What I Just Watched?

Body of Lies (2008), Sir Ridley Scott takes on a film about international espionage and the fight on the war on terror. It's a film with good intentions but it does feel a bit half-hearted, as if it was toned down by force. It has CIA operative Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio, with a comedy beard), who is based in Iraq, looking for a terrorist mastermind called Al Salim, who is behind terrorist attacks in Manchester and Amsterdam. Ferris is working for Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe, with a fat belly), who seems to have an agenda or two of is own planned. Meanwhile, Ferris is posted to Jordan and finds himself in league with Jordanian Intelligence official Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), who wants Ferris to never lie to him. But, with so much wheeling-dealing doing on, what's true and what isn't?? It's well made, and the lead performances are good, but this would have been more suited to Ridley's brother Tony Scott, (it's crossed between Enemy of the State (1998) and Spy Game (2001)). It could have been better, and you do get the impression alot was cut out of the film, maybe Scott has a director's cut planned, but it's average for now, but when it's good, it is good... ;) 3/5

Lemming (1st view) – A supernatural/psychological thriller from French director Dominik Moll. When the cause of a blocked drain is found to be a lemming in the pipes, a bizarre chain of events kicks off including suicide, murder and ghostly possession. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Rampling both give excellent performances, but it’s the sense of eerie discomfort that stands out in this film – 4/5

Recount (1st view) – An all-star cast in this dramatisation of the events surrounding the Florida election recount back in 2000. Worth watching for the look on Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey) as new developments occur and he realises the scale of what went wrong. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at this farcical affair, even though I knew most of what occurred. Spacey hasn’t been this good in years, but he’s matched by Tom Wilkinson, Bob Balaban and Laura Dern – 4/5

He Was A Quiet Man (1st view) – Christian Slater stars as Bob Maconel, an office worker who goes into work one day with the intention of going on a killing spree. He’s beaten to it by a fellow-co-worker though, and ends up killing the man, becoming a hero in the process. He then befriends and falls in love with Vanessa (Elisha Cuthbert), a woman paralysed in the shooting, but it isn’t long before he loses touch with reality again. Slater gives a decent performance, and there's a nice turn from William H. Macy as his boss, but the whole thing ifs far too preachy and, come the end, it’s hard to care what happens – 2/5

Not your normal run of the mill vampire film, it's certainly macabre and dark but not especially scary. This was director Guillermo De Toro's first full length film back in 1993 although I didn't like it as much as the others you can definetly see he had the promise of so much more to come. I especially loved the touching relationship between the main character and his grandaughter as the story progresses and their roles reverse as she ends up caring for him. Well worth a view if anyone hasn't seen it. 3.5/5

Zack and Miri Make A Porno. Surprisingly touching (oo er) and expectedly hilarious. Not exactly family fun, but one to see with ya mates!

WALL•E (2008), Disney and Pixar strike gold once again, with this offbeat and daring film, but it could also be their best one yet!! Set in the 29th Century, it has a little robot called WALL•E, who was once part of 1,000's, but for 700 years, has been cleaning up planet Earth, now covered in rubbish, and abandoned by humans. He's been all alone for all that time, but then a spaceship and a mysterious robot called EVE appears... It's a very simple and sweet love story between two robots, and it works!! It's visually beautiful, and has some of the best imagery that Pixar has ever created. It's got heart and emotion, without being sentimental, but it's got good humour as well. It's a joy to watch, and you just want to watch it again immediately!! Quite simply the best film of 2008!! :D 5/5

Chicken Run (2000), Aardman Animations, Britain's best animation studio, finally made the transition to cinema with this charming little claymation piece, which is a spoof on old POW movies. Set on a chicken farm in 1950's Yorkshire, it has a group of hens led by Ginger (Julia Sawalha) trying to escape from the evil Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) and her egg farmer husband Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth), after several attempts at escaping fail, they soon find hope from circus runaway rooster Rocky (Mel Gibson), who they think flew in, (he didn't), and they try to escape, especially now that Mrs. Tweedy has invested in a chicken pie making machine!! It's very well made, and it's very English as well, which is what we've come to expect from Pixar, directors Peter Lord and Nick Park keep up the fun throughout, add some good detail and it also features the voices of Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, Phil Daniels and Timothy Spall. On the strength of this, Aardman should definitely make more feature films!! ;) 4/5

Rather a few of late:

I'm not saying I hated it, but I'm not saying I went nuts over it like I did for Casino Royale. I'd really need to see it again to make my mind up properly about the film! :oops:

