What I've just watched

The Bed Sitting Room (1969), Richard Lester's post-apocalyptic black comedy is perhaps one of the most original and little seen British films of the last 40 years. It has some absolutely surreal vignettes holding it together, but it's all a bunch of survivors in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust which lasted 2 Minutes And 28 Seconds (including the peace treaty). One of the survivors, Lord Fortnum of Alamein (Ralph Richardson), finds himself turning into a Bed Sitting Room, due to the fallout dust, then other survivors start to turn into furniture... Based on a play by John Antrobus and Spike Milligan, (who also appears), this is a sci-fi film with a difference, you won't find any modern technology here, it's a bleak utopia with a surreal look and feel to it. But, it's got one HELL of a good cast, which also includes Arthur Lowe, Michael Hordern, Rita Tushingham, Harry Secombe, Jimmy Edwards, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Roy Kinnear, Frank Thornton, Marty Feldman and Dandy Nichols as Her Majesty, Mrs Ethel Shroake of 393A High Street, Leytonstone. Track it down if you can... 4.5/5



Moon (2009), directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, (AKA Zowie Bowie), this is a thoughtful, low budget low-tech sci-fi film which feels like it came out of the 1970's, it borrows from old films of that era including Silent Running, Alien and Outland, but it's alot more intellectual, and it has one brilliant lead performance. Set in the future, energy on Earth is running out, but a source of Helium 3 has been found on the moon. It has Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), an employee for Lunar Industries who has been working on the moon for 3 years, all alone with only a computer robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). With 2 weeks to go before the end of his contract, he's starting to hallucinate. After an accident with one of the moon's harvesters, he awakens some time later in an infirmary, but after recovering, he soon finds the harvester that crashed, and he's still within the pod. The two Sam's stuggle to come to terms with what has happened, and believe either one of them must be a clone, but they find out more. It's a brilliant debut for director Jones, (expect great things to come!!) It's a thought-provoking and really engaging human drama about identity. Rockwell is a tremendous actor, and he does well in handing more than one role. It's quite poignant as well, and the low-tech look gives it a realistic mood. Who needs CGI when you have this?? 4.5/5

The Heroes of Telemark (1st view) - Always happy to see a WWII film set in Norway, you don't seem to get many of them. Kirk Douglas is a scientist and Richard Harris a resistance fighter who lead a team to destroy German hydro plant, used by the Nazis in an effort to make a nuclear bomb. Based on a series of actual events during the war and reading about them is better than the film as whole. Neither of the leads are particularly well suited to their roles and director Anthony Mann was better at westerns and epics, but he pulls of the action scenes with ease and there's a high level of tension throughout - 3/5*




And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1st view) - Jim Broadbent is one of my favourite actors but he's all too often sidelined (Bridget Jones, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Inkheart etc) so it's good to see him share the top spot in this film alongside Colin Firth in the emotional drama - 4/5*




The Age Of Stupid (1st view) - In 2055, in a massive storage facility that houses art from museums the world over, animals of all shapes and sizes and every book and film ever made stored on servers, curator Pete Postlethwaite creates an archive of video footage and laments the way in which climate change was ignored, leading to destruction the world over. It's an eye-opening and bleak documentary, but not without a sense of gallows humour. There are six main individuals and stories focused on with the actual footage but the most powerful moments are the turbine engineer who is constantly disheartened as his plans for a wind farm are constantly blocked as people don't want it to spoil the view, and the French mountain guide who starts to cry when talking about how much he's seen a nearby glacier melt in his lifetime - 4/5*

Sherlock Holmes (1st view) - Brilliant casting in the form of Robert Downy Jr and Jude Law help make this great fun. It's a world away from the likes of Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Bratt, but it works as pure and simple entertainment. I've read a few complaints about it being too action-oriented and simply en excuse for some fisticuffs. We've had Sherlock Holmes as a kid, after Jack the Ripper, seeking the Loch Ness Monster, aboard the Titanic (in book anyway) and after the Nazis and countless other variations, so what's wrong with a rough and tumble Holmes? Little that I can see - 4/5*




Connie and Carla (1st view) - Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette are best frienmds desperate to make it big in musial theatre. After witnessing a murder, they go on the run and end up posing as drag queens in Los Angeles. Comparison with Some Like It Hot are perhaps inevitable, and while it's not a patch on that classic, it is good fun - 3/5*




I also saw two short films. Alive in Joburg, the 6 minute film that would eventually become last year's District 9 and The Cap Piano, a noir animation narrated by Nick Cave, about city populated by cats only for them to go missing.

