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Click on a heading to sort by that. Please note that the very first lot of films added have no optional ratings. A 0/10 in an optional category doesn't necessarily mean a film is no good, just that it didn't feature much of that particular thing. Watch out Barry Norman!

100 Films listed

Bruno
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	If Borat's mission for Sacha Baron Cohen was to expose the racist underbelly of American society, then Bruno is his attempt to uncover its homophobia. Transformed from a Kazak to an Austrian (the most famous since Hitler) he journeys across the US on a mission to be a celebrity by any means possible. If that means hitting on a presidential candidate, making Paula Abdul use a Mexican as a chair, asking a mother's permission to use liposuction on her baby or photographing his African orphan being crucified then so be it. Not only is the film intensely funny, you have to give Cohen credit for endangering his life in pursuit of laughs; he's chased by observant Jews in Israel, an incident that doesn't look at all staged. Tighter than Borat, the film does not lose focus in the last 30 minutes as its predecessor did, and more pointed. Borat exposed, if not actual racism, then people's apathy to it, where Bruno shows Americans more than happy to applaud bikinis as patriotic but gays as something underhand. The look of an American's face where Straight Dave becomes Gay Bruno says it all.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	10/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	7/8/2009

Terminator Salvation
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	3/10	"Don't do it", they said. "Don't watch it", she said. "It's wank, it's awful. It's something that never have been created, like Jim Davidson or the Ebola virus". "But", I protested, "there's an Orange Wednesday Pizza Express 2-4-1 coupon where you get a free starter, pizza and a movie for less than an Ayrton Senna". "You are so in your 30's", they retorted, "choosing the Express over the Hut is one of the late 20's/early 30's syndrome, like leaving gigs early or worrying about your parents' health". "Hey, I'm going to go in with low expectations. I know it's directed by McG, best known for the shitter of the two Charlie's Angels movies, so it won't exactly be The Godfather. Besides, Terminator 3 didn't need to exist, and it was perfectly alright. Nowhere near the first two, but watchable enough". And so it was, on a rainy Wednesday night, full of garlic bread and American pepperoni, missing England beat some money-laundering Andorran amateurs 6-0 (yeah Lampard, you're really worth 150k a week) that me and some young friends paid half price to see the latest corpse of a franchise rise from its crypt and stumble into the world looking for brains to devour. Even with such modest expectations, the film fails to deliver. The story, for those of you still reading is that Judgment Day has happened and the last humans are desperately resisting against Skynet and its army of machines. John Connor, listening to the tapes his mother made for him in T1, knows he has to protect Kyle Reese, the man who will later be sent back in time to protect his mother. Never heard it called that before, boom boom! That joke is about as good as it yets, as all McG seems able to do is deliver one action setpiece after another, with drivel passing for dialogue between. Among many canyon-sized plotholes are; Why do Terminators toy with their prey, throwing them against walls, WWE style? Neck throttling works much more efficiently. Why doesn't Skynet just nuke the area where Kyle Reese is believed to be, given his importance? Why does every seeming moment of interest just remind you of earlier Terminator films that did it much more effectively, not to mention numerous copies from The Matrix (those underwater droid things), Minority Report (Skynet) and Dark Knight (motorbikes)? A terrible, terrible film.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	8/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	12/6/2009

Angels & Demons
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	My soon-to-be-wife and I both have a healthy competitive streak when it comes to, well, anything really. When we saw the pictures of our honeymoon villa, both of us thought "When people see these photos they're going to vomit pure envy, we're gonna win the Honeymoon, yes!!!". I didn't make that up. So when it came to going to the movies, I picked the new Star Trek to go head-to-head with The Da Vinci Code sequel/prequel. Who won the movie battle royale? Well, not to give anything away, but I did! Yes! My opponent said it wasn't fair and that I had an advantage given I read reviews from multiple sources and was able to make an informed pick. Competitive to the end, I love her. You've probably guessed already that either I'm very bored and filling space with thoughts, or the film isn't up to much. Correct on both. Following the death of the Pope in the Vatican, four cardinals are kidnapped by the Illuminati - a science loving sect persecuted centuries earlier - and are to be executed every hour, on the hour, before Vatican City itself is destroyed by some anti-matter that was stolen from the Hadron Collider in Switzerland (no, really). Tom Hanks' Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon has to decode a number of Illuminati clues deliberately left behind to find the Cardinals and the bomb before the midnight deadline. You know, writing that little paragraph makes the film sound even stupider than it is to watch. As it's director Ron Howard, he knows how to point a camera and frame a scene as well as recruiting some good actors, so although it's complete tosh it's a fairly harmless watch for about 2/3 of the movie. Oh and if you've been to Rome, you will point at the screen and say "we've been there". There's nothing inherently wrong with a stupid movie where a guy solves cryptic clues (with a disturbingly high accuracy) and rushes around churches looking at statues, in fact I'd much prefer that to stupid movies involving transforming robots or street-racing cars. But in the final third, what was left of a hokey yet pacey movie falls off its modest perch into laughable imbecilitiy. Ewan Mcgregor, one of the greatest actors from the British Isles has a stab at a Northern Irish accent, though why a priest raised in The Vatican would talk in such a way baffles. Tom Hanks at least has his hair cut, and it wasn't as bad as The Da Vinci Code, but otherwise it's a pretty rum lot.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	8/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	27/5/2009

Star Trek
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	Reboots are awfully fashionable nowadays aren't they kids? With your Hannah Montanas (review to follow once injunction lifted) and your High School Musicals (review to follow when flying pigs join the air force) seems there isn't much room for your ordinary homespun tales involving time travel and weird alien sex. I guess a reboot guarantees a built-in audience regardless of product quality, and so it is JJ "Lost and Mission Impossible 3" Abrams was taken on to resurrect a moribund franchise that had all but exhausted its potential following 5 TV series, made up of 28 seasons & 10 spin-off feature length films across 40 years. The Hollywood writer's strike only heightening the anticipation, word crept out this new Trek would show Kirk meeting Spock at the Starfleet academy. Only it's not your normal meeting in the standard Trekiverse you see. What Abrams has done is made time travel central to the plot, thereby eliminating any nasty pre-existing future, leaving a blank slate for any further Trek films (and there will be some, you can count on it). A Romulan from the future travels back to the time James Tiberius K is born to avenge the future destruction of his planet. Bingo, problem solved, no more continuity errors. So how do the modern day heroes match up to their past/future counterparts. Really well. Kirk is every bit the skirt chasing rule breaker you hoped he'd be, only edged out by the outstanding Zachary Quinto as Spock. Throw in a smoking hot Uhura, and the always entertaining Simon Pegg as Scotty, rounded off by Sulu, Checkov & the original series pilot episode Captain Pike (great nod) and you've got yourself a reboot there fella. Abrams throws in plenty of good meat for the Trekkers (red-shirt death, Uhura's first name, sexy green aliens) while keeping it engaging for the uninitiated. The story rips along without too much pondering, classy space battles and some hand-to-hands. I'd heard it was good, but it's really good.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	7/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	22/5/2009

Be Kind Rewind
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	What happens when the owner (Danny Glover) of a video rental and thrift store goes away and leaves his inept employees (Mos Def & Jack Black) in charge, leaving Black to accidentally wipe all the videos causing crazy lady Mia Farrow to demand a film by the end of the day? That's right, you guessed it, Jack Black does indeed prance around like a cock as the dynamic duo re-create the missing films themselves. Such cock-prancery does amount to a good half of the film, but writer/direcor Michel "Eternal Sunshine" Gondry manages to rein in the excessive wangmanship, as well as giving the straight man Mos Def some good laughs.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	AVI
Date added	13/4/2009

Watchmen
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	According to lore, the director Terry Gilliam met Northampton's own Alan Moore for a preliminary discussion regarding adapting his sacred comic Watchmen, for the big screen. Asked how he would adapt it, Moore apparently replied, "I wouldn't". What's been termed "the Citizen Kane of comics" by non-comic fans (comic fans call Citizen Kane the "Watchmen" of movies) has been in development through many directors (Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass among others), scriptwriters and producers for well over a decade. Falling into the hands of Zac Snyder; hands that had recently been applying chest oil to the protagonists of 300, fans around the world were thrilled a fellow Watchmaniac was at the helm, yet trepidant he wouldn't have the skill to bring out the comic's stomach churning depth and dizzying multi-layers that so enraptures its readership. They did have cause to be worried, as Znyder's track record indicates his talent lies in surfaces rather than feeling. However, on the former, the man knows his source material. Sticking to the story outline like a religious zealot, the movie opens with the murder of The Comedian; one of a gang of masked vigilantes, now banned from appearing in public by still-President Nixon. In this alternate 1985, the world is on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and Superheroes are real, though the only one with actual powers is Dr Manhattan; given god-like vision of time and matter after the obligatory lab accident. What Moore achieves in Watchmen is the deconstruction of the Superhero myth; what kind of weird people would wear masks on either side of the criminal divide; what does it mean to have actual god-like powers and how would you deal with the responsibility; how does Rorschach's mask keep changing its imprints. The Watchmen characters each represent a certain political philosophy regarding power. That humans are little more than savage beasts in need of guardianship or that they can be higher beings with due care and attention. Or that power itself is ultimately corrupting and any intervention is morally impermissible, or again that it is morally necessary. You have to look rather hard to find that in Watchmen the movie, however. You get the beautiful surface detail; you get gorgeous compositions, lighting, colouring and love of the story. What you don't get, as we highlighted, is the depth. So when the scene calls for the emotion, you don't feel it. Without emotional depth you're left with pornography. Literal pornography in places, as well as the pornography of violence and special effects. Without satisfying nourishment the near three hour running time tests your patience, though you can’t get too mad at Znyder. He’s desperately aiming for Kane, pushing himself to his film-making limits and giving it everything; sadly he just doesn’t have it in his toolbox to give Watchmen the crucial grounding. Unfilmable? Better directors than him tried and walked away, so big credit for getting the damn thing made in the first place.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	7/10
Cars	7/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	12/3/2009

Valkyrie
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) was a German aristocrat disillusioned with the way WWII was turning against the Axis powers. Believing a change of leadership was the only way to save Germany, and following an Allied attack in Tunisia that left him blind in one eye and missing fingers on his right hand, he joins the underground resistance dedicated to overthrowing Hitler. Comprised of generals and mid-ranking Nazis, Stauffenberg suggests using Operation Valkyrie - the emergency plan drafted by Hitler in case of a national emergency - that will allow the conspirators to take control of Berlin following the assassination. So far so good, but how to carry out the hit? Stauffenberg's injuries mean he has a desk job that gives him access to Hitler's Wolf's Lair HQ, and the plan is put in motion. I'm not going to get into all the controvery about Scientology or bad reviews, instead I'll stick to the film. It does a pretty good job of keeping tense an outcome that you already know; that Hitler survived, and the conspirators were all shot. It's also not a problem that everyone speaks English; after all, if an English-speaking nation wants to make a film about Germany, reviewers would only moan about their German accents. The problem, is that there isn't enough going on; beyond an opening air attack it's all a lot of breathy talking in shadowy offices.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	8/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	AVI
Date added	3/3/2009

Waltz With Bashir
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Two Israeli ex-soliders meet in a bar, one describing to the other a recurring dream where he encounters 26 dogs (he knows exactly how many, which is revealed later) chasing him through an urban landscape, but he wakes up at the same point. It may have something to do with the events surrounding the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, something the other friend remembers very little about. He can remember the invasion, but not what happened in the Shabra & Shatilla refugee camps; the massacre of civilians carried out by the murderous Christian Phalange. Visiting old colleagues and witnesses he starts to piece together the gaps in his memory. Shot in a roto-scoping format (think A Scanner Darkly or the second half of the animated Lord Of The Rings effort) with English subtitles, this is a soldier's-eye view in the most controversial region of the world. A view that could be criticised (especially by anti-Zionists like myself) as apologising for the aggression of the Israeli Defence Forces. It does very well to avoid outright blame, instead focusing on the troops on the ground, assigning blame to the generals in their cosy offices.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	AVI
Date added	23/2/2009

Doubt
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	In 1964, a nun (Meryl Streep) suspects the priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) at a Catholic school of abusing one of the boys. She has no proof, only circumstantial evidence, but she has her doubts. If you can overlook the conceit - given the church's history, especially in 1964 this is unlikely to have occurred, and her role would be that of a cover-up - which I think you can, then it's an excellent actor's film with strong performances all round about the nature of faith and organisation, and yes some doubts too. It's less about what did, or did not, happen between the priest and boy, it's about the corrosive nature of an organisation that places duty and obedience above the rights and values they profess to honour.
Bagsy	1/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/2/2009