DiCaprio and Scorcese bring the troubled life of billionaire Howard Hughes to the big screen, with a powerful portrayal of a man who, with the world literally at his feet, begins to crumble under an intense obsessive compulsive disorder. Human performances aside, the aerial effects are fantastic to watch, in particular the XF-11 crash scene and the flight of the Spruce Goose (although the recreated dogfights which made up the last act of Hell's Angels do look rather unconvincing in my opinion). Daz rating: :):):):)

One of my favourite crime movies, telling the (somewhat) true story of the bringing down of Chicago's legendary gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro, on blazing form) by Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and his group of "untouchable" lawmen (including Sean Connery and Andy Garcia). Daz rating: :D:D:D:D:D

I think I'm being too soft on this film. I mean, I want to slate it because of cliches piled upon cliches, the rather wooden acting, and some of the CGI dogfights are quite suspect. But still, I enjoy it. I think more because of the use of some "real" Fokkers and Nieuports (I know they're all replicas!) than anything else. It feels like a good opportunity missed here (much like Pearl Harbor). This could have been a First World War aviation film like no other, but instead it's more like The Dawn Patrol done on a Mac (although, in my opinion, The Dawn Patrol is much better!). Daz rating: :):):)

Yes, more WW1 aerial action, and this is "the big one" as far as fans and critics are concerned. Compared to the more recent Flyboys, the flying sequences are far more realistic (if a little more "staged") because they had real aircraft (OK, replicas if you want to be pedantic! :rolleyes: ). The strafing sequence towards the end is still my favourite - but do try and watch out for the German SE5a! By the way, as far as Ms. Andress's infamous towel scene goes - the tape didn't do a proper job! :diablo: Daz rating: :):):):)

Stephen Sommers's attempt at bringing Universal Studios' classic monsters into the 21st Century is a bit more miss than hit. The film pays homage to certain elements from the Universal Dracula/Wolfman/Frankenstein franchises, but suffers a bit from lapses of logic, overdrawn action sequences and far too much use of CGI. Having said that, it does have Kate Beckinsale playing a feisty vampire hunter:

It could have been worse, but not by a whole lot, to be honest! Daz rating: :sad: :sad:

Suspenseful actioner debut from editor Stuart Baird... Russell is cast against type as a nerdy terrorism expert who finds himself reluctantly accompanying an elite commando unit who must infiltrate a 747 aircraft mid-flight to foil an Islamic extremist strike against the USA... In light of the fact that this movie preceded 9/11 by 5 years,it's pretty close to the bone... Fun stuff though... 3.5/5

The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell (1st view) - Gary Cooper stars as Billy Mitchell, a Colonel in the US airforce in the years following WWI. Unhappy at the number of accidents occurring due to a lack of funding and training, he expresses his disdain to reporters and is promptly brought up on charges. Otto Preminger directs and, while this is never quite as engrossing as his other courtroom drama, Anatomy Of A Muder, there’s much to enjoy here with all the legal wrangling, a fine turn from Gary Cooper and a wonderful slimy performance from Rod Steiger, It seems to revel in hindsight too much though, and Mitchell is portrayed as an almost prophetic figure – 4/5

Forrest Gump (100th+ view) - I love this film. There I’ve said it. I love it and I always have. I first saw it (or rather the first 50 minutes) during the final physics lesson before the summer holidays back in school about 11 years ago. The teacher hadn’t come up with a lesson, so he let us watch this instead! I managed to watch it in full about a year later, and I loved it. And during the next year or two I overdosed on it, I knew the script by heart, when each song came into play, everything. I haven’t seen it in almost 7 years, but it’s lost known of its appeal. If anything, I love it even more. I know it’s flawed, I know it can be considered overly sentimental (I cried at the end, Again), I know it offers up a somewhat simplistic view on life, but I don’t care. I just adore every damn second, all the performances, the journey through 60s and 70s America. I even have a Bubba Gump hat! And it has the best set of tunes ever compiled for a film. Which makes me wonder why only two thirds of them appear on the deluxe soundtrack. Bummer. Still, bloody great film. In every way possible it deserved its triumph over Pulp Fiction at the Oscars – 5/5

St. Trinian’s (1st view) - From the good to the bad. The very bad. The very, very, very, very, very bad. Useless garbage of the highest order. A rancid, festering, stinking, puss-filled boil of rotten putridness, the scars of which will never heal. Much like Morris Minor and The Majors sang in their song, Another Boring B-Side, this has no redeeming features. Actually, I tell a lie. It has one reasonable line (“It’s like Hogwarts for Pikeys”). The rest though is Grade A, pure, undiluted, wholly, 100% bilge. You may recall the lack of love I have for Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. Well, if that film was the White House, St. Trinian’s is a ramshackle, rat-infested, cockroach-ridden mud hut with no ceilings that’s just been washed away from storm and found itself in a sewage farm. Utterly irredeemable, a scourge on the face of filmdom – 0/5