Have a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le3y0QlLjJE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj4RBmU-PIo

Inside Paris/Dans Paris (1st view) - A French film about something or other. I saw it about 12 hours ago and can barely remember a thing - 2/5*




Dick Tracy (1st view) - It's almost guaranteed that any charity shop you go in will have either a copy of the first Bridget Jones novel or Dick Tracy on VHS. I remember seeing trailers for this film 20 years ago and thought it looked good. Since then it's been on TV countless times and I don't know how many opportunities I've had to buy it. I finally recorded it over christmas and it wasn't worth that 20 year wait. The design, makeup and music impressive, and Al Pacino looks like he's having a good time. I just wish I'd had a good time - 2/5*

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), one of the most beloved children's musicals ever made, both psychedelic and dark at the same time. Although Roald Dahl didn't approve of how his book and screenplay was turned into a film, it's stood the test of time and it's still a wonderfully imaginative, awe-inspiring and darkly funny fantasy. Set in an unnamed town which is home to a mysterious chocolate factory owned by the reclusive eccentric Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder), he sends out 5 Golden Tickets in 5 chocolate bars. 4 of which are won by obnoxious greedy and spoilt kids like Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner), Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson) and Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen). But, there's one good boy, Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), who despite having no money and against all the odds, wins a Golden Ticket. He takes his Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) along with him, and inside the factory, all is not what it seems and Wonka gives his guests more than they bargained for. Done for what now seems to be a pittance, director Mel Stuart and his team did alot with what they had, the sets within the chocolate factory are imaginative and brilliant. The songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, including Candyman and Pure Imagination, are instant classics, and Wilder's Wonka is one of the best screen performances. Oh, and Roy Kinnear is in it, everyone likes him!! 5/5



The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), David Fincher has gone all nostalgic and romantic with his latest effort. It is the biggest gamble of his career, and after 6 very dark films, it makes for a stunning transition. You'd swear from watching this that he's been making films like this all his career, and this one is his masterpiece!! It begins at the end of World War 1 in New Orleans, and it lasts 87 years. It follows the life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), a man born under unusual circumstances. Born with the physical appearances of a geriatric old man, but as he ages, he grows younger. He falls for the lovely dancer Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who is aging normally. Benjamin goes off on adventures all over the world, but Daisy is never far from his mind. It's a sentimental film with out being overly sugary, but it feels warm and inviting. It's also a brilliant technical achievement, with Pitt looking older and younger within half a century of his life. It has a good supporting cast, New Orleans looks beautiful, it's a really touching fable, and it would be really good to see Fincher try something like this again, as he's really shown a knack for tugging at the heartstrings with this one. More please!! 5/5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), produced by Judd Apatow, and written by and starring Jason Segel, who had worked with Apatow on Freaks and Geeks nearly a decade earlier. It's in the same vien as other Apatow produced comedies such as The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. It's a very comedy but it has a big heart and some good imagination on display. It's about composer Peter Bretter (Segel), who has been in a relationship for 5 years with top TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). One day, she turns up, and announced she's leaving Peter to be with egotistic English rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). He's devastated by the news, and to take his mind of it, he decides to go to Hawaii, where he and Sarah had always wanted to go to. He gets there only to find Sarah and Aldous there, initially annoyed, Peter finds solace with hotel receptionist Rachel (Mila Kunis), and Peter just tries to enjoy his holiday, but tension between Sarah and Aldous grows. It's a sweet romantic comedy with some good performances and some good dialogue, and amazingly, even Russell Brand isn't annoying, (a spin-off film about his character is currently in production). But, on the basis of this, director Nicholas Stoller and writer/star Segal will go far!! 3.5/5