Revolutionary Road
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Leo & Kate, back again. Sam Mendes directs his wife covering familiar terrain to the 2000 Oscar winner American Beauty. It's in the neo-cool 1950's that is so much back in fashion these days, if you overlook the racism, constant smoking and rigid social controls, it must have been swell. They're the less than contented suburban couple, dealing with the realities of married life and the realisation that their earlier dreams of moving to Paris to pursue a bohemian lifestyle are fading. They make plans to leave, but talking about moving and making the break from a cosy if dull life are very different. There's something we can probably all relate to, as we grow up do we sell out our principles or do we re-appraise them? Do we all settle in the end, make our compromise, or do we give up? Kate Winslet is getting all the nominations, but Di Caprio is easily her equal, and actually has the more difficult role to make sympathetic, but he manages it. It's all been done before of course, there's nothing new about the darker side behind the white picket fence, but all very good all the same.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/2/2009

Frost/Nixon
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Frank Langella must be kicking himself he got nominated in the same year as Mickey Rourke, because he deserves his Oscar every bit as much. He's the disgraced Richard Nixon, the only man in history to resign the presidency, and seeking some form of rehabilitation, not to mention easy cash, he agrees to a series of interviews with talk-show host, David Frost. The televised interviews were the most watched news event in history, as the American people, represented through Sam Rockwell's researcher, want to give Nixon the trial he never had. What Frost wants is the big score, the catch-interview that will give him credibility. Only trouble is, he doesn't have the money, a willing TV network or advertisers to pull it off. It may sound to you as dull as Button was to me, which I guess what makes watching movies so interesting. The two men, as opposite as you would think; the extrovert ladies man versus the socially retarded life-politician, both need each other for different reasons and both are the outsiders seeking approval from their peers, as Nixon confides in Frost in a late-night phone call that marks the highpoint. Frost is outmatched for 80% of the interviews, as Nixon effortlessly blocked and stonewalled, one answer indeed running for 23 minutes, but when it came to Watergate, Frost found the nerve and the poise to bring out the mea culpa the nation wished for. "All those young people" Nixon said, "who want to get into government but won't because they think it's all so corrupt. I have to live with that, for the rest of my life". There was no apology for Vietnam, for Cambodia, for the millions who dies under the bombs of the US Air Force, or his enemies list, or the spying on domestic groups under the FBI. So you could say his apology was brief, and not nearly far enough. And yet, for a man as stubborn and taciturn as Nixon, he seemed to be admitting everything. What Langella does so brilliantly, is reveal just how such a sweaty, jowelly old reactionary managed to win two elections. His dry humour, gravelly charm almost making the old scoundrel, well, likeable.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/2/2009

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	4/10	It's hard to know what is the most staggering part of Benjamin Button. Is it the CGI, the way Brad Pitt's face is digitally imposed over an stand-in? The way a child born as an old man who lives through the 20th century in reverse? Or, as I can't be bothered to pose any more rhetorical questions, simply that this is possibly the dullest film I ever saw in my near 33 years on this earth. A three hour exercise in an utter tedious non-event. You'd think that with such a premise, albeit a rather thin F Scott Fitzgerald short story, it would take considerable effort from one of my favourite director's David Fincher to make such a simplistic, snooze-athon. For a man with such an unique outlook on life, he doesn't have much more to say than "you never know what might happen you"; Jesus I could have told you that, and I wouldn't have taken three hours. Benjamin also doesn't do much in his life; he gets on and off a boat, checks in from time to time to see if Cate Blanchett is close enough in age to bang yet, and if not then he's back on the boat. Yes, yes, I hear you, it's a comment on the fleeting nature of love. I get it, as does Woody Allen who has made a movie a year saying just that with half the running tme and 10% of the budget. I was worried about the film going in, as it was written by Eric "Gump" Roth, but I'm relieved that the worst thing about the film is that it simply pretends racism never existed as Benjamin's parents are New Orleans African Americans in a 1920s far far divorced from reality. It's not racist, it's just boring.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	5/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/2/2009

The Wrestler
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	If Heath Ledger is a nailed on cert for Best Supporting Actor at the traditional circle jerk also known as The Oscars - and he is - then Mickey Rourke must be a similar bet. The Academy tend to give out acting awards for Holocausts, Cripples & Losers Overcoming odds (see below) and they particularly love one of their own coming back from the wilderness and into their affections. Rourke was actually considered on a par with Marlon Brando with his work in the 80's, and like the great sandwich eater in the sky he proceeded to throw it all away in an orgy of self-destruction. His Boxing career forced him to have facial reconstructive surgery, and he accepted roles in films that would make Burt Reynolds blush. As Marv in Sin City, he found a role that would let him leave behind his younger self and embrace craggy middle-age. The Wrestler is one of those perfect "life leading up to" moments, with director Darren "The Fountain & Requiem For A Dream & Pi" Aronofsky seeking him out personally to play Randy "The Ram" Robinson; a former main-event performer now past his peak and eeking out a living in third-rate promotions. His heart, overclocked by steroids, is about to give out, and the body can't take the staples, chair shots and broken glass like it used to. Failing to make the rent on his trailer home, his estranged daughter wanting nothing to do with him, and his stripper friend only interested when he has money, Mickey is a man with nowhere to go. If that sounds depressing, it shouldn't be taken as such, as while The Wrestler does play on its clichés from the sport movie genre, it's a film genuinely invested in the subject. The backstage discussions with the performers discussing the staging of the matches feel authentic, the seedy strip joints provide an interesting comparison with the female counterparts who use their bodies to perform, and overall there's a non-condescending feel to observing those folks who didn't make the big-time, or did and who never will again.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	27/1/2009

Slumdog Millionaire
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	How can a boy from the slums be one question away from the top prize of India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, poses Danny "Trainspotting" Boyle's film, with the four possible answers of Cheating, Luck, Genius or manifest destiny, It Is Written. What follows is how such a boy pulls it off, directed as you would expect with assuredness and steady hand, covering the life of the Mumbai slum dwellers and those lucky enough to survive. It reminded me of City Of God, especially in the early stages, but it does become a lot more formulaic as the standard boy/girl romance takes focus. Critics are taking about Oscars all around, which does seem to fit the picture of the academy rewarding plucky losers triumphing over the odds, bit to me it is simply a good film, rather than a great film.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	18/1/2009

Ghost Town
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	I remember when Ricky Gervais was a walk-on sick material peddler on The Eleven O'Clock Show in the mid 90's. Anyone placing a bet back then that he'd have won multiple awards, two hit comedy series, podcasts, and a leading man role (with a feature length directorial debut later this year) probably isn't reading this, as they're buried under several hundred weight of caviar with Champagne measured by the Olympic swimming pool. The key is that whatever you think about him he doesn't do rubbish. Even the rubbish he does on podcasts is quality. He and Stephen Merchant make their material for the ages that will stand the test of time. So it is with Ghost Town, a carefully measured Capra-esque ghost story that doesn't go for cheap laughs or jokes about mobiles or the internet. It's a simple story about a misanthrope who re-learns his humanity with the help of the newly dead Greg Kinnear. Crucially, as with the Xmas special of Extras after the Big Brother rant, just when you think the heart strings may be tugged into ball-licking schmaltz, it pulls back and takes a breath. This won't win Oscars but it will stand up for years to come, and may even be shown at Xmas.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	7/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/1/2009

Changeling
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	I have a frequent habit of boiling down often complicated issues in my reviews to snappy, and often glib, phrases. That, and a tendency for meta-commentary and fourth-wall breaking. So I must resist the urges swelling inside me to describe Changeling as a female Shawshank Redemption, or a triple header of Gone Baby Gone (to be reviewed) meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest crossed with Mystic River. An Oscar-worthy Angelina Jolie is a single mother in 1928 Los Angeles who reports her young son missing. After a few agonising months, the LAPD report that her son has been found. When she is reunited, however, she insists that the returned boy is not her son. The boy maintains his story, in spite of some pretty serious physical evidence to the contrary, corroborated by his teacher and dentist. The more Jolie protests, the more she uncovers the corruption at the heart of the LAPD, and the more they tries to make the issue about her mental competence. It says a good deal about the attitude to women at the time that her emotional state is seen as the inherent weakness of her gender and not a reaction to truly tragic events. The film doesn't stop there though. It heads into new territory, becoming less that of an individual's fight against a cruel system and more an action/thriller about a missing person. If there is a criticism, it is that this multi-genre approach does lose a little of the focus the first hour had kept. It is, though, a minor criticism, as Clint Eastwood's latest outing as director is as good as anything he's done in recent times, which is saying quite a bit. This film is by no means an easy watch, and as Simon Mayo put it, "there's an awful lot of Shawshank before the Redemption", but Eastwood's unsentimental and steady hand keep the story going, while Jolie is captivating as a woman forced to find new depths of courage in a scenario most of us can scarcely imagine.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	8/12/2008

Quantum Of Solace
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	Bond 22, Quantum Of Solace, has been noted by hacks with nothing better to do for being a somewhat weird choice of title for a Bond movie. I would submit that after enough repetition any title or name becomes banal and meaningless after a while. As evidence, I give you Radiohead & Manic Street Preachers; composite phrases that are semantic slurry until familiarity renders them solid. All this distracting fluff talk should warn the reader that the review is probably going to shade the negative side. Let me say as if it needs saying (it doesn't) that Daniel Craig is excellent as the cold-blooded assassin although less convincing as grieving boyfriend, and all the car chases and Judy Dench-isms are all present and correct, cocktails and dinner jackets standing to attention. The problem, as Michael Palin's prisoner in Life Of Brian would say, is that it's a right bloody mess. An absolute mess of a film. The narrative, as it exists, races from location to location with barely a word of explanation to how people arrived there. Characters are introduced as if we are supposed to know who they are, and are never satisfactorily explained throughout. The plot is 1 part dull, 2 parts baffling; some secret organisation is buying up the supplies of water in South America while Uncle Sam looks on helplessly, and British MI6 is going to expose them in spite of their now minor presence of the global scene. In one way it is a brave choice to make Solace essentially a sequel to Casino Royale, but the great thing about Bond films is that you don't have to know anything going in, you can watch them in reverse order or out of sequence and it won't spoil anything. It's less a Bond film, therefore, and more the Bourne films they're clearly apeing. Bourne, however, had the single thread of a quest for true identity running through, Solace has all the component parts but none of the glue to hold it together.
Bagsy	8/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	7/10
General wierdness	3/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	10/11/2008

Saw V
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	At this point in a franchise, you aren't looking at Saw to provide any surprises, any more than The Simpsons will knock you out of your chair if Homer says something stupid (facts amazing: The Simpsons has been picked up for 3 more seasons, taking it to at least the 23rd series). You're looking for familiarity; comfort even, from the serial killer Jigsaw. A killer who stoutly denies he's responsible for killing anyone, given the small window of escape he affords his victims, or test subjects. That's a bit like saying The Hooded Claw isn't responsible for the attempted murder of Penelope Pitstop, as the ridiculously time-delayed deathtrap mechanism in which he imprisons her is in fact a rite of passage to womanhood and valuable life experience. Still, like comfy slippers or Wogan, it's good to see the old rascal again; proving fifth (and sixth in 2009) and for all that cancer, death or hours in the day are no impediment to a man on a mission to rehabilitate every member of the human race, one by one. I've written before about Jigsaw's truly stupendous workrate, so the revelation of another accomplice does take a little of the heavy lifting from a man at death's door. The suspension of disbelief is a given of course, and so long as you don't take anything seriously, you'll like it if you just lie back and let the gore wash over.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	4/11/2008

Burn After Reading
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Taking advantage of the North American bias in movie release schedules, during my recent visit out West I strolled into one of the many Vancouver cinemas to see the Coen Brothers follow-up to the Oscar winning No Country For Old Men, a good month or two before the UK release. Featuring the regulars Frances "Mrs Joel Coen" McDormand & George Clooney, along with Brad Pitt, John Malkovich & Tilda Swinton, it's a fluffy counterpoint to the weighty tomes of universal indifference and growing old that No Country illuminated. A CD of ex-CIA analyst memoirs finds it's way to the brilliantly air-headed Pitt & his surgery-obsessed colleague McDormand, setting off a chain of events that uncovers several extra-marital affairs and espionage in a Washington insiders merry-go-round. For the Brothers, it's less about plot and more about the result of individual parts adding up to a great deal less than the whole, as well as the aforementioned universal indifference rejecting typical "good guy gets girl" conventions. Clooney always does his best stuff with the Coens, juggling sneaky ne'er do wells with blunder headed stupidity and rogueish charm, while Malkovich & Swinton tend to play to slightly broader versions of their type. Quick praise also for JK Simmons' cameo as head of the CIA. FYI - This is the fourth of theirs I've reviewed here and as I tend to remark, you need to see Coen films more than once.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	13/10/2008

