currently on at the 'pictures':

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

I only point out my own reactions to a film, Phoenix: but I will state that a couple in the cineama walked out before the end. This film is non-formulaic, which makes it a winner in my book, though the novel is probably better.
This film got my full attention, which cannot be said of many films which sweep the board at the Oscars.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Last week, I went to the flicks a record-breaking SIX times, [SUN-FRI], so this week I've only seen one new film, which is:

MIC MACS: this is a subtitled French film,---which will probably alienate about half of the potential audience------ but don't let that put you off; this comic offering is a fast-moving, highly visual farce featuring grotesque characters [clearly employed for their striking looks-----one of them is a bona-fide contortionist] who carry out elaborate heists: a fair few of the visual gags are in the WILE E. COYOTE/ACME CO. league: with an ever-shifting viewpoint that keeps boredom at bay. There's not a great deal of dialogue in the first place, and if you enjoy exuberant visuals of the MAD MAGAZINE variety in a live-action setting, this may be for you........not for every taste, however, with only about 10 of us in the audience. [4/5, but probably many punters would score less].

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Peter Gray
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by Peter Gray »

Will you be able to see Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton film...when it is out..love to hear from you what it is like...
The Guildford Odeon won't be showing it due to a dvd released early dispute by Disney..so would have to travel quite a way to Bracknell to see it..

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

It looks a bit weird, Peter, but I'll definately see it as I like most of BURTONS' works,. The CGI characters look odd, however, so I'm prepared for nightmarish visuals.....

Raven
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by Raven »

I loved Sweeney Todd.

Odeon have now resolved their dispute with Disney, Peter, so they will be showing the film after all.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

I think ALICE is released on the 5th of March.

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE:

This crime-thriller features John Travolta as a psychotic mercenary who 'takes out' a lot of the cocaine-dealing lowlife that run amok in the States. The Travolta of my youth was very different: a strutting, late 70s-disco-dancing matinee idol: today, he appears more typecast as a bald psycho-killer, though in this case, it is baddies possibly even worse than his own chracter who are 'removed'.

This 15 film is pretty violent, and it's all mechanical and methodical, without human emotion, and the violence is brutally short, without the camera lingering on too long onto the occassional gore. Travolta's character, for all his repellent traits, actually has you laughing along with him, as he eventually wins you over admidst the carnage.

Some nice twists and surprizes in this film: not nearly as routine as many films in this genre, and it sustains the interest. [3/5; some points deducted for the deliberately unsavoury violence].

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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by Raven »

I managed to see a pre-release screening of Alice. Though the design, visuals and 3D effects are good, the film doesn't really make much of the wonderful source material, putting the characters into a very ordinary and rather plodding fantasy action-adventure film.

Kids may like the gimmicks but it's hard to imagine adults getting much out of the plot, and there's nothing much you'd really recognise as Lewis Carroll, which utilises his wonderful imagination or wordplay, or recreates his dream-like surreal worlds.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

you have pipped us all to the post on this one, Raven; I still haven't seen Alice yet...maybe over the weekend...


meanwhile....


THE CRAZIES: yet another in the terminally-popular 'virus affects all mankind' sub-genre. This is more sensitively-handled than most lurid variations of this morbid theme: however, gratuitous gore comes into the fray in one scene set inside a mortuary....

A good scene later on involving a 4x4 trying to outrun a nuclear blast. [3/5].

SOLOMON KANE: the title says it all, really.....this out and out fantasy is neither one thing or the other, trapped between the sword-and-sorcery and comic-book imagery camps. Effects resemble a video-game in some sequences.........not all bad, but too derivative. [2/5].

CHLOE: a very oddly-concieved psychological drama involving an escort girl who is hired by a paranoid housewife to 'bait' her husband.....perplexing, and a bit infuriating near the end. [2/5].


LEAP YEAR: a US lass flies to Ireland, so she can propose to her beau on Feb 29. The farcical encounters she overcomes stranded in rural Southern Ireland make for good comic setpieces, and the ending is tearjerking/slushy, depending on your viewpoint. Not a bad film by any means. [3/5].

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Steve Henderson
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by Steve Henderson »

Save yourself a few quid, dont bother watching Aice in Wonderland. I was looking forward to seeing the Tim Burton version of a cracking book thats full of nonsense and dosent play to any particular convention, what I got was a load of conventional rubbish, the design was great, the direction was alright but the story and the execution was terrible, I think it may have been the actors, Johnny Depp was a crap Mad Hatter

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: Following the 1930s Hollywood version, the famous 50s Disney cartoon version, and a 1972 UK live-action version, this expensive update starts off conventially enough, but once we get to Wonderland, it's an expensive, stylish, gaudy dream with cracking production design and bizarre turns from all the famous dreamlike characters from the CARROLL novel.