No, I'm not finished watching my grab-bag of WW1 aviation movies! Having watched The Aviator, The Blue Max and Flyboys recently, I decided to put this in for a spin. Story-wise, it concerns Roy and Monty Rutledge, two English(?!) university students who decide to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps. They start off believing that flying will be a great lark, and seem to enjoy their time biffing the Boche (including the spectacular destruction of a Zeppelin), but soon succumb to the stress and strain of almost daily combat, as well as seeing their friends die in action. The third act of the film sees Monty becoming more and more unhinged, disillusioned by the politicians who convinced them that joining up was a noble cause - he sees them simply as murderers sending these young men into an aerial abbatoir, and makes his point in front of several higher-ranking officers. Nevertheless, he and Roy volunteer for a very hazardous (and very Hollywood!) mission where they use a captured Gotha (or whatever they used in its place) to bomb a munitions depot behind enemy lines. As typical of the time, the performances are a bit ropey, and the German antagonists simply cartoon villains (stilted accents and all), but of course the best thing about the film is the flying action - REAL WW1 planes for the most part, not replicas, and certainly no CGI! I'd really love to know how Howard Hughes got hold of so many Fokker D.VII biplanes, as well as the numerous Allied scouts used in the film (two S.E.5as that I could see for a start!). Flying sequences don't come much more realistic than these - with the actors actually in the cockpits, flying the aircraft and firing the guns. For that alone, the film gets: Daz rating: :):):):)

The first film to ever win an Oscar for "Best Picture" (and the only silent film to ever do so. Yes, SILENT!), William Wellman's 1927 epic is a more substantial film than Hughes' Hell's Angels which was released three years later. Jack and David, at first bitter rivals for the affections of one of their neighbours, enlist in the Air Corps and train to become fighter pilots. They go off to France together and biff the Boche in standard Hollywood fare, but fall out when David discovers that, really, the girl they'd been fighting over to begin with prefers Jack over him. However, after Jack is shot down over enemy lines, David is tormented by the loss of his friend, and later seeks to avenge him, only for fate to deal him a rather crappy hand... Performance-wise, this is actually better than the Hughes effort, given that a lot of the emotion is unspoken except for the dialogue cards - much of what is said has to be gleaned from the actions and reactions of the actors onscreen. Aerial stuff - outstanding, even more so than Hell's Angels. Non-authentic "WW1 scouts" aside (although there is the odd shot of a genuine Fokker D.VII here and there), they seem to be all that a cinematic dogfight should be - delivered in short, but effective bursts. With the actors again in the cockpits of their scouts, you can't ask for more realism than that (and some of the onscreen crashes are too convincing to be models!!). Although I have a copy of the film on DVD, my preferred method of watching the film is on the VHS tape that I recorded about 14 years ago(:eek:) off Channel 4. It contains a specially-recorded score by Carl Davis, which adds considerably to the action on film. If only there was a CD release of the score!!! :roll: Daz rating: :):):):):)

Although I have a copy of the film on DVD, my preferred method of watching the film is on the VHS tape that I recorded about 14 years ago(:eek:) off Channel 4. It contains a specially-recorded score by Carl Davis, which adds considerably to the action on film. If only there was a CD release of the score!!! :roll: Actually Daz,Carl Davis' Wings music (and much more cool stuff) can be found on this 2CD collection released by Silva Screen in the UK...

and it can be bought HERE

and it can be bought HERE You, sir, are a legend!

Good to see some of us watching the old film greats I should do more of the same really. Gimli I'm so with you on Forrest Gump certainly DID deserve that oscar and all the praise ... there I said it as well :D

Happy-Go-Lucky is about Poppy, a young primary school teacher. A free spirit, she is open and generous - as funny and anarchic as she is focussed and responsible. She has time for everybody, and whoever she meets falls in love with her. She loves the children she teaches, and works hard. She shares a flat with a girlfriend, enjoys her social life, is caring towards her younger sisters, and takes flamenco and trampoline lessons. When she starts driving lessons, her maturity and her sense of humour help her to deal with a manic instructor. Comfortable with being single, she meets a guy through work with whom she really clicks. Mike Leigh's film follows Poppy for a few weeks over the London summer. Loved this alot not sure if it would be everyone's cuppa though as much as I loved Poppy's character I can also see she could easily grate on many people's nerves. I have always loved Mike Leigh's films such as Vera Drake and Topsy Turvey but Secrets and Lies is my absolute favourite. 4/5

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