Tropic Thunder
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Readers/Fans/Brethren of 303 Films will detect a certain antipathy towards Ben Stiller & Jack Black. It's not that they aren't talented, they clearly have something about them; Stiller in Meet The Parents, Black in Bob Roberts, but too often their lazy gurning and masturbatory tendencies give a diminished return. It is to Stiller's double credit that he's co-writing and directing his first film since Zoolander (a film I hated but anyway, remember what Kermode said) this time sending up Hollywood and all its pretensions. After a series of hilarious fake trailers a group of actors desperate to prove their credentials are on location shooting director Steve Coogan's movie in Vietnam; a guy famous for fart-jokes (Jack Black) trying to become serious; an Australian method actor (an Oscar-worthy Robert Downey Jr) undergoing pigmentation surgery to play an African-American, plus Stiller trying to earn the Oscar he missed out on for "Simple Jack". The film has been criticised, not for Downey Jr "blacking up" as you might think, but for "Simple Jack" and in particular one section where the phrase "full retard" is repeatedly mentioned. It's surely obvious to all that the audience is not expected to laugh at people with disabilities but instead at the chutzpah of actors and the movie industry that such conditions are seen as opportunities for career advancement and awards ceremonies. Typifying the broadsides, and stealing the film, is Tom Cruise as Les Grossman; a fat, balding and unimaginably foul-mouthed producer quite content to watch his stars be killed if it means he collects on the insurance. This small amount of screen time may well save Cruise's career after his erratic behaviour and a couple of less than successful films. It reminds everyone just how good he actually is at comedy and why he should do more of it. His dance routine alone is worth the £7.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	18/9/2008

Superbad
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	The Archdeacon of cinema reviews, Mark Kermode, always refuses to pre-judge films, stating, even in the case of Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 "it might be Citizen Kane". Advice I take to heart. After the sheer dreadfulness of Knocked Up, I wasn't in a hurry to watch the latest from the Apatow/Rogen axis of comedy, so imagine my delight when I laughed out loud all the way through. It's an American Graffiti/American Pie coming of age story, where 2 17-year olds have to get alcohol for a party, and what happens. What happens is 90 minutes of one line zings and genuinely touching moments. Bring on Pineapple Express, it better not let me down.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	10/10
Format	AVI
Date added	15/8/2008

Wall-E
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	I'll tell you a funny thing that's happening in Cinema at the moment; movies that have really challenging and unusal first half-hours before a second half that tends to be more conventional. As evidence; I Am Legend, There Will Be Blood, Hancock, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man. While in a lot of cases the second half tends to be less good, probably as the need for box-office bangs and explosions outweighs artistic considerations, Wall-E like Blood, however, is a triumph. Set on a far-future trashcan Earth, Wall-E is a junk compacting robot with only a cockroach for company; building enormous sky-scrapers from the things that he finds; things that the everyday folks leave behind. It's in this first half that you just marvel at how god damn good Pixar are at animating. Wall-E is Short Circuit's Number 5 crossed with ET: The Extra Terrestrial, a living if not breathing creature. You feel his loneliness, his compassion, and you genuinely want him to score hot sex with the female robot Eve when she arrives to check for signs of life. Obeying Kermode's Law Of Sci-FI #1: The Future Is Now, Wall-E encounters what remains of the human race on a space station; having been waited on hand & foot with food and drink by service-bots, our future descendants now resemble marshmallows unable to see beyond their monitors. Sound at all familiar? I don't know how Pixar do it; while I've not "loved" every film they've done, I've certainly not found a great deal to criticise about any of them either. That's 8 in a row going back to Toy Story. Kids love Wall-E's cute little actions, appreciating the tender and care and love the animators put into each frame for maximum effect. Grown-ups will love what the kids love, but also the political message of the consequence of our actions, including the 2001: A Space Odyssey & Silent Running tributes. One to watch again and again, 8 in a row.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	1/8/2008

The Dark Knight
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	10/10	It's a funny thing, being dead. Funny, and tragic. The accidental overdose of Heath Ledger at the shockingly young age of 28 robbed us of one of the most promising, if not already the best, actors of his generation. The funny thing, like James Dean, Bill Hicks, Kurt Cobain & others taken too soon, is they are permanently frozen in time; they will never get old, get fat, sell us out by reneging on their pledged principles, and worst of all they will never be boring. If there were a god he'd have had Ben Elton torn apart by wolves shortly after finishing the final draft of Stark, giving him a fitting epitaph and saving us from all the mediocre and plain awful books that followed, as well as certain musicals and Royal Variety performances for which he should be raped by bears. If Ledger had not left us, had not taken too many pills to nurse his chronic back pain, he would have been given some tremendous press, but no Oscar nomination. A nomination that now seems all but assured. That's a pity, because Ledger doesn't just deserve a nomination, he deserves an entire new academy category all to himself. He isn't just great as The Joker (he is) he makes the combined talent of Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhal & Aaron Eckhart look average. He makes Jack Nicholson look like he's not really trying. He manages the damn near impossible feat of making him scary (genuinely scary) and funny (genuinely funny) while not lapsing into parody or pantomime villainy. Every time you think he's about to chew scenery, he steps back from it. He has the walk, the hobble of a damaged soul; the creepy lick of the lips and a focus that is beyond intense. As comparison, the almost always excellent Bale is perfectly fine as Bruce Wayne but slightly silly intoning the baritone of the caped crusader. Likewise, the aforementioned ensemble are all great, they just look, well, average next to Ledger. As action goes, it's up there. Cars, bikes, bombs, robberies and high-wire acrobatics raise the pulse. The story is light years beyond your usual blockbuster chewing gum and doesn't bother to waste characters explaining ther plot, you're just expected to keep up. It covers fascinating ideas such as the staining of the soul that the fight for justice involves, how far any of us would go for our principles; it's not so much that the lines between good and evil are blurred, they live in a greater world of order fighting chaos, personified by Batman & The Joker. The idealistic lawyer Harvey Dent is the one trapped in the middle, and what happens to him is the product of that fight. It is, however, perhaps the only criticism I can find, that it tries to have too much of a good thing. It doesn't tie up the story as well as it could, going instead for one more set piece after another, leaving a slightly saggy resolution. It's churlish though, with Gary Oldman doing his best stuff in years as Commissioner Gordon and the only one who can come close to The Joker to pick up rather minor problems as this. At time of writing, the talk is that The Dark Knight might even go past the $600 Million of Titanic, thought unbeatable until recently. Death; box office gold.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	8/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	28/7/2008

Motorcycle Diaries
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Ernesto "Che" Guevara wasn't always a bearded imprint on a T-shirt or a poster; he used to be clean-shaven and young (fact fans: the famous photo was actually taken as Guevara stood at the side of a stage listening to a Fidel Castro speech quite by chance). He trained to be a doctor in Buenos Aires, departing before his exams with his Biochemist friend Alberto for a motorbike journey around South America. It's here that the seeds are sown for his future, though the message isn't exactly rammed down your throat; it's more a "postcards from Caracas" style travelguide featuring some beautiful scenery. As the dynamic duo cross borders their journey becomes less Likely Lads Beer N Birds and more witnesses to apalling human suffering, and they decide to start helping their fellow man. Ernesto is played with ever-hardening resolve by the always excellent Gael Garcia Bernal, and while the first half does take it's sweet time, it's an interesting illustration of "travel broadening the mind".
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	4/10
Guns & fighting	3/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	21/7/2008

The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	The actress playing Susan is now 19, so the bagsy is legal. Not that it matters, she so obviously fancies Caspian she's probably not even aware of anyone else's existence. I always preferred the book of Caspian over Wardrobe, as it was less religious allegory (besides the message of faith in disturbing times) and more about the history of Narnia, as 1100 years have passed in the 1 year the children have been away. Sadly, my favourite scene (where Caspian's professor explains it all atop a tower looking at a conjunction of two planets) isn't in the film; as they've decided to ramp up the action far beyond anything in the source material, making a Two Towers of a sequel, complete with walking trees and Return Of The King catapults. The tone is assuredly darker, skullduggeryism & cold-blooded murder the order of the day, and much the better for it, though the acting from some still leaves a bit to be desired. As part of making the books more relevant, they've made the Telmarine occupiers blatantly Conquistador-like, treacherous Spanish evil the lot of them. Peter Dinklage is great as Trumpkin; Eddie Izzard is, well, Eddie Izzard, as Reepicheep the mouse. As my favourite book was The Silver Chair (4th in the series to be written, 6th in chronological, Shane we can let the argument die now), and my least favourite The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (3rd and 5th, respectively) I'll have to sit through the worst to get to my best, that's if they keep making them. That means there's a slim-to-zero chance of The Last Battle making it.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	8/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	18/7/2008

The Oxford Murders
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Maths has long been a fascinating subject of mine; it's theories, theorems, rules and patterns in the seemingly random, the universal language it expresses. Bringing it to film, however, has always been tricky; how do you express formulas in a non-geeky way? How do fashion a story around algebra? In short, how do you make it sexy? The Oxford Murders attempts to solve (showing working) by making it a murder mystery, with a bit of sex and violence. It achieves considerably more than A Beautiful Mind, (by avoiding Russell Crowe twitching for 2 hours and Ed Harris wearing a Fedora) setting it in the dreamy spires starring the irrascible John Hurt as a philosophy professor, and the impossibly blue-blue-eyed Elijah Wood as his protegé, trying to solve a series of (duh) murders before the police get a chance to. Although it is very well plotted and paced, and comments how academic obsession ruins personal lives, the criticism is that in the end, it's another murder mystery, rather than about the awesome power of Maths. Then again, I guess you can't just make a film where guys sit around smoking pipes discussing proofs; you have to include car chases and tits otherwise no one will watch.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	12/7/2008

In Bruges
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Great to see Colin Farrell back on form doing what he does best; drinking, swearing and generally being Irish. Joined by the always solid Brendan Gleeson, they're two wiseguys sent to "fucking" Bruges by Ralph Fiennes channelling Ben "Sexy Best" Kingsley. The first half of the film is generally a talkie affair, as our heroes try to make the best of a bad situation; Gleeson thrilled to check out the architecture, while Farrell desperately looks for a pub, with a bit of drugs, violence and midgets thrown in for extra fun. The film takes it's darker turn once Fiennes shows up, and it's wholly a better move. If you like your swearing, you'll like this.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	AVI
Date added	12/7/2008

Wanted
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	3/10	I'd be lying if I said the main reason for me and my fiancé to see this trash wasn't solely because of the prospect of seeing James Mcavoy with his shirt off. It was the only reason for going, and the only reason for staying. Oh, there's some cool buller-action work going on as well. The film has Forrest Gump-like morality issues. First, there's a secret society that has been around for 1000 years assassinating people to keep order in the world. In whose interest, this is never made clear. Mcavoy is rescued from the soul-crushing monotony of his job as an accountant by an emaciated, pouting Angelina Jolie (really not hot in this film, you just want her to eat more fry-ups) and inducted into "The Fraternity" ran by (who else) Morgan Freeman. Second, he starts to stand up for himself, both by humiliating his overweight female boss and his best friend, who happens to be tapping his girlfriend. Score for male empowerment. Third, after a lightning orientation programme of torture, gun training, psychological penetration, train hopping and weaving (using a loom, no, really) he's sent back out with his neo-hard personality to despatch names designated by binary stitching on the afore-mentioned loom (I'm not making this up, they get their orders from a loom). Fourth, he was recruited to kill the man who offed his Father, previously thought to have abandoned him at a week old. A Father who tries to make contact with him by shooting him in the arm, no email or texting in this world, then; you communicate by specially made bullets. Fifth, the "ticking bomb" scenario is invoked to justify assassination. One of the targets was himself an assassin who made a man's daughter watch while he set Daddy on fire, and if the Fraternity weren't such pussies, that wouldn't have happened. You see kids, we have to keep taxi drivers at Gitmo Bay for 5 years without charge because they might know the code to defuse a bomb going off in New York City in the next hour; 24 isn't a TV show, it's real! Sixth (I'll stop shortly) in spite of point number 5 (that killing one saves the lives of many) it doesn't matter how many people get killed in the crossfire to kill that one. Be it the entire contents of a train, bus or multiple car pile-up. It's crypto-fascist, appallingly mysoginistic and the fetishing of firearms and Mcavoy's torso borders on the homo-erotic. That's only the fundamental flaws. There's so many other stupid decisions and motives I'd run out of space. It's utter trash, with the silver lining that Mcavoy doesn't come off looking like a total douche but the diamond in the rough.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	10/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	2/7/2008

Fast Food Nation
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Here's a funny one. A movie, not based on a book, but based on a true-life, non-fiction hard-hitting exposé of the fast food industry. That's a fictionalised movie, on a non-fiction book. A first if ever I heard. Mr American Everyman, Greg Kinnear, is a fast food corporation vice-president; Paul "I am a false prophet" Dano is a disgruntled employee of the chain, while Luis Guisman is a (who else) Mexican people-trafficker taking the desperate migrants into the US to work for the meat-packers, providing the food for the chains. Their lives, inevitable will criss-cross as the bigger picture of the "Fast Food Nation" comes into focus. Add in cameos from Ethan Hawke (obvious), Bruce Willis (less obvious) & Avril Lavigne (never in a million years would I have guessed that one) and you've nearly got a movie. Trouble is, they can't help lecturing us about the state of the world; which I completely agree with by the way, but it means we don't have characters, just mouthpieces for political action. It's a problem that means the film can fall between the two stools of preaching to the converted and boring those who might be turned on. Still, it just about manages not to, thanks to some really bang-on stuff about an important cause that affects us all.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	4/10
Guns & fighting	3/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/6/2008