Sin City (2005), Robert Rodriguez has been a fan of Frank Miller's Sin City comic book stories since they were published, and wanted to do a film of them. But, Rodriguez wanted to do it faithfully to the books, and so did Miller. So, they both ended up directing, and bringing Sin City to the big screen, and it's very different from other films, it's sharp, noirish look, puts it in a league of it's own. The film adapts 3 of the Sin City books. First is The Hard Goodbye, where boxer Marv (Mickey Rourke) goes to avenge the death of his girlfriend Goldie (Jaime King), and finds her killer is cannibalistic Kevin (Elijah Wood). Second is The Big Fat Kill, where a truce between the police and prostitutes is threatened when corrupt but well respected cop Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) is killed by killer Dwight (Clive Owen). Lastly the third segment, That Yellow Bastard, has cop John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), trying to protect Nancy (Jessica Alba), who he'd saved 8 years earlier from child killer Roark Junior (Nick Stahl). It's visually stunning, and it's ultra-violent and deals with alot of adult themes, but it has a brilliant cast, and is gripping and compelling from beginning to end. (QT directed one scene between Del Toro and Owen). A sequel will happen, the same filmmaking technique was used on another Miller adaptation, 300. And Miller used it, to a lesser extent on The Spirit. 5/5

Heidi (1st view) - Never read the story or seen any other adaptation, but this version at least seemed very slight and twee. Passed the time well enough I suppose - 3/5*





Grey Gardens (1st view) - HBO film about Edith Beale (Drew Barrymore) and Edith Bouvier (Jessica Lange), cousin and aunt to Jacqueline Kennedy, set mainly during the time that the 1975 documentary (also called Grey Gardens) was being filmed about them - 3/5*




Innerspace (2nd view) - Silly 80s fun, though it's possible Joe Dante's worst film. Fantastic Voyage was better I think but it's been so long sine I saw it - 3/5




The Mirror Has Two Faces (1st view) - Jeff Bridges needs to make more comedies, though preferably ones better than this - 3/5*




Far North (1st view) - Michelle Yeoh and Michelle Krusiec star as a mother and her adopted daughter, living in isolation in the arctic tundra. Sean Bean also stars as an injured solider. A film that works best if you wath it knowing as little as possble, but it's very good - 4/5*

Payback (1999), the directorial debut of acclaimed writer Brian Helgeland, who had started out working for Richard Donner with Assassins (1995) and Conspiracy Theory (1997). This was based upon The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake, which had been previously adapted as Point Blank (1967), this film tries to be closer in tone and structure to films of that period. Sadly, studio interference softened it all, but it was quite a departure for it's star. Mel Gibson is Porter, a small time crook who is betrayed by his wife Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger) and his partner in crime Val (Gregg Henry), after a heist job. Left for dead, Porter plots his revenge, wanting his money back. With help from Arthur Stegman (David Paymer), Porter goes after his partner, and also becomes involved with a crime syndicate called the Outfit. Porter has to inflitrate this organisation to seek vengeance, facing up to the bosses, Carter (William Devane), Fairfax (James Coburn) and Bronson (Kris Kristofferson). It's a violent, brutal film which doesn't let up until the end. It shows a more brutal side to Mad Mel, showing there was alot more to him than just Lethal Weapon. It has a brilliant cast, it has a wickedly dark sense of humour, and it's great entertainment. 4/5



Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Danny Boyle went to India for his 8th film, and he returned with one of his best works. A film that is heartwarming, funny, poignant and exciting, it's beautifully shot and brings out the best of the city of Mumbai. It has street kid Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) finding himself on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In which he finds himself one question away from winning the jackpot of 20 Million Rupees. During a break, he is arrested, and is questioned on how he could possibly know the answers to the questions. He tells his life, and explains how his eventful life has a connection with the questions asked, and how it is all part of the destiny of life. It's a triumph for director Danny Boyle, who captures the vividness and tenacity of the slums of Mumbai, but it all looks beautiful. Even the cast knock out top notch performances, and it will have you on the edge of your seat and cheering along by the end of the film. It's a Bollywood film for those who have never seen a Bollywood film, but it is a very passionate film in which it's visuals are breathtaking and majestic. It'll be good tourism for India as well!! 5/5

Incendiary (1st view) - A bit melodramatic at times, and I'm sure that fact it's about terrorism and is therefore relevant to society today is meant to add to the film, which doesn't work for me at all, but a worthwhile drama - 4/5*




A Town Like Alice (1st view) - Stiff-upper lipped wartime drama about a group of female POWs in Malaya forced to march from camp to camp. Good, but the book's better - 4/5*

Rising Damp (1st view) - I've seen the TV show over the past week, and the film was a huge disappointment in comparison. The fact that it's a rehash of many scenes from the show didn't bother me, but it's brighter and more polished than the TV show, and as such lacks a lot of the charm of the small screen version. The brilliance of the characters can't really be seen in the film - 3/5*




Northfork (1st view) - Drama about a town that's being evacuated as it will soon be flooded due to the building of a dam. James Woods and Peter Coyote are two of the men sent to make sure people leave their homes in time, and Nick Nolte is a priest who is looking after a sick child, who in turn is having visions of angels. Odd but interesting - 4/5

Happy-Go-Lucky (2nd view) - It's lost a star since I first saw it at the cinema, but it's still one of the best British films of the last decade. The scenes between Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan are the highlights - 4/5




Blue Crush (1st view) - Sometimes I just ask for it. Bloody awful - 1/5*




The Entertainer (1st view) - Laurence Olivier is excellent as Archie Rice, a third rate showman running a failing vaudeville act in a seaside town. Some hysterical acting from other cast members brings it down a bit, but the gloomy mood and sense of despair is brilliantly conveyed. I'd quite like to see the Jack Lemmon version now - 4/5*





(Can we maybe lock this thread now and start another, just in case we lose it like a few others thread before?)

I'll see what I can do Gimli, anyways...

The Hunger (1983), after following his brother into the world of advertising with his brother Ridley Scott, Tony Scott made his directorial debut with this adapation of Whitley Strieber's 1981 novel. It's visually very striking, it's very much a film of it's time, very 1980's, but it has a very good cast. It follows Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve), an immortal human who lives on the blood of humans, and over the years, she's let a select few be her lovers, promising them eternal life. Her current lover is John (David Bowie), a cellist from the 18th Century. They married in France back then and now live in New York as a Goth Rock couple. Only one problem, Miriam's lovers only live for a couple of centuries, and now John has started to age rapidly. He asks for help from Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), who deals with aging disorders. She cannot help him, but she becomes friendly with Miriam, and the two begin a lesbian lover affair while John withers away, growing older and older. It's a weird little film, and for his first film, Scott has borrowed many of the filmmaking techniques that his brother was using. It does end up being a bit silly, but the make-up on Bowie was amazing for it's time, it's just a pity there wasn't more of him in the film. 3/5



Up In The Air (2009), after the success of Juno (2007), director Jason Reitman was given free reign to do whatever he wanted for his next film, he chose something that was closer in tone to his debut, Thank You For Smoking (2005). This was based on a 2001 book by Walter Kirn, and it's one that Reitman has wanted to do since 2002, now he's finally made it, and it's a gentle and warm film. It follows Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who works for a corporate downsizing company. It's his job to travel from city to city, laying off people in companies whose bosses are too cowardly to do so. Bingham also does motivational speeches in selected cities, and he has a goal, he wants to achieve 10 million frequent flier miles. He also has a casual relationship with another frequent flier, Alex (Vera Farmiga). Meanwhile, Bingham's company is thinking of downsizing, and firing people by computer, however Bingham takes Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), whose idea it was to do this cost cutting, on the road with him for a few weeks to show her what it's like doing it face to face. It's a slow-burning film, maybe not the big Oscar contender everyone is raving it to be, but you never know. It's got a gentle sense of humour, and has a very offbeat mood and feel to it, it also has a brilliant supporting cast including Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Danny McBride, Sam Elliot and Zach Galifianakis!! 3/5

