Watched Shame last night, very good, as good as Drive thinks it is.

8/10

(don't watch it with the kids)

I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as good as I hoped it'd to be - and came nowhere close to the brilliance of Hunger.

Cleanskin - Take the worst episode of Spooks you've seen and stretch it. Not even worth watching when it's inevitably shown late at night and you can't sleep

This Alice in Wonderland sounds interesting.

Mark

It is very unusual and quite striking. Haven't seen in it in a long time but I remember the White Rabbit being quite skeletal and having weird chattering teeth. The whole movie is on YouTube here.

Ok, not our usual faire but

'The Pirates! (In an Adventure With Scientists)

This is Aardman Animation's latest, which I think kind of slipped by at the cinema at the beginning of summer. It's the story of a slightly incompetent Pirate Captain and his quest to win Pirate Of The Year which encompasses his crew, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, a dodo, several beefeaters and a monkey butler called Bob.

And it's genuinely good. The voice cast is stellar and uniformly excellent (with a usual scene stealing performance from Brian Blessed), high quality old style clay animation (rather than CGI) and a density of sight gags that's well beyond the average. It also has, if you're of a certain age, a fantastic soundtrack including Tenpole Tudor and Jimmy Cliff. It really is Aardman on form, better (IMO) that Curse of The WereRabbit and Chicken Run, and in Bob the monkey butler they've made the best 'non speaking' character since Gromit hung up his eyebrows. It also pulls off the classic Chuck Jones trick of working on two levels with stuff for both the young and older viewer. The jokes are occasionally obvious but in a good way and it even occasionally manages to come up with a genuinely laugh out loud gag.

It's probably a bit too sophisticated for the bottom end of the age range, but I'd say if you're looking for a film to watch with an older child or two (say 9+), or in fact just want a couple of hours what will put a grin on your face and doesn't have any explosions or gore, it's the best option I've seen in quite a long time.

It's on the Playstation store and iTunes for rent for, I think, three quid (bit more if you want the HD version). It's not on Netflix, it may be on LoveFilm (I don't have a sub for that one).

Cheers for that, might give it a go

Comic Book Confidential

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Confidential

One of the most surreal things I've ever watched. Should have been academic in nature, but most of it's just somebody's idea of funky. Starts out well enough looking at the early days and the comics code etc, but the big hitters whether 'the big two' or people like Stan Lee are given far less time than the canon of Zippy the Pinhead. No, me either. And there was certainly no need to film a bloke dressed-up for five minutes.

And let's not forget the guy who got sued by Disney for doing a properly messed-up 'parody' of Mickey Mouse, that saw him licking out Minnie in prison. At least I think that's what I saw. They kept flashing back to the guy playing pool with a scantily-clad woman. Then her similarly-attired friend showed up. I have no idea if this was a piss take or just how that guy rolled

All of the above is combined with some of the most annoying editing and sound effects you've ever seen. I only watched it to the end for brief chats with the likes of Frank Miller, I don't recommend it at all!

...

Jo Nesbo's Headhunters

Starts off brilliantly as a story of a guy living a double life as an art thief, goes a bit Pulp Fiction, and by the middle of the film has lurched into pitch black comedy. It then drives down a side street full of plot holes and what can only be in-jokes. I've never read Nesbo's books, but I'd be astounded if they're THAT bad.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is now available on DVD and had a good write up in the Metro today. 4/5 stars & 'steadily amusing'



Also Karl Markovics Breathing also got 4/5 stars 'far more watchable than grim'



The crime being the accidental murder of another boy.

The last one with 4/5 was Marvel Avengers Assemble but I reckon you all know about that one

The Dictator. Brilliant.


Sanctum. Awful.

Super - There were about three laughs in the 50 minutes I watched it for. I only stuck it out that long cos Ellen Page is cute

Especially the political rant at the end.

It's not really a comedy, in fairness.

Then I'm at a loss as to what to call it! And I've been lied to by Blockbuster

Dredd 3D

Let's get the 3D out of the way. Certain scenes slow down to make use of the 3D, this is the only time the 3D was even really noticeable other than the usual 'show something off at the side of the screen there, we've got no depth, people!'. Three of us watched it, and each thought the depth only worked in certain scenes. An awful lot of the film is characters being filmed from behind, that's how bad the depth side of it is. 3D is apparently the only way you can see th is film.

The film itself. Urban has Dredd down to a tee. He's did an excellent job, but that's a problem film-wise when you've got someone who grunts at most things. You could get around that if the film had more than four main characters, and Dredd's one of them ffs

It's also set pretty much in one very dreary location and it hasn't really got the momentum to maintain that; Die Hard this isn't.

The most memorable thing for me was Lena Heady. She's messed up in every sense and still looks hot!

It's watchable but wait until it comes on TV - it's certainly not worth £8+ when the3D's next to non-existent and it's short running time actually drags in