Michael Clayton
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and starring the Tilda "you know she'd be nasty" Swinton and the ever gorgeous George Clooney, with Tom Wilkinson doing crazy, why doesn't it do it for me? Maybe it was because I'd got up at 4.30 yesterday morning and was a bit at sea, concentration speaking. There's nothing wrong with a plot about a corrupt corporation in trouble after the lawyer representing their case threatens to expose their dodgy, cancer-ridden product to the plaintives. Clooney is on great form as a fixer sailing too close to the wind, and there's nothing wrong, it's just not that inspiring. Another sign of how conservative the academy really is.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	4/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/6/2008

Apocalypto
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Mel "sugar jews" Gibson is a flighty little rapscallion isn't he. When he's not getting drunk and making somewhat controversial statements to female police officers, he's pursuing some very personal projects. Following the Jesus one is this Mayan chase movie, set during the pre-Conquistador period. The controversy (oh Mel, no rom-coms for you) hinges on whether the Mayan empire was on its way out before the Spaniards arrived, or whether Whitey put their technoloigcally superior boot in to loveable scamps in loincloth to nick their continent. There's certainly a case to be made either way, but to go entirely on one side does leave a bad taste. Then again, and I'll take Mel's word for it, he's done his homework. Using Mayan dialogue, and casting the film with unknowns, it has the look and feel of being right there, even if the comparisons to modern day America with "they're just like us" feels slightly forced. Beneath it all, however, it's essentially a chase movie, as a Mayan warrior tries to escape from the captors who destroyed his village; avoid being a human sacrifice, and get back to his pregnant wife before it's too late. How many other films feature a Mayan cast, I ask you?
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/6/2008

The Onion Movie
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	I owe several beers to the administrator of 303 for informing me of the The Onion website, as it has provided me with years of laugh out loud joy; although in recent times, like Viz & The Simpsons the quality has dipped somewhat. Like it's yellow-coloured, animated kin, The Onion Movie probably comes a few years too late to the big screen, but it's still excellent all the same, if a little shapeless. Essentially, it's a series of sketches, news reports and adverts, loosely tied together to a news anchor getting increasingly frustrated with the corporate takeover of the news. But when you have light-hearted rape gags, technology geeks and way-out Onion-style irony, it's a great laugh for an hour and twenty so it doesn't outstay its welcome.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	3/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	7/6/2008

Sex And The City
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	That's right, you don't need glasses or laser corrective surgery; Streaky missed the England game to be manoeuvred by his fiancée into an almost all-women screening of an almost all-women film. I go places, and say things that the rest of you only wish you could admit to yourselves, much less out loud. So here goes; I actually thought SATC was alright. Not great, it's far too solipsistic (look it up) for its own good, and of the 4 ladies only 1 of them (Charlotte of course) is someone you'd want to have as a girlfriend in real life, the others would drive you to murder. In a funny way, there's a similar sniffiness in reviews about this film, as there is about Indiana Jones. Instead of unbelievable nonsense with skulls, you have women paying too much for shoes in the midst of a credit crunch. No ones is seriously suggesting SATC is a documentary, it's a fantasy, like Indiana Jones. Taken on that level, it's perfectly fine. It goes on a bit too long, keeps threatneing to end but doesn't, and the self-absorbed declarations can drive you a little cracked, but I can guarantee your lady folk and closeted men folk will get their money's worth.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	29/5/2008

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	He's back He's bad He's older than my Dad He's Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones. Harrison Ford has still got it. If you've seen the trailer there's a shot of an obviously frail Indiana leaping onto a truck. That shot isn't in the film, most likely a diversionary tactic by Spielberg/Lucas to throw you off the scent. Shia Le Boeuf isn't a cock in this film, I'm thrilled to say. Ray "I've eaten Vegetarians" Winstone, John "ow my chest" Hurt & Cate Blanchett are along for the ride, and there's even a cameo from Alan "Jim Robinson from Neighbours" Dale whcih now means there must have been a law passed that says he must be in everything (Lost, Ugly Betty, 24). I won't bore you with the plot, just watch it. It's bloody great.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	4/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	23/5/2008

Into The Wild
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Either a cautionary tale for those taken with the concept of backwoodsmanship, or a call to dispense with our material age, depending on your point of view. It's a true story, of a college graduate in the early 90's who rejects the law school approach in favour of "finding himself" in nature. Directed by Sean Penn, scored by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder with a performance by Vince Vaughan where he is not a complete cock for once.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	31/3/2008

Control
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Ian Curtis, the singer of Joy Division (whose remaining members formed New Order) committed suicide at the age of 23, just as his career was poised to take off. That's about as much as I know about him going into this Bio-pic with Sam Riley as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his wife. There's many who see suicide as a sorry way out, an ultimately selfish act that leaves nothing for those left behind; not mentioning the poor sod who has to find your dead body. So the strength of the film is finding a motivation to end your life whilst retaining your compassion. Sam Riley is excellent as Curtis, a reluctant small-town boy with talent and dreams but unequipped to deal with the harsher reality of being a star. Morton is underused, but excellent as she always is.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	24/3/2008

There Will Be Blood
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	10/10	It has been written that we are living in a new cinematic golden age, as the recent Hollywood productions have been of such quality, power and style they hark back to the "good old days" of Bogart, Cagney & Hepburn. Whilst I think in those days there were almost certainly an equal number of hopeless bodge efforts (so much so, they were classified as B-movies, a genre unto itself) not forgetting the instantly forgettable contemporaries such as Pirates Of The Shite & Alien Vs Badgers, (or anything starring Jessica Alba) you can't deny there's been some blinding efforts of late. It likely owes more to the sheer number of films produced these days and their availability thanks to Internet buzz. Paul Thomas Anderson, the wonder director of Boogie Nights, Magnolia & Punch Drunk Love was going to get press for his next project whatever, especially as we've had to wait 5 years for it. UK film-goers have had to wait months since the US release, and the straw-chewing sister marriers in the provinces that bit longer, as Blood was only released in London at first. Furthermore, Northampton cinemas didn't show it at all, so I had to watch this at Milton Keynes Cineworld in the Snowdome. You may be wondering about the lengthy pre-amble, or the perfect score, so I thought it best to give this one The Big Robinski as you need to see this film as urgently as polite society will allow. Quick point of order: can you give a film 10/10 even if you find things to criticise about it? If not, then no 10/10 film could exist as there is no perfect film by any objective or subjective standard. Enough. What the hell is it about? Daniel Day Lewis (you thought Forrest Whittaker was a certainty, this guy will win the Oscar or Los Angeles will burn) is Daniel Plainview, oil prospector and single parent. His drive to find black gold in turn of the 20th century California leads him to nemesis Eli Sunday (Paul Dano); a meek and (seemingly) submissive church preacher. As the drilling begins, and the cash starts rolling in, Plainview's greed and obsession starts to eay away at his soul. The film isn't about plot, moreover it's a timeless moral fable about the corruption of mankind, be it by money, religion or naked power. It should come as no surprise that Day-Lewis conveys the paranoia and fear of a man consumed, and at the same time, enthralled by greed, so perfectly you can almost see the cogs inside his brain turning and ticking over. He's matched in some memorable scenes by Dano, his counterpoint, and reminder of the corrosive power of superstition. It's blackly funny, thought provoking, and the first 20 minutes without dialogue is like watching a new type of cinema. Yes, it does drag a bit in the middle, and there may be some who find Plainview a little over-the-top in the final third. I'm certain on repeat viewings (which I intend to take as soon as possible) this will become the Citizen Kane of its time. A timeless classic.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	20/2/2008

Cloverfield
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	On Newsnight Review, one of the talking wonks called this "9/11 porn" in a rather critical way. They were absolutely right, right down to the destruction of iconic landmarks (statue of liberty, that's in the trailer so I'm not spoling too much); plumes of smoke; vertical collapse of towers; tearful voicemails to loved ones, and all-out screaming, terror and panic. It is, however, bloody excellent all the same. You must see this in the cinema, as I think a lot will be lost at home. I can personally vouch for the unsettling feeling - people I know have been literally sick after seeing it - as the shaky camerawork adds to the hyper-reality. What the film makers have done very deliberately, is make the opening 20 minutes as arsehole-heavy as possible, so when the "shit goes down" you're rooting for them to be wiped out, so it's a great testament that people this unsympathetic hold your attention for the taut 84 minute run time. A Blair Witch for 2008.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	18/2/2008

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Crikey there's some films with long titles these days; nearly didn't fit that one in the title box. Brad Pitt, post Troy, seems to have raised a huge family of bastards with Angelina Jolie, and not much else, so it's welcome to see him on top form in another deconstructed Western, as the old-west celebrity, Jesse James. He's worshipped by Ford (an effectively unsettling and unsympathetic Casey Affleck) from afar in comic books and stories of lore. When he meets his hero, he's surprised by his paranoia and ruthlessness. As he works his way into the gang and into James' trust, Ford discovers, as Ricky Gervais says in Extras, that "fame is a mask that eats into the face". The film gives away so much in it's title that you aren't wondering how and when Ford will kill James, but why and what drove him to it. It reminds me of a documentary I watched about Mark Chapman, who started off idolising John Lennon, only to end up killing him as the dream faded into reality. The film has as much to say about the myths of the Wild West, as it does about modern celebrity culture and the way history is always played twice; once as tragedy, once as farce. It's got the late-Spielberg problem as the 3rd act does drag its spur-jangling feet towards the conclusion, but it's another excellent Hollywood production in these rarified times.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	1/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	DVD Screener
Date added	5/2/2008

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Tim Burton's latest project to get his girlfriend work, and to pay off Jonny Depp for the compromising pictures in his possession has been showered in Oscar nomination praise, so is it worth it? Well, here I get into a sticky patch as I've never been a massive Tim Burton fan. I can certainly appreciate his undeniable visual skill, oh yes, and his talent for getting such memorable performances from his cast, but I find his films have little of substance to actually say, besides "isn't that all gothic like?". To those who say, yah boo sucks to you, Burton is an auteur, a genius. Fair enough, that's your opinion. You should be warned this is a musical; Depp is Todd, a man wrongly imprisoned so the corrupt judge can get his hands on his wife. When he returns (staggeringly, no one knows who he is, in spite of the fact he sets up shop in the same location, doing the same job) his mind is that of bloody, violent revenge. Fair play to Burton, he knows where the fake blood is stored, and he doesn't spare us the grisly details. I find it all very enjoyable, but nothing I'd want to watch again.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	DVD Screener
Date added	1/2/2008

Planet Terror
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	About the nicest thing I can say abour Grindhouse Part II - The Robert Rodriguez effort Planet Terror - is that it isn't as bad as Death Proof. Given such an effort is akin to getting out of bed, a bar so low even Cousin Jiimmy could clear it, my hopes weren't high. As it is, it's a zombie film, no more, no less. Nothing you won't have seen in any of the George Romero's zombie films, it's as if Rodriguez hasn't seen Shaun Of The Dead, or is so wrapped up in his own ability he really thinks he's doing something extraordinary with the material. Tarantino shows up again, unironically as a nasty piece of shit, all creepy and no flair. Am I missing something? Granted, it's slightly better structured and at least qualifies as a film, but for heaven's sake Robert, you should be doing so much better. I know Quentin's your mate and everything, but he's weighing you down. Drop him before he drags you under.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	9/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	29/1/2008

Death Proof
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	4/10	Oh Quentin. Oh Quentin, ye that shone so bright like all the stars in the sky, the son of the morning. Ye that reinvented the cops vs robbers in Reservoir Dogs. Ye that reinvented film making entirely with Pulp Fiction - sparking so many poor imitators - how far ye star has fallen. What a waste. What a horrible mess of a film. A man who used to make films with stories, narratives, characters you really cared about, dialogue that crackled like frying bacon, reduced to this splodgy turd so much like the orts and slarts of previous glory. For some inexplicable reason, he seems to think homage is now sufficient, where once before he made a film that merely contained homage. His tribute to the sleazy exploitation genre called Grindhouse fails in respect to the fact that it barely qualifies as a film in standard terms; bunch of chicks with nice arses talk like blokes for half an hour in a midly pleasant distracting way before Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike shows up. There's some action with his Death Proof car, before another set of chicks with nice arses repeat, only with a vastly diminishing return. It fails on the terms of a film, but it also fails on his own terms of making an exploitation film! There are only 2 action set pieces and they're really nothing too special, think Dukes Of Hazzard TV show and you're halfway there. If I want to see nice arses, I'll watch some porn. It's honest and doesn't pretend to be anything else. Tarantino himself makes an appearance (presumable unironically) as an ageing barkeep still trying to hang with the kids, but it's like watching a once great rock star haggard, tired and hopelessly lost in his own ego.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	7/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	29/1/2008

