What films have you seen recently?

[fastkat]

Last week, I got one of these unlimited passes for my local cinema, which is a CineWorld Cinema.

So far I have seen:

Yes Man - starring Jim Carrey. Not too bad, some of it is mildly funny and he keeps his 'physical theatrics' i.e. 'gurning' to a minimum in thism thankfully.

Slumdog Millionaire which is based around the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and the lives of three street kids in Mumbai. Although it kinda got a bit predictable towards the end, it is quite a well put together production.

I am interested in seeing Valkyrie, Frost/Nixon and Che (Pt 1) next.

Any other recommendations?

[ker]

I went to see Inkheart over the New Year and really enjoyed it.. A great bit of escapism..
[glow=red,2,300]ker[/glow]

[Foxy1]

I'm looking forward to Revolutionary Road with Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet which arrives here next week (Friday 30th)

[warofwords]

Revolutionary Road was great ..............As was the Changeling .........
Despite Angelina Jolie appearing very anorexic in this movie

[enlistedgussguss]

I have just seen Mongol and Hancock mongol was hoofing and hancock so funny

[Libby]

Has anyone seen Valkyrie yet?! ;D

[cheyenne]

Ben Stiller in "The Heartbreak Kid" on Sky Premiere (made by same people that did "There's Something About Mary") - quite a funny movie, some hilarious moments in it and a twist at the end. I did think it was about half an hour too long though.

[RMPNCO]

Saw Valkyrie and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. Although everyone knws the ineviatable outcome it was a story well told. It made you realise just how close the plotters came. Good score to the film also.
Eventually managed to see Slumdog and although it was good it didn;t quite live up to all the recent hype (BAFTA's etc) but still well worth seeing.
To digress a little I finally got round to seeing The Lives Of Others (Oscar for Best Foreign Film a couple of years back) and have to say it's probably one of my top 5 films of all time. Gripping and unmissable IMHO.

[RMPNCO]

Oh, forgot to mention Australia. Another good (not great) film that didn't quite match its blockbuster billing but one of those 'must see on the big screen' films. 7.5/10

[Libby]

Ooh that's another film i just have to see - Australia! Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, an epic film, romance and action!

Review ~

It has every Australian cliché you could hope for, from kangaroos and Nicole Kidman to aborigines going walkabout and, yep, Waltzing Matilda. There is even, within moments of the opening scenes, Rolf Harris's wobble board.

But Baz Luhrmann's long-awaited, and over-budget epic Australia manages, against the odds, to avoid turning into one big sunburnt stereotype about Godzone country. Instead, in what turns out to be a multi-layered story it describes an Australia of the 1940s that is at once compellingly, beautiful and breathtakingly cruel.

Described as a cross between Gone with the Wind and Out of Africa it bears, in fact, little resemblance to either movie – apart from a similarly spectacular landscape as Out of Africa and a plot line that loosely resembles that of Gone with the Wind.

In this case, Lady Sarah Ashley, a passionless English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman), inherits a vast cattle station in the Northern Territories only to find that the station is the target of a dastardly takeover plot.

Much against her will, she is forced to enlist the help of a local stockman known only as Drover (Hugh Jackman), to save the station by driving her huge herd of cattle hundreds of miles across the Kuraman desert to Darwin. Which is then bombed by the Japanese.

In the worst Mills and Boon tradition, Lady Sarah – whose emotions are as frozen as Kidman's forehead – and the rough neck Drover loathe each other on sight but, as they endure the harsh and rather dusty travails of the cattle drive they quite quickly fall in love. She even teaches him to dance. Under a boab tree.

But if it sounds shallow and predictable, Australia is, in fact, anything but.

The cliches are saved by little jokes and asides, as if Luhrmann is saying 'Yes, I know, but what can you do?' In an early scene, as the newly-arrived Sarah drives toward her station, Faraway Downs, with Drover, a herd of kangaroo lopes alongside their vehicle.

As Sarah “oohs” and “aahs” with melodramatic wonder, a shot rings out and one of the kangaroos falls, killed by an Aboriginal stockman riding, literally, shot gun on the roof of the car. The horrified aristocrat spends the rest of the trip staring at the hind leg of the kangaroo hanging disconsolately over the windscreen, and the trails of blood that trek through the dust on the glass.

Later that evening she pops her head out of her tent door to behold the kangaroo being roasted for dinner plus (more importantly) the sight of a half naked Drover soaping himself down; a scene that will only do for Jackman what James Bond's swimming briefs did for Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and will ensure Jackman as Craig's only viable cinematic rival as the heart throb du jour.

But what gives the film its heart is something else entirely. This is also the story of Nullah (Brandon Walters), a mixed race Aboriginal boy left orphaned by the inhumanity of Australian law. The 1940s was the time of the Stolen Generation, when mixed race children were banned from living either with their Aboriginal families or within the white community, but were taken from their homes to be brought up in church missions.

Nullah's increasingly frantic attempts to escape from the 'coppers' and his symbiotic relationship with his grandfather, the mystical King George, played with awesome power by the renowned Aboriginal dancer and musician David Gulpilil, is treated with a stark honesty and is what actually makes this film truly Australian in both its best and its worst sense.

Brandon, 13, was discovered by Lurhmann in his local swimming pool in the West Australian town of Broome and he plays Nullah with a combination of mischief and tragedy that may turn him into the real star of the film, despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that he has never acted before.

Australia is reported to have gone $US30million over its $US100 million budget and right to the last minute there was speculation that it would not be finished in time for its Australian premiere.

Australian audiences – who are already in love with the film – are guaranteed to flock to the box office but Luhrmann needs the American market if he is to break even. If all else fails there is always Jackman, stripped to the waist, under the shower. That if nothing else should pull them in.

[RMPNCO]

Went to see Duplicity a week or two back. Witty script, good performances but the 'twist' ending left things a bit flat........and open for a sequel. 6.5/10.

Today I saw The Boat That Rocked. Given the cast involved this had the potential to be a good British comedy. Unfortunately, nothing 'rocked', just sank without trace. It was awful. 3/10.

They are re-screening Frost/Nixon for the Seniors tomorrow so I'll take a punt at that. Just hope there's not too many fogey's rattling their teacups when the Tetley is being dished out.

[Woolf]

Wolverine is well worth seeing.
Just saw a copy of the pre-release version.
Naughty torrent-er, that I am.

[Libby]

I want to see that too Steve, thanks for your comments! ;D

When is the film released, officially i mean lol!

[Woolf]

29 April 09
UK release date.

Only problem I had with the film was it changes the Marvel background.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine_(comics)

[justmyopinion]

Wolf Creek, "W"

[RMPNCO]

Went to see Let The Right One In a couple of weeks back along with my 14 year old daughter.

It certainly lived up to expectations. Though it's a story involving a child vampire, this is no horror flick as such. It's the story of a friendship between two adolescents, the other being a bullied loner who befriends the 'girl' who has just moved into his apartment block.
My daughter thought it was absolutely stunning and I have to say it's in my all time top ten.

It's got 98% rating on Rotten Tomato's website, which it thoroughly deserves. The DVD is getting plugged on TV at the moment, so miss it at your peril.

[lala]

Red Cliff, directed by John Woo. Bit chaotic and confused, edited down (by the director) from the five hour Chinese release version, to a mere two and a half hours ... Kinda left wishing I'd got to see the full version, as it was just one overly portentous sequence after another , and episodes of frenzied slaying that didn't really seem to have much context. Little empathy for the characters, as they had little chance to develop amid all the hectic hacking.