Although I have always loved fantasy, I am put off by overdoses of CGI, and the sheer artificiality of much of the setpieces comes off as off-putting if intruiging in parts.

Too much deliberatly odd imagery----I've always found this story nightmarish, in any form-------notably from QUEEN of HEARTS actress Helena Botham- Carte with a bulbous, overgrown head, becomes overbearing after a continuous visual bombardment, however, I still feel this film is worth a look at least. [3/5].




GREEN ZONE: much gung-ho war action from American soldiers out in the Middle East. A bit too much shaky camera-work, foul language, quick cuts of wartime brutality all in the name of 'UNCA SAM': you know the sort of thing to expect. [2/5].
Last edited by ISPYSHHHGUY on 11 Mar 2010, 20:14, edited 1 time in total.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

LEGION; yet another in the currently endless 'Apocalyptic' sub-genre, this is an intruiging oddity, set almost exclusively in a desolate, windswept mid-America, inside a remote 'gas-station.'

Something apocalyptic and sinister is happening in the ouside world, and this film introduces some very effective 'fright' elements: a charming old lady becomes demonized in a pretty disturbing cafe diner scene: swarms of flies engulf motorists in cars, etc.

Some dreamlike, unexpected shock sequences throughout: but some of the scenarios are frankly laughable. A real mixed bag, with unusual fantasy trimmings near the end. Not a total loss. [3/5].

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

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SHUTTER ISLAND: A pretty sinister, gloomy psychodrama with a great sense of place [it seems to be filmed on location on an actual prison-island site: very unusual] during the 'old school' regime of high-security mental prisons of the early 50s US.

De Caprio plays an investigating lawman sent to investigate a specific crime during a raging rainstorm: increasing paranoia intensifies as the film unspools, though the actual outcome is predictable, there a few unexpected twists. [3/5]


CRAZY HEART: This film won an impressive 2 Oscars last week, although I feel the entire Oscars mechanism is farcical in the first place, so that factor doesn't account for much in the first place, in my view at least. Jeff Bridges plays a burnt-out, hard-drinking, down on his luck country singer, who still clings onto his last vestiges of fame within deep Redneck Country. Laidback, and a nice change from the usual NYC/ LA locations, but no classic. Some neat sliding country GEETAR on the soundtrack, if you appreciate this sort of thing. [2/5].


CASE 39: I didn't especially fancy this, but I'm glad I caught it. Renee Zwellinger plays a social worker dealing with traumatized kids, and saves one lass from being torched alive in a gas oven......after adopting the gal, she soon discovers why the parents tried to top the kid.


Great twists and turns in this one, with a chilling scene with a victim of hornets attacking him in the bathroom, that is the stuff of nightmares.



One or two unintentional laughs, to be sure, but overall gripping and engrossing. Reccomended. [4/5].

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Digifiend
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by Digifiend »

Hey, Spy, maybe you should ask the BBC if they want you to take Wossy's place on Film 2010. They'll be needing a new host when his contract runs out in the summer. ;)

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Thanks, Digi! I used to like the show when Bazza Norman done it: I've never seen the WOSS version once: but I acknowledge he is a real film buff, which I will not take away from him.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: currently on at the 'pictures':

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

HACHI: A DOG'S TALE:

Based on a true story of a dog in Japan who awaited his master at the railway station every working day: and for several years after his master died-------this US update charts the events from pup to old mutt-hood, and you will find it either tear-jerking or slushy, depending on your viewpoint. I love animals in general, so I liked it........also notable for being the only Richard Gere vehicle I actually enjoyed....[4/5].


I LOVE YOU, PHILIP MORRIS: Another 'true-life' story, though there are embellishments-a-plenty, surely. This is the trials and tribulations of a professional con-man [Jim Carey] in a fast-moving, farcical comedy, peppered with much vulgarity and swearing: intruiging however, and it definately keeps up the interest, switching between life inside the slammer and the corporate world outside, which is fleeced by Carrey.

The deliberate over-acting is, of course, Carrey's stock-in trade, but is less suited to Ewan Mc Gregor's character. Some of the very overtly gay sequences [bravely portrayed by the pair] were a bit nauseous for my palate, but that's probably just me being an old fogey.


Well worth seeing, despite the overkill of vulgarity. [4/5].

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