Bee Movie
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Jerry "Seinfeld" Seinfeld hasn't done much since the show about nothing that bears his name finished in 1997. He went back out onto the road to do his stand-up (not bad, not great either) and started a family. Those 2 pre-occupations seem to have melded to make this family friendly animation. The paths of Jerry, and his former partner Larry David seem to have parted along the family lines. David, the force behind the Seinfeld derived Curb Your Enthusiasm, does not have children, and therefore is essentially ploughing on as he did before. As Seinfeld has passed on his genes, we have Bee Movie. A perfectly inoffensive, unremarkable bit of family fluff that passes 90 minutes without either inspiring or revolting. Barry B Benson, an unsurprisingly Jewish Bee complete with nagging parents, escapes the work of the hive and hooks up with florist Renee Zellwegger (breaking one of the golden rules of movies which is that animals and humans should not be able to converse in English) to sue Big Honey for stealing their produce. It's got some decent laughs, some obvious Seinfeld observational "bits", and it goes down well enough without being too sickly.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	3/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	AVI
Date added	28/1/2008

No Country For Old Men
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	Nominated for 8 oscars (albeit most of them for technical awards) this looks like the year and the film that the Coen Brothers get the recognition and praise many feel they deserve. No Country feels like a culmination of their technical craft that started way back when in 1984 with Blood Simple. It's a film that draws many comparisons to their debut too. Like many of their films it's less concerned with the plot (little of it that there is; guy finds some drug money and waits for the hitman to come get him while the Sheriff tries to figure out what happened) and more concerned with the scenery and setting. Like so many other Coen films, its set in the past, 1980, and the scenery is West Texas. It's a modern Western (perhaps explaining the Oscar nods for genre cinema) with sparse dialogue and bone-dry humour, often with just the high plains for company. As for what the film says, or tries to say, it becomes more problematic. Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff muses over the times we now live in, how things ain't what they used to be, about the casual (almost banal) evil creeping into modern society. Exemplified of course by Javier Bardem's cold, ruthless killer. The film (like the book upon which it is based) ruminates upon chance and fate in life, as well as the feeling that "things were ever thus" as a counter-point to TLJ's elegy for the simpler life. I think it hinges for the audience on whether you like the Coens or not. I do, and for me the film is a near masterpiece. For others (and as I do not appreciate the films of Ridley Scott for example, I can well understand) they may find it a sterile, empty film, more concerned with film making for its own sake rather than with a story to tell. The Coen Brothers are often a divisive bunch in this regard, much as Wes Anderson can be too. You either "get" them or you don't I guess.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	28/1/2008

Trailer Park Boys Movie - Big Dirty
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	Apparently shot between Season 6 & 7 around 2006, yet not released (certainly in the states) until just recently, the boys make the leap to big screen. The only significant difference is the lack of smoking on-screen, but otherwise it's business as usual following Ricky, Julian & Bubbles' latest get rich quick through crime scheme. The Big Dirty is the score criminals think they can do after leaving jail that always leads to them back inside. In the boys case, it's stealing a large amount of change. You need a certain familiarity with the series to get the most out of it as you'd expect, but the film stands by itself well enough, although you probably need to have watched later seasons to understand Jim Lahey's "30 days Julian, 30 sexy days" as well as all the numerous homo-erotic references sprinkled throughout.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	Avi
Date added	24/1/2008

Juno
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Ellen "Hard Candy" Page has deservedly won a lot of plaudits as the titular 16 year old Juno; pregnant by Michael "Arrested Development's George Michael" Cera. In a twist worthy of Arrested Development itself, she decides to give the baby to child-starved couple Jason "Michael from Arrested Development" Bateman and Jennifer "Electra" Garner. This film signalled to me that I am now officially old. Listening to teenagers converse in their unique patois I suddenly realised I was no longer "with" the younger generation, and instead belonged to one of my own. Big bonus point for including Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenter's Superstar.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	21/1/2008

Stardust
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Since the awesomeness of the LOTR trilogy, fantasy is now officially OK, box-office wise. Similar to comic book adaptations, every man and his monkey is pitching for their own fantasy book to get the big-money treatment so the socially primitive can point out the subtle differences and go on about how it's not the same as in their mind. To Stardust, then, based on the novella by Neil Gaiman. Once you strip away the fineries of the plot it's essentially a romantic quest set in a strange world. Nothing wrong with that, and starring an unusually fruity De Niro, deliciously evil Michelle Pfeiffer plus Ricky Gervais playing himself as he wont to do; like a British Woody Allen only fatter. Good Sunday afternoon hangover movie.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	21/1/2008

Eastern Promises
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	David Cronenberg seems to be in a decent vein of form just at the moment, based on A History Of Violence and now this. Can't say I approve though of a film set in London, with an Australian playing a English nurse (Naomi Watts) and a Danish/American Viggo "their pace has quickened" Mortensen as a Russian gangster. Couldn't they find anyone native? Never mind, they're both excellent, as are the Cronenberg directing skills. As you've probably come to expect, this won't be one for the fainthearted. A gangland tale of murder, disposal, rape, people trafficking and a bit more murder. You'll never feel as grateful for your safe and warm, non-rapey bed.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	4/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	DVD Screener
Date added	15/1/2008

Charlie Wilson's War
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	4/10	There were many moments in Charlie Wilson's War where I was thinking about writing this review today and comparing it to the worst aspects of Forrest Gump (for the small number of you as yet unaware, I'm not a fan). It's not just because Tom Hanks plays a compromised (but only in a harmless whisky and women way), blockheaded southerner, a variation on so many roles he has tackled in the past. It's not just the queasy equivalence between him feeling bad for creating a monster in the Afghan resistance and the victims of their resistance to Soviet aggression. It's not just the Hollywood re-write of history portraying war profiteers as honourable idealists nobling pursuing democractic visions; while airbrushing the unworthy victims (i.e. ones killed with American weapons) from history and promoting the worthy victims (i.e. ones America isn't responsible for killing) with a hysteria approaching the evangelical. It's not just the clunking heavy-fist of religious intolerance (War is just fine people, provided of course we're waging it, just don't bring God into it otherwise things might get out of hand) among many other issues that cause the sick to rise in the throat. In so many respects, it is a patronising, glib and deeply offensive piece of cheap propaganda recycling the "white man's burden" arguments of a century ago where it is only the American that brings freedom with his anti-helicopter missiles. So why haven't I given the film zero? Well, there's a very small flip-side. Charlie Wilson is led around like a dog chasing biscuits by various powerful people with their own agendas. The 6th richest Texan, Julia Roberts wants to convert the heathens, hence the donations to his campaign; the Pakistani president doesn't want the refugees coming across the border so he shows him evidence of Soviet brutality. It's possible to see the film where corrupt but savvy congressman Wilson manipulated into financing a resistance movement that spirals out of control, but it requires too many imaginative leaps. Too many assumptions about a benign American empire taken for granted. Too many historical falsehoods (the CIA provoked the Soviets to invade to give them the excuse to support and radicalise the Mujahadeen) and too much Uncle Sam exceptionalism (invasions are bad, except when we do them, then it's good) to drag it away from its "life is a chocolate box" bigger brother.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	DVD Screener
Date added	15/1/2008

American Gangster
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Long time fans of Streaky's 303 film love may have detected a certain ambivalence toward Ridley Scott films. He, like Sergio Leone, has been criticised by some as a director of surfaces; looks pretty, but nothing there. It's been my problem with Scott in almost every film of his I've seen, and yes that includes Bladerunner (Yah, yah, future dystopia, I just don't care about anyone in it). So it is with his much heralded return to form, American Gangster. It has the required acting leads in Denzel & Russell Crowe; all the scene setting and pacing you'd expect from an experienced film maker, but it's a genre picture. It's a drug dealer who rises to power, and an ambitious cop who brings him down at the cost of his personal life. It's aware of the archetypes wheeled out for the 100th time (beautiful moll, religious mother, dirty cops, ex-wife from hell) so it goes through the motions all very skilfully enough. I just don't care about anyone in it. I know where the story goes. What's the point?
Bagsy	4/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	Creamy DVD Screener
Date added	6/1/2008

Atonement
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Unfilmable book adaptations are very in at the moment. Ian Mcewan's Atonement is another that was said to be impossible to bring to the screen, but Joe Wright just wouldn't listen. It's set just before WWII on a hot summer's day in the country house of the Tallis family. The youngest girl Briony, watches her elder sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) strip off and dive into a fountain seemingly at the instruction of Robbie Turner (James Mcavoy) the lad who works for the family. As a result of Briony's misunderstanding due to her young age and gift for dramatic invention a chain of events is started that will change the family forever. Probably not everyone's cup of tea on 303, but as a big fan of the book I was hoping they wouldn't mess with it and I'm glad to say they haven't. James Mcavoy is surely the best actors from these shores at the moment, and while lots of people think Keira Knightley is a pretty clothes horse, I think she's excellent in this. It's a film that contains very powerful themes of redemption, regret, and yes, atonement, across a lifetime. One to broaden the mind.
Bagsy	10/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	27/12/2007

I Am Legend
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Ah, the run-up to the Oscars. What a delight to have the blessed DVD screeners available for download. Intended for idle members of the academy who can't be bothered to mix with lower classes in something as base and debauched as a Cinema, these perfect quality AVIs make a dishonest man's dream come true. Of course, I do chuckle watching an unfunny rat tell me not to be a knock-off Nigel whilst for the rich and powerful, those pesky piracy laws don't seem to apply. The maxim of "one rule for you, one for me" could not have been better illustrated. Anyways, my favourite family man actor Willard Smith is back in another remake. This time I Am Legend is the name of the book adapted, rather than The Omega Man it became with Charlton Heston. It's set in a Manhattan where Will is the only inhabitant, and is trying to find a cure for the disease which has wiped everyone out. He's trying to stay sane by talking to his dog like a child; arranging mannequins to have friendly chats with; and sending out calls for survivors to get in touch over the radio. I'd have been perfectly happy to watch Will go publicly insane through all the loneliness but sadly the film doesn't grant me my boon. You just know that Will isn't really alone, and that there's going to be some unspeakable evil that comes out at night. You're not too surprised to learn that he isn't alone. What is so gratifying, however, is that when the shit goes down, it's genuinely unsettling and watchable. Best of all, the film doesn't go all ball-licky near the end. Much better than 28 Days Later in my opinion.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	10/10
Cars	7/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	27/12/2007

The Golden Compass
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	There's much to admire about The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights as it ought to be called; then again, the second and third book titles are object-related so perhaps it is a more fitting title. Anyway, longest bracket aside over) as New Line Cinema have followed the Rings trilogy template, right down to the eerily similar opening titles and attention to detail. The costumes, props, set design are all perfect; the special effects are pretty good if not mind-blowing, and Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Dakota Blue Richards are all perfectly cast. So what's the problem? Why am I telling you about this and not whether it's any good. Well, it's not that good really. Of course, book-to-films are nigh on impossible to describe values, feelings and issues cinematically rather than in the written word, but the script is so clunky that in places the characters often just stand around explaining the plot rather than advancing it. There's the sudden "off we go over here" moments as the break-neck pace derails the plot time and again. New faces are introduced with nary a word and they're suddenly best friends putting their lives on the line. It all feels rushed and hackneyed, the result of quite a few spanners in the works during a troubled production. The dialogue is often portentious e.g. I am so glad I lived this long to meet you Lyra, but there's nothing behind it. Still, those Ice-bears rock.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	9/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	6/12/2007

Lions For Lambs
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	Tom Cruise is always best for me when he's playing a scumbag, when all his charisma and good looks get subverted in deliciously rotten ways. The film's title is inaccurately derived from the phrase the Germans used to describe the British in WWI; Lions led by Donkeys, and it would be tempting to categorise the film as such. It's all very well meaning to criticise the War On Terror as a futile exercise of imperial hubris (what would you do if your country was threatened, give them flowers or get yourself a nuke?) but it's so woolly and hand-wringing, not to mention inaccurate (I'm pretty sure there's never been a journalist as bad as Meryl Streep's) and glib (at no point is the US invasion of Afganistan challenged, only the merits of whether it will "succeed", whatever that is supposed to mean) that it makes you despair at a Hollywood system that tells you very eloquently to stop talking and do something, by producing a film requiring you to stop doing something and watch people talking about it instead.
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	14/11/2007

Knocked Up
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	4/10	There is nothing so great a toxin in movie reviews than that of high expectations. High Fidelity, Equilibrium and now this form the top 3 of "movies I heard were great but were in fact dog-shit". I am of course allowing for my notorious bad mood syndrome where I could watch The Shawshank Redemption and hate it, but I don't think my second rating would edge over 6. This film is simply about a bunch of assholes (they're ALL assholes) who act like assholes, and by the end of the film are still assholes except they have a baby. Sorry to spoil the ending there. Granted, there's a handful of one-liners and put-downs, but they're not THAT funny, certainly nothing troubling even late-period Woody Allen. I really feel gutted for this film as I wanted it to be great, especially as I thought The 40 Year-Old Virgin was pretty good, and this was supposed to be far better. It's over-long, lacks focus and direction, and the lack of any characters you give a toss about makes their journey to adulthood and parenting irrelevant.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	3/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	AVI
Date added	12/11/2007

