of the story but found none

Mr Struthers: 10 odd minutes, always knew he was a lightweight, though technically if he replays the first 10 minutes over in his head three times then he has seen the exact same amount of the film as I have as the first 30 minutes is all close ups of people shooting clips from the first film. I say shooting but it was more of a flashing blue LED going of on and off at the end of their obviously plastic guns

Some may want to watch to see the blonde bint from Nip/Tuck get here baps out but she has one of those bad boob jobs were 99% of her boob is above her nipple and is more terrifying than the bugs in the film

Starship Troopers 2: Hero Of The Federation

See above, bad bad bad bad bad. Six Thumbs down, yes the films so bad I wish I had a mutation that made me have six thumbs

One Day In September

Last documentary in my mini-documentary season, this is a documentary about the Israeli hostage situation at the Munich Olympics in 1972 that is the back drop for Munich. Some of the incompetence in the rescue attempts are unbelievable. They let TV broadcast their preparation for storming the apartments oblivious to the fact that there were TV's in all the apartments so the terrorists were watching the whole thing, luckily the attack was called off. The whole thing was rapped up with the German Minister reporting that that all the hostages survived and that things could get back to normal and the situation can all be forgotten about in a couple of weeks, the hostages at this stage were already dead. Thumbs Up

New DVD's

Corpse Bride - If its half as good as Nightmare before Christmas it will be brilliant

My Neighbor Totoro - Completes my Miyazaki collection, gets touted as being his best so really looking forward to watching

Hey everybody...

were not racist, we love them negro's look we gave them the actor Oscars the other year and we would give it to the mexicans as well if we didn't need them to do our cleaning and cut our grass. Yep if you haven't heard the news the glorified movie of the week Crash won best film at the Oscars. This makes it two years in a row that a Paul Haggis scripted movie has won best film, he directed the turd this year, and as someone said they have never seen someone rise so medicorely (its a word) to the top in there life, the guy created Walker, Texas Ranger for fucks sake and while it kept us all safe by keeping Chuck Norris off the streets it could never be mistaken for the work of a genius in waiting. The guy's now in charge of writing the script for the new Bond, god help us all. The film has been getting praise for how subtle it portrayed how racism is bad and we shouldn't judge people by how they look. Subtle, I felt like Rodney King getting beat over the head with the racist stick by the LAPD, the only way it could have been less subtle is if all the characters wore Racisms Bad badges. This review just about sums it up

Ahhh that feels better, I have more but I'm scared of breaking my keyboard

Actually I have more, apparently this best film and best edited film is so great that a directors cut is out on DVD soon. to make things better its at least 12 minutes shorter than the theatrical version, yes even the director thinks at least 12 minutes of his own film is so shit he would prefer that people didn't see it.

The Corporation

Documentary about the scary power that corporations have today, interesting facts included that a San Francisco company owned all the water in Boliva including the rain water, they could charge you or threaten you with jail if you caught and drunk your own water, it took a revolt and several deaths to make the water companies public again. Fanta Orange is Nazi juice, Coca cola had to seen to pull out of Germany so created Fanta Orange so that they could stay in the market, and finally despite denying it IBM reportedly made a fortune by supplying and maintaining all the punch card machine that helped track all the concentration camp prisoners. Thumbs Up

Batman Returns

Brilliant, but I had forgotten how little Batman is in it, it more the Penguin and Catwomen show. Two Thumbs Up

Murderball

Documentary about murderball or quadriplegec Rugby, feel sorry for people in wheelchairs well watch these pricks and change your mind, as one of the guys friends says, he was an asshole before he got in the chair so don't feel that the accident made him different. Follows the rivalry between the USA and Canadian teams on the road to the 2004 Paralympics, also teaches you a modified doggy style if you lose power in four of your limbs. Thumbs Up

The Clearing

Waste of Talent, waste of time. says nothing does nothing. thumbs down

Batman Forever

Nipples and Cod pieces, all that has to be said, unfortunately it means Batman and Robin is next. Thumbs in the Middle

New DVD's

Howl's Moving Castle - Hopefully more Miyazaki magic

Storms a brewing

Oscars are this weekend and if the rumours of the now favourite are true I may have to post my first rant on Monday, the old favourite is finally showing at the local flicks this weekend so I am going to hoke out my ass-less chaps and checkout Brokeback Mountain.

Munich

Probably the best thing Speilberg has done in years, really feels like a 70's film, which is a good thing. Just a really good observation of the futility of revenge, something good old George W. could learn about his pointless fight against terror. Two Thumbs Up

The I Inside

Ryan Phillippe wakes up in 2002 with no memory of the past two years does some stuff then wakes up in 2000 and back and forth and I don't know whats going on and the explanation is crap. Enjoyed it to a point but in trying to read up on other peoples thoughts on what was going on its really started to annoy me so i have down graded it to Thumbs in the middle

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D

From the director of Sin city and From Dusk Till Dawn, Robert Rodriguez like to flip flop back and forth between adult genre picks and kids movies. I love all the adult stuff and his Spy Kids films are the best live action children's films of the last 15 years. This was a rental and the rental disc only comes with the 2-d version which pissed me off, the film is really disappointing but has some good ideas and would probably be more fun in 3-d. Thumbs in the middle

Elizabethtown

Partially disappointed by this, I love all of Cameron Crowe's other films but only the last 45 minutes of this felt like a Cameron Crowe film and just saved the film for me. The first hour and ten minutes is a string of great moments held together with moments of crap. Thumbs Up

Stealth

Films Shit, Jessica Biel's hot. Thumbs Down

Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam

Nick Broomfield documentary about the Heidi Fliess trial that threw Hollywood into a state of chaos for a while while people got scared that there dirty sex secret would get out. Doc focuses on her relationship with her boyfriend and is nowhere near as good as Bloomfields other doc's. Thumbs in the middle

New DVD's

The Thin Red Line - Probably the most beautiful war film ever made, if that makes any sense

New CD's

Arcade Fire - EP - seven song EP from the band I most want to see live at the moment