Still as fun and fresh as it was way back when. Arguably the best film The Beatles made and a wonderful snapshot of the times. The Beatles are, fairly obviously, not actors but their enthusiasm and humour makes that easy to overlook. My personal highlight is the sequence where George is mistaken for an extra for a teenage magazine show. 8/10

Premonition (1st view) - Hokey yet reasonably entertaining fun.Well acted for the most part and quite a surprising finish - 3/5 Shooting Dogs (1st view) - Powerful film chronicling the events in Rwanda in 1994. John Hurt and Hugh Dancy goth give good performances - 4/5 30 Days Of Night (1st view)- The best vampire film in an absolute age and one of the most effective fangy flicks that I've seen - 4/5

Lions for Lambs (2007), Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise star in this political drama concerning 3 stories, all connected in some form. Journalist Janine Roth (Streep) is interviewing patriotic Senator Jasper Irving (Cruise), who tells her about a new military plan in Afghanistan. In that military plan, two soldiers Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña) are trapped, wounded behind enemy lines. They were friends from college who decided to go to war, they studied under Prof. Malley (Redford), who at the same time is teaching disillusioned student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield), about the importance of class attendance. There are some very strong performances in this film, it's a thinking-man's war film, it certainly won't be to everyone's taste, but it has some quite suspensful moments. Oh, and this is Cruise's first film since he bought out United Artists, a good start under new management. :P 3.5/5

30 days of Night - Bloody awesome andf utterley terrifying. 4/5 Here is what I had to say about it on Ice Pirates Totally and utterley terrifying from start to finish. It has been a long time since a horror movie genuinely frightened me but this one did. From the start there is a growing sense of dread that just escalated and resulted with me chewing half my finger nails off. There were several parts where I felt my stomach turn to ice. The part that freaked me out more than anything else I've seen in a long time, is the bit where (SPOILERS)*** we first see the Vampires properley. They break into a couples home and torture them before killing them. One of them uses one of his hooked talon like fingernails to play a record and it's the first time we hear that unearthly screeching/howling sound they make. My blood turned to ice. I was also pretty shocked by how bloody and violent it was. I had to turn away several times, it was too much for me really. I hate gore but most of the time I can stand it but this was very graphic in places. I read somewhere that David Slade has made Vampires scary again. Good god! I genuinely think the vampires in this movie are revalatory. I can't remember a vampire movie in the past where the vampires are so chilling. They scared the crap out of me. Danny Huston's Marlow is right up there with Nosferatu in the creep out stakes (no pun intended) He is just terrifying. I do think he is surpassed by the female leader though. She nearly sent me to the toilet screaming *shudders* I'm not gonna say what was wrong with it cos I agree with all the points already made about it's faults, especially the passing of time factor but I will say that it was a bloody good movie. Stylistically it was great, fantastic cinematography and very engaging. Scared several barrels of crap out of me but I loved it. As for Josh Hartnett's acting....who cares? he's hot I actually thought Melissa George was worse than Josh but you guys will forgive her cos she's so purdy, same for me with Hartnett

Topaz (1969), Alfred Hitchcock makes a departure of sorts and makes a spy film in the vein of the ones he used to make in the 30's and 40's, like The 39 Steps (1935), Secret Agent (1936) and Foreign Correspondent (1940). This is set in October 1962, with the Cuban missile crisis scaring the world, this has CIA agent Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) enlisting the help of French agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), to investigate a top ranking Cuban official, and expose the leader of Topaz, a spy ring with Soviet connections. An engaging, realistic but complex spy film, rather like an antidote to the James Bond films, but still with the requisite globe-hopping, (here from Copenhagen to Washington, New York, Cuba and Paris). But, it had it's fair share of problems, Hitchcock refused to cast any major stars and went with mostly French actors, had the script rewritten before filming started, and Universal made him reshoot the ending. Not a happy experience, but every director is entitled to a departure every now and again. 3/5 Cabin Fever (2003), Eli Roth's debut feature, a low-budget horror film which harks back to 80's video nasties. This has The film centers on five recent college graduates, Jeff, Karen, Paul, Marcy and Bert who go out to spend a weekend in a cabin in the middle of the woods, but they encounter an ill hermit, who soon spreads his disease, a flesh-eating virus, onto our hapless graduates. You know from watching this that Roth has done his homework on horror films, and it does hark back to films like The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Evil Dead (1982), and it does have some good scares within and a black sense of humour that is funny. You could tell from this that the darkness of Hostel (2005) was only round the corner!! :P 3/5