The Simpsons Movie
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	You know the feeling where you think you didn't check whether the handbrake was properly applied on your car? Or if you left the oven on? Or that general feeling of malaise where you think you've forgotten to do something but can't remember what it was? That's how I've been feeling about Film 303 for a while now; I was sure there was a movie missing, but darned if I could remember what it was. Maybe I decided not to review it as people would see it regardless, hence no reviews of the Star Wars prequels. Who cares. Anyway, the greatest TV programme ever made (if there is a better one, make your case, 303 community) finally gets the big-screen treatment. For many, the show stopped being funny after series 3,5,7, or 9, take your pick, but certainly after 13 it went downhill. These many people are of course completely wrong, and probably like shows instead called Everybody Loves God Awful Shite Starring Some Twat Called Raymond, which has been on for almost as many years and has never once been funny. You heard me right. Not once. The Simpsons addresses the ignorant concerns of fanboy cretins in the 167th episode that introduced Poochie, the episode that overtook The Flintstones as longest running cartoon. There is no way a show running for so many years could possibly make new episodes that stand up to earlier classics, and it is pointless to suggest it can. All you can do is revise your expectations and enjoy it for what is, a bona-fide American institution that unlike its government, doesn't kill black and brown people. To that end, the movie (as tiresomely pointed out by the same imbecilic oxygen thieves) feels like an ordinary episode stretched to feature length has some great gags and some kind of message about saving the planet. It's a show that makes you laugh, for god's sake, and it does more times than 90% of comedies out there.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	10/10
Format	Cinema/AVI
Date added	5/11/2007

Saw IV
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Certainly the best "fourth" film in a franchise I've seen, as I can only think of Friday The 14th, Halloween & Elm Street off the top of my head as going this far. By now, all the Saw movies have blended into one sick single entry, as there are so many people locked in the same white-walled room, clawing their own eyes or body parts off to escape Jigsaw's fiendishly convoluted traps. Give him his due, the man's workrate surpasses even Woody Allen or Mozart in output, and this is AFTER he was diagnosed with cancer. Seriously, he can't have slept or ate since his hospital visit. The consistent nature of their horror means if you liked the first, you'll like this one and as always it's out of morbid curiosity than genuine artistic excellence. They've stopped taking bets on Saw V.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	3/11/2007

Zodiac
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	The Zodiac killer worked his murderous trade around the California bay area in the late 60s and early 70s before seemingly retiring without being caught. He used to tease the Police and local journalists with cryptic (though actually fairly easy to decrypt) messages and clues to his identity. The male Gyllenhal, Jake, is a cartoonist for the paper, Robert Downey Jnr is the jaded, drunkard writer, and Mark Ruffalo the cop completing the triangle of men whose obsession with finding Zodiac takes over, and ultimately ruins, their lives. As you'd expect from director David "Fight Club, Se7en" Fincher, it's terrifically watchable, even after the trail goes cold and sometimes years can go by without a new lead from the killer. The film, although on some levels a detective story eliminating the suspects by analysing the evidence, raises interesting points about the importance of finding a man who in fact has been responsible for less deaths than the traffic lanes in LA over a 3-month period. As Gyllenhal's home life disintegrates, the film becomes more about a man who won't let it go than a killer who has a thing for puzzles.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	23/10/2007

Secretary
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	To get in the middle of a Jake/Maggie Gyllenhal threesome has got to be the hottest incest ticket going in the world these days, or maybe that's just me. The female of the species gets her leading role as a self-harming ex-psychiatric patient working as secretary (you can see where they got the title) for lawyer and total headcase James "Jimmy" Spader. When he's not getting her to set mousetraps he's staring at her rather fine curves and moving on swiftly to spankings and much more besides. It's quite possible to view this as a sleazy exploitation flick if you're mashed, but really when you take away the domination/submission themes it's actually a rather sweet film about lonely people with unusual desires finding each other.
Bagsy	10/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	23/10/2007

Blades Of Glory
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Will Ferrell is coasting in this one just a little bit. Perhaps it's not considered "cannon" Ferrell, as he's waiting to make the last of his trilogy that includes Anchorman & Talladega Nights, but it's got a few laughs all the same. Jon "Napoleon" Heder is his ice-skating rival, forced to become his partner when their podium sissy-fight causes the official mascot to catch fire. There's plenty of homo-erotica, curveball non sequiturs and put-downs as you'd expect, plus a knock-out bagsy from Pam off The US Office. Jobe from Arrested Development is in it too.
Bagsy	8/10
Explosions & carnage	4/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/9/2007

The Bourne Ultimatum
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	The Bourne films, as Matt Damon asserted in a recent interview, have supplanted Bond as the dominant action franchise. Bond belongs to an imperial past, a superior chauvinist who drinks too much and is too cold about murder. Jason Bourne is certainly not the sort of man who upon despatching a deadly hitman, would pop out a dry one-liner and head straight for a shag. I don't think he even eats or goes to the bathroom. If one were critical, he's too much of a killing machine; glass windows, 10-storey drops, car pile-ups and multiple punch-ups come and go with only a couple of bruised knuckles to show for it. Never the less, they're awesome fun to watch, even if the shakey camerawork does start to give you a headache after a while. It's a fitting conclusion to an excellent trilogy about the nature of identity and responsibility, and Bourne does at least get the answers he's looking for.
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	30/8/2007

The Fountain
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Darren "PI & Requiem For A Dream" Aronofsky, judging by his last two films and this one, has a thing both for death and the ancient secrets of mankind. The two merge in The Fountain, which is set across three time periods, each featuring Hugh Jackman & Rachel "Darren's girlfriend" Weisz. The first, is set in Spain during the Inquisition, as the Queen wants her best Conquistador to go to the new world and find the Mayan tree of life, the secret to eternal life. In the present day, a doctor is using what seems to be an extract from the said tree to find a cure for his wife dying from cancer. The final time period is set in deep space with a shaved-head Jackman trying to get to the Mayan nebula that is their world of the dead, haunted by the ghost of Weisz. You can't fault Aronofsky for his vision and the three stories fit together surprisingly well. Apparently the deep space bit wasn't done with CGI so god knows how it got done. I'm sure it'll stand up on repeat views.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	AVI
Date added	16/7/2007

The Prestige
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	About bloody time, I hear all the loyal members of my film review cult cry. He's finally got around to reviewing the last of the recent magic-based film trilogy. It's probably the best of the lot too, directed by Christopher "Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins" Nolan and starring two of the best actors working today, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. Michael "bloody" Caine & Scarlett "you're worth it" Johannson come along for the fun, as does David "fat man" Bowie and Andy "Smeagol" Serkis. Jackman & Bales play 19th century magical rivals, each trying to outdo the other with the ultimate magic trick, their obsession ends up threatening not just their lives, but the lives of their loved ones. Bale probably edges it on performance, though Jackman's English accent is slightly more polished and believable than Bales' barrow-boy schtick.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	3/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	16/7/2007

Million Dollar Baby
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Back after what seems like ages with 303 down, plus my trip to Barcelona (quick tip, don't break a lamp with your head in your hotel room, it might cost you £400) it's only now I can add this film that I watched about a month ago. It's amazing and yet at the same time sadly predictable that this was the one that denied Scorsese the Best Director (though as it turned out, The Departed was way better than The Aviator, so perhaps a blessing in disguise). It's amazing that a film about Boxing with so many clichés (grizzled old boxing trainer, wise old black friend acting as voice of conscience, girl from the the wrong side of the tracks with something to prove, obstacles like an ungrateful family and sneering men to hurdle) could get the biggest prize in Cinema. But it does, and it's because there's something about a struggle over adversity that always seems to resonate with the Academy. For an hour and a half it's a female Rocky, as Hilary Swank (fully deserving of her second Oscar) proves to the hyper-craggy and rasping Clint Eastwood that she's the real deal, while he comes to terms with his chauvinism and breakes his self imposed "I don't train girls, girlie" rule. Morgan Freeman again lends his off-the-shelf gravitas and bags the Oscar he should have won for Shawshank or Se7en. Then (I won't say what happens) the final act really turns the film on its head, and you're off into unknown territory. It's all very well made, as you'd come to expect from Eastwood as Director, but so much of it seems so calculated for Oscar glory it's hard not to be cynical.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	2/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	12/7/2007

Magicians
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	Well bugger me sideways with a frozen fish finger, there's now a 3rd magician film at the flicks. Featuring the PC/Mac whores, David "Mark" Mitchell and Robert "Jeremy" Webb from Peep Show, and starring in a film by the makers of Peep Show, with a Shawn Of The Dead level of supporting characters from Green Wing & Smack The Pony, it couldn't fail, could it? Well, it could, and it does. It's not so much a bad film, it's just not very funny, though not that unfunny as you do smile frequently but chuckle less often. The dynamic duo play their on-screen characters as an estranged double-act competing against each other in a Magic competition. It's a setup that could pay off, it could be a classic, like Hot Fuzz, but it falls short somehow. I felt it was a bit of a Peep Show B-side, same humour but less effect. There's a danger the over exposure and familiarity of Mitchell & Webb could burnout their popularity, which would be a shame as they're clearly both very talented, perhaps they need to go on a break.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	3/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	30/5/2007

The Illusionist
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	As you surely will all know, Hollywood has a funny bus-like way of making films. You know, you wait for ages for a film about Victorian magic acts, and 2 come along at once. Although that has never happened to me with a bus. Not once. I'll review its partner The Prestige, with the usual "arsed" rules in effect. Edward "I got a bet" Norton is the titular Eisenheim, performing even by the standards of the time, eye-popping illusions. Yet he pines for the classy sort (Jessica Biel) he had to give up as a teenager because of his status as cabinet-maker's son. I wonder if you can see how the film might pan out. Yes, exactly like that, she is indeed pledged to another when they meet again all grown up. Nothing new here, even within the genre, but all very well acted and handled, worth it for the illusions alone.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	8/5/2007

A Scanner Darkly
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Bagsy for the scrumptious Winona Ryder, natch. Contrary to universal logic, Keanu Reeves' career keeps going. Without discernible talent whatsoever besides looking and sounding bewildered and slow, he still attracts interesting roles. The latest Philip K Dick adapatation has him working undercover in the near-future to gather information on the source of "Substance D"; a highly addictive hallucinogenic drug that has made 20% of the population its slave. Unlike many other adaptations, the film is less about dystopian futures and more about the inner ramblings and paranoia of people with serious drug habits. Former inhabitants of Purser & Adnit Road may get a clue here, especially in an argument about the counting of gears on a bike. I dozed off about half an hour in, not because of the film but because it was that Sunday night crash, so it meant I had to watch it again right after. Good job too, as it gets seriously weird; because undercover agents have to keep their identity secret, they wear a shape-shifting suit to work to so one knows who they are, yet the Substance D affects your perception of people, shapes, even reality itself. When Reeves is sent to investigate himself, and isn't sure it's even him, well, you get the picture. Definitely one to watch while f**ked.
Bagsy	10/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	4/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	16/4/2007

A Mighty Wind
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Finishing my Christopher Guest season, then. This time he "does" folk music, with the usual Balaban/O'Hara/Levy/Mckean/Shearer/Posey/etc. crew, about a tribute concert celebrating the life of a departed folk legend, and the reforming of long-dead bands for this one-off special. Personally, I preferred 'Consideration and the actors in-jokes to this, but once again the re-watch value will make a liar out of me I'm sure.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	AVI
Date added	15/4/2007

Waiting For Guffman
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	After the last two Christopher Guest films, I looked him up on IMDB and it turns out he did another two. This one from 1996, and A Mighty Wind from 2003, to be reviewed under the usual proviso of whenever I can be bothered. I need to correct my previous review when I said Bob Balaban was a guest collaborator, as he's in this one and Wind, so Best In Show must have happened when he was on holiday, or something. On with the review anyway, and it again seems to display the signature Guest themes; small-town American lovable delusionals, group-discord, fractured climax, and the usual social faux-pas so beloved by Ricky Gervais. As an example, over dinner the subject of penis reduction is inserted into the conversation, resulting in Fred Willard trying to display his faulty organ to dentist and co-writer Eugene Levy. The titular Guffman is a theatre reviewer from New York whom the cast of amateurs from Blain, Missouri hope to convince to move their 150th town anniversary show to Broadway. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether they succeed. Clue: Guffman never appears, and they don't.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	2/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	10/10
Format	AVI
Date added	9/4/2007

For Your Consideration
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	Took about a fortnight to be arsed, then. It's probably the actor in me that prefers this to Best In Show. A low-budget, indie film gets some oscar buzz for someone in the cast, so the eccentric director, the airhead producer and confirmed batchelor writers all start to get excited. That is, until studio boss Ricky Gervais suggests some minor changes to the script. Like chucking out all the Jewishness to make it palatable for a wider audience. It's an excellent ensemble piece, as there's no one main star, just the usual Christopher Guest collaborators (Eugene Levy, Michael Mckean and Parker Posey), as well as a couple of guest collaborators like Bob Balaban and the aforementioned Garvais. I bet it gets funnier the more you watch it.
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	AVI
Date added	22/3/2007

Best In Show
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	There's a good chance the overall rating will creep higher after follow-up viewings. After appearing in the original mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap some 20 years ago, Christopher "these go up to 11" Guest has also made a few of his own. The latest, For Your Consideration, will be reviewed whenever I can be arsed, but in the meantime there's his 2000 effort. Set in the peculiar world of dog shows, and featuring Eugene "baked goods" Levy, Guest himself and fellow Spinal Michael "any buggering in it?" Mckean, amongst other Guest collaborators. It's often improvised, so if you're a Curb Your Enthusiasm fan you'll love it. If you liked Little Miss Sunshine, you'll love the road movie aspect as each dog owner is followed journeying to Pennsylvania to win the titular "Best In Show". But even if you like none of those things the commentary duo are hilarious as the expert has to fend off inane suggestions and ideas from the Alan Partridge who knows nothing about dogs. Or dog shows.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	10/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/3/2007

The Devil's Backbone
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	After my review of Pan's Labyrinth, I said I was off to see this film, the earlier effort from director Guillermo del Toro. I didn't manage it, having been waylaid by 24 other films before ticking this one off the list. You can see what a great film maker del Toro has become with Labyrinth, perhaps it's the extra money, but this still is a very original if sometime harrowing film. Again, set during the Spanish civil war, though a little earlier than Labyrinth, in an orphanage. You can probably tell by the 1 score that this won't be a comedy. It's a ghost story, a little boy haunting the protaganist, Carlos, warning that many will die. It's a detective murder mystery, as well as a boys rite of passage, with references to the impending victory of the Republicans and the dark days ahead for Spain. Again, it's probably the subtitles that give it that special quality, as in English it wouldn't have same fresh feel.
Bagsy	4/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	9/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	AVI
Date added	26/2/2007

Down In The Valley
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	I had to check IMDB before deciding the bagsy was legal. Evan Rachel Wood was probably about 17 when she made this, which is close enough for me. She meets and falls in love with a guy twice her age, Edward Norton, who thinks he's a cowboy, and thinks a lot of other things in his head. Whilst he's charming and kind, in spite of how obviously creepy it could be, he's also a loose cannon who likes guns a bit too much. When the film sticks to their relationship, it works fine. Later on, it becomes more deadly and it loses that focus, almost like the ending of Blazing Saddles where you wonder how you ended up there.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	4/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	AVI
Date added	18/2/2007

Buffalo Soldiers
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Joaquin Phoenix racks up another impressive performance as Ray Ellwood, kind of a Catch 22 Nately for the modern age. He's the guy who sorts out the drugs and what have you for US forces stationed in Berlin. War is hell, but peace is fucking boring, the saying goes. The film comments on the complacency and entropy of the armed forces in peace time, as well as the bloated decadence of empire, the contempt and arrogance of occupying powers. It's also easy to read the film as a bunch of man-childs getting a nasty shock when their games turn very real and frightening, as a big score selling guns for drugs gets serious. I mentioned Catch 22 because it's what it reminds me of most. It's about the madness and surreality of the armed forces, overseen by a effete Ed Harris afraid of losing his job, and while it occasionally borders on the glib, it's got a great a bagsy from Anna Paquin, and that ain't ever bad.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	4/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	18/2/2007

Stranger Than Fiction
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Will Ferrell seems to be moving into Jim Carrey territory. Not so much the cock/human crossover, as Ferrell is actually rather good in his funny films, but rather a move toward drama. He's Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who discovers he's in fact a character in Emma Thompson's novel, when he hears her narrating his life in the bathroom. Emma has writer's block, which is good news for the moment as she's killed off all her protaganists in her previous novels, so with the help of literary professor Dustin Hoffman, Harold has to track her down before he croaks. Being a fan of Anchorman won't guarantee you liking this, as there's very little of Ferrell's typical antics, but if you liked Eternal Sunshine or I Heart Huckabees it'll be up your street.
Bagsy	4/10
Explosions & carnage	2/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	18/2/2007

Hot Fuzz
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	You can't argue handing over your £6 plus something for probably the best British film of its genre for years. But which genre? It's a fish out of water comedy as Nicholas Angel (Simon "Spaced" Pegg), is forced to leave London as he's so good as a Police Officer he makes everyone else look bad. Assigned to sleepy Gloucestershire village Sandford, he teams up with adoring Danny (Nick "Spaced" Frost), as well as every comedy actor from Green Wing & Black Books they could find. The second genre is the detective murder mystery, where a series of accidents look suspiciously like foul play, but Angel has to convince his skeptical cake-eating colleagues to believe him. As the film stretches into the second hour, it moves into Bad Boys territory as the guns get locked and loaded. Containing a homage (rather than a pardoy where it would lazily recycle the images without the wit) to almost every buddy cop movie, as well as the typical Spaced humour, it's a laugh throughout first and foremost. But it's such a step forward from their last film Shaun Of The Dead, it seems condescending to call it a comedy. The action, photography & direction is first-rate, even if it maybe does tire toward the end. See it.
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	18/2/2007

The Last King Of Scotland
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Forest Whitaker is already assured of the Best Actor Oscar, it has been said, having already bagged the BAFTA and anything else going. My abiding memory from watching this film was general agreement that he deserves it, even if the film itself is nothing special. James "Mr Tumnus" McAvoy is a just out of college Doctor looking for a bit of adventure. And by adventure, he means filthy sex with some Ugandan ladies. Sadly, he doesn't get his hands on ever-doable Gillian Anderson, the wife of his colleague. Pity that. McAvoy ends up as Idi Amin's personal physician, selling out his principals to help the poor in exchange for living the high life. Whitaker, as has been mentioned by almost everyone, brilliantly shows the natural charisma, charm and humour Amin possessed, whilst not forgetting the paranoia, megalomania and psychopathic tendencies he showed as his reign went on. I've no problem that Dr Garrigan is something of a composite character, in that events didn't happen as they did for real. The film takes a while to get going, and trundles, almost dawdles, towards its conclusion, without racing ahead or setting anything alight. It's worth it just for Forest though.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	6/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	3/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	AVI
Date added	17/2/2007

The Constant Gardener
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Shot in a slinky, grainy, almost invasive style, based on a John le Carré novel, and starring Ralph "Call me Rafe" Fiennes and the "always do-able but actually good actress too" Rachel Weisz, as his murdered wife. That's right at the beginning so I'm not spoiling anything. Their relationship is then shown in flashbacks as Rafe (an English stuffed shirt foreign office diplomat) tries to solve her murder, occurring, as it did, in Kenya, while she was investigating the nefarious actions of the pharmaceutical corporations. They've been coercing vulnerable people with HIV to test a drug to cure that and TB in one feel swoop. Only problem is, whilst it can cure, it can also kill, and re-development is more expensive than just ignoring the side-effects and trousering cash on the stock market. In the scenes with his wife, Rafe has an expression on his face throughout like "how on earth did I pull that?!" and it's well carried off as a man who is romantically punching above his weight. Great support from Bill "she was rubbish" Nighy as the slithery duplicitous boss.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	AVI
Date added	11/2/2007

Children Of Men
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	I had to open up a new window to check my reviews as I wrote this, as I'm pretty sure I'd made the point I was going to make before. And I had. In V For Vendetta, I'd said the political ideas aren't very well or realistically expressed, as they're made by filmmakers who are good at visuals, not politics. I feel something similar with Children Of Men. It's set in 2027 where for reasons not very clearly explained, there hasn't been a baby born for 18 years, and in V or 1984 style, Britain is now a virtual fascist state. Gangs of chavs/proles throw stones at outer party worker Clive "Chancer" Owen's train, as he escapes to the country retreat of weed-toking Michael "fousands of 'em" Caine. By chance his ex Julianne "strongly vaginal" Moore involves him in an adventure where he has to help the first pregnant woman in 2 decades get out of the country. As a chase movie, Children Of Men is awesome. The photography of the actions scenes (Car drive-by shooting & hunt in a Stalingrad-style refugee camp) are better than anything I've ever seen, better than Private Ryan's good bit. But the "future is now" stuff (immigration, infertility, authoritarianism) is left unexplained. I'm guessing it's because director Alfonso Cuaron didn't think it would be frankly strong enough, and left open to too much criticism. Reminds me of Jersey Girl or Lady In The Water where important life-changing stuff is left unsaid because the director probably knows it would never be satisfying enough to all. It's a pretty bleak film, portraying a very faint flicker of hope in a world otherwise gone to hell. Perfect for a hangover.
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	9/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	AVI
Date added	11/2/2007

This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	And it was because I was ill that I've managed to watch a whole bunch in the past few days. This is another in the documentary genre that Michael Moore kickstarted what seems like a million years ago. It's potentially the dullest subject imaginable, what constitutes an R (under 17s have to be accopanied by those over 17) and a NC-17 (over 17s only) and how those ratings are determined. By a shadowy group of raters appointed by an unaccountable board called the MPAA, that's who. They're also quaintly weird about what can stay and what can't. Violence, machine guns, no problem. Gay kisses and visible pubix hair, the NC-17. Apparently, this can mean a massive difference in box-office gross. The problem is, it's not as if the films are banned, just given a higher rating, and it's not as if teens pay attention to ratings when they're downloading them. There's a large amount of self-indulgent "poor-me" and censorship screaming from pretty well-off directors, who can't have been that badly affected financially. Still, worth a watch
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/2/2007

The Good German
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Dragging myself back into serious filmage, after slightly amusing diversions into Ferrell & Sandler, with the new one from the Soderbergh/Clooney machine that isn't a Casino heist. You have to credit the boys though, they really are trying to make something different from the usual multiplex fodder. It's shot not just in black & white but also in the style of the 1940s (backlit car journeys for example) and is set in post-war Germany 1945. It's a noir-ish format of a murder mystery, featuring the always excellent Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire playing against his boyish type as a bit of a cunt. Gorgeous George plays himself, which is a pity as recently he'd been rather successful playing other people. It's all very well made and yadda yadda ya, but I didn't feel very engaged with it, or surprised by the many twists and turns. Maybe it was because I was ill at the time
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	4/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	1/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/2/2007

Idiocracy
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Mike "King Of The Bill & Beavis & Butthead" Judge made the little known but very funny Office Space, and then there's this little gem, completely missed first time around, and destined for more cult-ish love. It stars Luke Wilson - not the blonde one from Wedding crashers, the Tennis playing bird lover from Royal Teenebaums - as an idiot who does a Fry and ends up 500 years in the future. A society where human intelligence has decreased so badly, people unable to find their own genitals with both hands are judges on the supreme court. There's some excellent satire of the present tolerance and outright promotion of sub-moronic behaviour, plus some "square white guy trying to pimp" stuff, that is most choice.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/2/2007

Click
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	5/10	It was the wife (see girlfriend reference for House Of Wax). My slow, sad decline from respected chin-stroker to fart-giggler is almost complete. You don't need to know what happens as I'm sure you've seen the trailers. So let me say, Fonzie, Michael Knight, Marge & Christopher "The ice........is gonna break" Walken are in it and glad of the screen-time. There's a "It's A Wonderful Life" bit in the film, almost where Sandler is tiring of his man-child and wants something a little more, well, grown-up.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	3/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	1/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	7/10
Format	AVI
Date added	5/2/2007

Talladega Nights
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	After the watershed moment that was Anchorman, where the work of Will Ferrell and his team (minus Stiller, obviously) made me laugh a whole bunch more than I had thought likely, I decided to obtain without prior written permission his latest film, set in the uniquely American sport of Nascar. Even among the most simple-minded, this surely has to be the dullest sport imaginable; an oval track where cars go round, and round. And round. For 500 laps. Anyhoo, Will plays the same role he always does, backed by John C. "Magnolia" Reilly & Sacha Baron Coen with a terrible accent as his French driving rival. The head weirdo from Ally Mcbeal gets a TV to Movie conversion, playing his boss. Oh, and Gary "Lucas Buck" Cole fulfils his god-appointed role as the go to character actor guy, as the Dad. Whilst it has some great moments; sending up the constant barrage of advertising where he has to include his sponsor during the saying of grace, man-to-man love, and some great running around in his pants (in the UK sense) thinking he's on fire, it's at least 20-30 minutes too long. Good news, no Stiller cameo.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	2/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	8/10
General wierdness	5/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	1/2/2007

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	The only trouble with films that are smart, witty, post-modern without pretentious, clever but that don't talk down to you, is that for one thing they're rather rare. For another, you can feel a bit thick watching it, as you're not smart enough to keep up. Fortunately, there's always the re-watch value to fill in the blanks. Robert "Chaplin" Downey "I Want Love" Jnr essentially plays himself as a terrible thief that in a sequence of events too amusing and predictable to retell here, winds up in LA as a wannabe actor awaiting an audition. Therein things take a turn for the noir, as he stumbles into a Chandleresque private eye story with Val "Vegas & Superbowl cleaned me out" Kilmer and Corbin "Arnie Becker" Bernsen along for the fun. It sends up the vacuous LA lifestyle; 3 second conversations, and endless put-downs, as well as containing the afore-mentioned post-modern narration and the breaking of the 4th wall. Val & Robert are clearly having big gay fun.
Bagsy	8/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	6/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	29/1/2007