Frenzy (1972), Alfred Hitchcock's big homecoming to London, with this very dark thriller written by Anthony Shaffer, taken from the book Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. This has a moody ex-RAF pilot Dick Blaney (Jon Finch), who finds himself wrongfully accused of the murder of his ex-wife, and others done by a killer known as the Neck Tie Murderer, who rapes his victims and strangles them to death. Turns out the murderer is Blaney's good friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), but the police, led by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen), still pursue Blaney. Hitchcock's darkest and nastiest film of his long career, but it's a change to see such a dark side to London, with locations including Covent Garden Market and Bayswater. There are some good performances in the film, plus it sees Hitch turning his best film in nearly a decade, and it put him back on top form. Oh, look out for appearances from Billie Whitelaw, Clive Swift and Bernard Cribbins!! :P 4/5

I've had a HUGE Hitchcock bonanza yesterday... :P Family Plot (1976), Alfred Hitchcock's final film is a cheery comedy-mystery concerning a fake psychic, Madame Blanche (Barbara Harris), who finds herself being asked to locate the long-lost nephew of a rich woman, so Blanche and partner George Lumley (Bruce Dern), attempt to locate the nephew, who turns out to be jeweller Arthur Adamson (William Devane), who with his girlfriend Fran (Karen Black), kidnaps rich dignitaries. A very talkative mystery, but complimented by good performances and a cheery score by John Williams, it makes for a fitting epitaph to a great man's career. :) 4/5 Torn Curtain (1966), the start of Hitchcock's decline during the 1960's, this romantic thriller has scientist Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman), defecting to East Berlin so he can get an experiment of his bankrolled, however, his assistant/fiancée Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews), has followed him over the Iron Curtain, she doesn't know of her boyfriend's defection, or is he defecting to the other side? Not a perfect thriller, but it does have some suspenseful moments we have come to expect from Hitchcock, but it's background had it's fair share of troubles. 3/5 The Trouble With Harry (1955), if there's one thing Alfred Hitchcock was underrated for, and that was his ability to tackle comedy. Here, he moves away from suspsense thrillers with a cheery black comedy. Set in Vermont, it has 4 people, Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn), Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), Ivy Gravely (Mildred Natwick) and Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine), are all involved with a dead body of a man known as Harry, but no-one knows who killed him. There are some very funny moments within this film, whether it be it's crackerjack dialogue or the bizarreness of the situation. But, it has some wonderful performances and Vermont in the autumn looks beautiful. 4/5 Rope (1948), a technical experiment from Hitchcock, in which he's taken a play, and filmed it to make it look continuous, using 10 minute takes. The film has two friends Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) who murder a fellow friend, keeping his body in a trunk throughout a dinner party, but their former teacher Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), just might be onto something that nothing is what it seems. A simplistic film with moments of suspense and some great performances, it manages to hold it's own without outstaying it's welcome, it also touches upon the then taboo subject of homosexuality, although it is never mentioned. :P 4/5

Goodness Donnie you really are having a hitchcock frenzie and why not, I havn't seen any of those in an age but classic richness they are indeed. Now why dont they put all of those on the telly instead of the crap the dish out to us !hey .. I recently watched The Painted veil As I like so many of us are enthusiastic Ed Norton fans I couldn't let this go by. The tale of love at first sight and also a love that grew in time adapted from the Somerset Maughan novel of the same name. I loved it and only wish I had seen it on the big screen as the scenery was so spectacular ,something to loose yourself in. The cast was perfect apart from Ed and Naomi I also thought Liev shreiber and Toby Jones were wonderful. A powerful story from begining to end highly recommended 4/5

Beowulf 3D Ok but if it wasn't for the 3D I would have thought it was pretty dull 6/10 (2 points for 3D)

The Number 23: It was okay, watchable but somehow disengaging and depressing at the same time. For some reason the ending seems forced, almost like they were trying hard to find some kind of twist they could add to it. Not a film I would bother to sit through a second time. 3/5

Vertigo (1958), the start of a holy trinity of films for Alfred Hitchcock, this one has acrophobic detective John Ferguson (James Stewart) following the troubled Madeleine (Kim Novak), the wife of an old friend, Ferguson soon discovers that Madeleine may have a split personality, but here, nothing is what it seems. A slow-burning, but deeply affecting psychological thriller, Hitchcock makes San Francisco look beautiful, his use of colour is flawless and the performances and Bernard Herrman's score are both haunting and deeply affecting. 5/5

Overdoing it with the pictures again Donald? I tend to avoid coming in here as it takes forever for the page to load up. Is there any way you could use smaller pictures to illustrate your posts?

Donnie can use please use smaller pics. Your pics are way too big and it takes longer to load for people with slower connections. I deleted Vertigo because it way too big but will leave the rest but please post smaller pics in the future. The size of my Angelina Jolie picture above is fine. ;) This goes for other members as well. If ignored I will set our pet shark on you. :shark2: Cheers