Rocky Balboa
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	I don't care, I just don't care sometimes. There's just some things that bypass your critical faculties and you have to stand and cheer. Rocky Balboa, or Rocky VI, is such a time. It shouldn't work at all. The guy is 60, and he's been beaten up countless times; he was going blind in Rocky II for fuck's sake. And yet, and yet, you still root for him. He's a decent guy who represents all that's good in the world against all that's cynical. There's a brilliant bit where he says life isn't about how many shots you give, it's about how many you take and whether you can still keep moving forward. But it isn't only sentimental, nostalgic bobbins either, it really is a very good film indeed about not living in the past and finding yourself in the present. You'd have to be dead in your grave not to get the chills when Rocky leaps up those steps, and the fight at the end is the best in the whole franchise. Certainly the best since the original, just no more, OK?
Bagsy	3/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	3/10
General wierdness	2/10
Comedy	4/10
Format	VOB
Date added	25/1/2007

Little Miss Sunshine
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Bagsy at zero for reasons that will become obvious. We seem to be in a cycle (to borrow the Deal Or No Deal phrase) seemingly started by About Schmidt, of films featuring somewhat under-achievers, rather than the Ocean's 11 more conventional Hollywood fare. The second tier of America, if you will. Tipped for Oscar nominations, it stars everuone's favourite Mr America Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve "I love lamp" Carell as an even-by-their-standards dysfunctional family. It's a road movie with dark humour and in-fighting, a clapped out vehicle, a hilarious coke snorting grandad and a teenager with a self-inposed vow of silence. The 7 year old little girl Olive has to make a beauty pageant in a short amount of time, so the family come along for the ride. The film is a little meandering but when you get to the pageant (Little Miss Sunshine) the bagsy goes into minus score and the Daily Mail reader in you comes out. If this film achieves anything, it's highlighting just how very, very, creepy beauty pageants are. The sexualisation of children, fodder for paedophiles, and the film gets it spot on.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	16/1/2007

The Village
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	M Night "Shallamalladingdong" Shyamalan may have leapt off the high board into the empty swimming pool, cracking his head open, but he still had the power to keep you from nodding off prior to Lady In The Water. I say that, although I didn't realise Bryce Dallas Howard (Lady In The Water) was blind until about halfway through the movie. It's a good enough watch if you've nothing better to do, well cast with Adrien Brody, Joaquin Phoenix & Sigourney Weaver among others.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	5/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	2/10
Format	AVI
Date added	15/1/2007

Napoleon Dynamite
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	After debating with myself how to review this film, I've decided just to say it's a very, very, strange film. It's full of strange, some disturbed, yet endearing characters, set in an Idaho American backwater where nothing much happens except the Farm. It's a high school rite-of-passage movie, where the titular Napoleon helps his only friend Pedro try and win a class presidency against the "cool kid" cheerleader Summer. His home life is what kids today might call "unconventional", a closeted brother Kip with an internet girlfriend, supervised by their decidedly creepy Uncle Rico, as Grandma is in hospital following a dune-buggy accident. If you liked Wes Anderson's Rushmore or The Royal Tennenbaums with their quirky or "weird" style, you'd file it in the same category. But you'd still file it there under "shit" or "over-rated" too. Me, I'd rather have a 100 of these than Bruckheimer/Bay.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	11/1/2007

Michael Collins
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Neil "Interview With A Vampire" Jordan seems to have shown his cards in the casting of this film. If you have Liam "Oscar Schindler, Qui-Gon Jinn" Neeson in one role, with Alan "Sherrif Of Nottingham, Hans Gruber from Die Hard" Rickman in another, it's fair to say that you're casting one as a goodie, one as a baddie. When you're dealing with something as problematic as the Irish troubles, (2 sides, multiple differences of opinion on both) it isn't something you can easily do. Michael Collins is a textbook example of a worthy film covering a crucial period of history shoe-horned into a Hollywood-sized template, complete with a Julia Roberts love triangle. Roberts is actually fine in this role, as is everyone else, it just feels impossible to squeeze Irish history into 2 hours. Leaving aside the inaccuracies (car-bombings, composite characters, allegiance to the crown) it's a good enough film in it's own right, but you can't shade good/evil characters without spoiling the result.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	0/10
Comedy	3/10
Format	AVI
Date added	8/1/2007

Man On The Moon
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	In some of my weaker and hungover moments, like yesterday, I feel a bit sorry for Jim Carrey. He's clearly a guy with tremendous talent (no, really) but too often he's saddled with weak-arsed projects, or he succumbs to his own ego and gurns for 95 minutes. Man On The Moon is a case of the good actor he could be given the right material. He plays the enigmatic (and in my opinion, unfunny) Andy Kaufman. Andy didn't identify himself as a comedian, nor as a singer. He just did an act. He didn't seek approval or to be loved, he just wanted a reaction, good, bad or indifferent. You have to respect him for that. He was also a very, very, strange man. He had an alter-ego, Tony Clifton, an abusive Vegas lounge lizard, who "Andy" insisted be in the show Taxi as part of his contract. It's further confusing in that "Tony" could also be played by Andy's brother or friend, so both characters could appear on stage together. Andy also liked wrestling women (I'm not making this up) and he did in fact have a famous feud (later revealed to a be staged) with wrestler Jerry Lawler, who plays himself in the film, some 20 years later. If you add in Albert Brooks & Christopher Lloyd who also reprise their roles in Taxi, and Danny DeVito, who was in Taxi but plays Kaufman's manager, you have something of an oddity. I won't get into Kaufman faking his death at this point, but if you have questions after watching the film, look at his Wikipedia entry.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	8/10
Comedy	6/10
Format	AVI
Date added	8/1/2007

The Matador
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	It's a sign of changing times that we need hitmen to teach us lessons about friendship, but it's a good enough romp all the same. Pierce "no more foreplay" Brosnan is Julian the killer; Greg "absolute horror of a human being" Kinnear is Danny the nervy salesman. They meet in a bar in Mexico, and in true odd-couple tradition find things in the other they need. One the excitement of a crazy life, the other a comfort in the love of a good woman.
Bagsy	6/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	5/10
General wierdness	6/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	28/12/2006

Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Bagsy as far as the eyes can see. Multiple female murders to bring out the killer in all of us. Who among us hasn't wanted to kill a bunch of women, extract their scent in some clever and weird way, all in order to create a perfume that makes us look like an angel in the eyes of all? No? Must be just me then. The so-called unfilmable book by Patrick Suskind (inspiration for Nirvana's Scentless Apprentice, fact fans) Ben "Pingu from the dog-shit Nathan Barley" Whishaw is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born on a smelly fish market with no odour, yet gifted with the most brilliant sense of smell. His search for the perfect scent drives him to murder, yet gratifyingly it isn't played for laughs or titillation. It's asexual, olfactory substituted in place of lust. The problem is that smells don't make for great cinema; it's hard enough to make it interesting in a book but at least you can have pages and pages of description. Thrillingly, the ending captures the book's insanity and makes the sometime ponderous journey worthwhile.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	5/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	28/12/2006

The Life And Death Of Peter Sellars
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Geoffrey Rush has a hard time in this one. He's one of my favourite actors, can do anything, but being asked to impersonate a comic genius and carry it off would push anyone. He does his best, and he's terrific as Sellars in his "normal" life, but less good in the bits in films like Strangelove or Panther. Steve Coogan maybe could have done those bits but he'd have shit in anything serious. Sellars was a cunt. A genius, but a deluded one and an absolute arse to most who knew him. At least, that's how the film portrays him. Charlize Theron is excellent (not just sexy) as Britt Ekland, and Miriam Margoyles as his mum, though certainly a lot less sexy.
Bagsy	9/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	4/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	8/10
Format	AVI
Date added	24/12/2006

Confederate States Of America
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	By my own standards, this is a pretty deep cerebral film, so those less book-ish than I might and probably will get totally lost. Its a pretty straight-faced documentary on what would have happened if the South had won the civil war and slavery had not been abolished. So there's lots of ads for slave-based products, with more than a few winks to things still available now (Uncle Ben's rice for instance). You need wikipedia on hand.
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	AVI
Date added	24/12/2006

Anchorman - The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	6/10	Got around to watching this the other day, pushing down my film pile to about 30, then went and downloaded another 5 so I'm back where I started. Anyways, worth a watch, in spite of my sneery snob-like "down my nose looking" at Will Ferrell and his ilk. Unfortunately, Ben Stiller is in it. But so is Steve Carrell as a mentally challenged weatherman, who walks away with the film in his pocket.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	6/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	9/10
Format	AVI
Date added	24/12/2006

Pan's Labyrinth
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	9/10	I only got the chance to see this last night, when Sixfields (don't know and don't care who owns it this month) cinema had a 9pm daily showing for one week only. Probably because it's a Spanish film with subtitles, and not a braindead Stiller vehicle or piss-poor rom-com a la The Holiday. What it is, is one of the best films of the year. You can tell whether subtitled films are any good by whether it's an effort to read the lines or not. You barely notice in this film. It's set in 1944 Spain, at the end of the civil war where the Fascists led by Franco have all but crushed the Republican resistance, and are left mopping up the stragglers as they flee to the woods. The Army "cappy-tan" arrives with his pregnant wife in tow - and daughter from an earlier marriage, Ofelia - not flinching from summary executions and torture to get his bloody job done. This is Ofelia's story, a fairy tale come to life as she discovers the Labyrinth and learns she is in fact a reincarnated princess from the underworld. A world of insects as angels, fauns and weird looking monsters. It seems unbelievable that this can co-exist with a largely brutal and hard-hitting A-story of goody resistance vs baddy fascist army, but it really does. The fantasy world Ofelia escapes to works both as a metaphor and in reality as the method for her to escape the cruel world life has brought her. It's superbly shot and acted, (the sadistic Captain especially) with well-drawn characters you care about. Ofelia, of course, steals the film. Maybe because it's a Spanish film, telling a period of history not normally covered, that makes it feel so fresh and original. It's the sort of film that in English would maybe feel tired and repetitive. Now I'm off to see The Devil's Backbone
Bagsy	0/10
Explosions & carnage	7/10
Guns & fighting	7/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	1/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	21/12/2006

Thank You For Smoking
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	Bagsy pure and simple for the too-fine Katie Holmes as a journalist who'll do what it takes to get the scoop. Unfortunately, for any flesh, you'll have to go back to The Gift, and wait until the near-end, as she doesn't get anytihng out in this. The actual film is actually pretty good. It's about a lobbyist for big tobacco, and what happens to him. If you like slick, wordy, smart-arse comedy that doesn't talk to you, you'll like it. Mercifully, he doesn't learn his lesson and become a good guy, and even diehard anti-smokers will have things to think abut, as the film takes on all sides of the debate with some provocative dialogue. It's over pretty quickly, which is just as well as there isn't a lot to go on about in truth, but perfectly pleasent while it lasts.
Bagsy	10/10
Explosions & carnage	0/10
Guns & fighting	0/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	7/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	AVI
Date added	18/12/2006

eXistenZ
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	7/10	I'm rather behind the curve on this one, having never seen David Cronenberg's 1999 film until yesterday. Definitely one to watch and scratch your head over. Reminded me of Naked Lunch, similarly hallucinogenic influences on the nature of reality. there's also stuff on bio-industrial ethics, religious zealotry and computer nerd behaviour. Sadly, no sci-fi head scratcher has ever got around the "hollywood beauty" vs the reality of overweight social outcasts that actually play computer games, which is why the characters in these films always look like people who'd be lying on a beach rather than in a basement.
Bagsy	5/10
Explosions & carnage	8/10
Guns & fighting	8/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	0/10
General wierdness	10/10
Comedy	0/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	18/12/2006

Casino Royale
Person	Streaky	Comments
Overall rating	8/10	James Blonde, Bond is Blond, shrieked the headlines as Daniel Craig's name was announced for the latest re-launch of the franchise. These simpering toady hacks duly ate their words once the film had, you know, been made and viewed. Craig is your balls-out Bond, not one to think twice before popping caps in various crevices, and even speedier to let his fists do the talking. Plots, girls and mcguffins are irrelevant here. It's Bond FFS. But it's a Bond closer to OHMSS (the George Lazenby one) in that it's unlike the usual formula. More like The Bond Supremacy. Daniel Craig gives us what Moore (my personal favourite) and certainly the Scottish thug were unable to; the reaction from the audience that we want to know more about him. We're interested. And if the ending is anything to go by, we'll get what we want.
Bagsy	7/10
Explosions & carnage	10/10
Guns & fighting	10/10
Zombies & undead	0/10
Cars	8/10
General wierdness	3/10
Comedy	5/10
Format	Cinema
Date added	26/11/2006