Dhoom 2 (1st view) - I may have just discovered the greatest film genre of all. The Bollywood action musical. Slow-motion as a substitute for plot, logic and physics, dance numbers coming out your ears; people who jet-ski 20 feet into the air from underwater but end up being completely dry; a criminal, nicknamed Mr. A, whose exploits, when plotted on a world map, can be linked to form a cross-continental, gigantic letter A, so long as you conveniantly ignore information presented just second before; a lead actor who looks a bit like the dude from Moonlight and and a female lead who looks a bit like the woman who was the second one to be killed in True Blood. In short, it's awesome in a way that most things aren't. If only the bloke who sang Yesterday had seen this, his troubles would have stayed away - 4/5




The Cassandra Crossing (1st view) - Richard Harris! Martin Sheen! Sophia Loren! Ava Gardner! O. J. Simpson! Lee Strasberg! Lots of other people! All stuck on a train infected with a deadly disease and hurtling towards a rickety bridge! Burt Lancaster as a military man happy to send them all to their doom! It's like Disaster On The Coastliner Meets The Satan Bug! It should have been a classic - 3/5*

Inglourious Basterds (2009), The 6th film by Quentin Tarantino, and this is his long awaited war epic, and it's been well worth the wait. It's not the "men on a mission" film that many would have expected. It's alot more deeper than that, it's chapter divided story is like Kill Bill all over again, but it does contain some of the best characters QT has ever created, and some of his best dialogue too. It begins with Jewish girl Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) escaping from the bloody massacre of her family at the hands of SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a few years later, a group of Jewish American soldiers known as The Basterds, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) are working with British Intelligence and undercover German film actress Bridget von Hammersmark, (Diane Kruger), who plan to massacre much of the Nazi party in attendance at a cinema in Paris, where Hitler and Goebbels will be in attendance. The cinema is being run by Shosanna, who has an agenda of her own. It's a very exciting and entertaining film, it's a film about films as it is about the war, this is set in a cinema WW2, not the real WW2. QT has fun in this setting, and he gets the best out his cast, (rounded out with appearances by Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Til Schweiger, Rod Taylor and Mike Myers!! It's not historically accurate, but who cares?? This makes war seem like so much fun!! 4/5



Sorcerer (1977), William Friedkin had a double whammy with The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), here he was going for a triple whammy by remaking Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953). Clearly Friedkin needed his head checked, he lost it mentally making this film, forcing Universal and Paramount to spend $22.5 million into making it, and filming it for nearly a year. It flopped, but it's not the disaster everyone made it out to be. It deserves a reappraisal pronto!! It follows 4 men. New Jersey gangster Jackie Scanlon (Roy Schieder), French investment banker Victor Manzon (Bruno Cremer), Israeli terrorist Kassem (Amidou) and mysterious assassin Nilo (Francisco Rabal), all hiding out in a remote South American village for crimes they've commit. When a nearby oil well explodes, 4 men are needed to drive very highly volatile cases of nitro glycerine over 200 miles over rough terrain to the fire, the stakes are enourmous, but they have nothing to lose. It's a very suspenseful, taut film with some good moments on it. It's very violent, gritty and down to earth. It was never gonna be as good as Wages of Fear, but Friedkin had a good stab at it. It's well shot and the score by Tangerine Dream is perfect. 4/5

The Wages Of Fear is a great film, so I'd quite like to see Sorcerer. Didn't you give Basterds a 5 last time Don, or am I dreaming?



At Gunpoint (1st view) - Relucatant hero Fred McMurray guns down a bank robber in the old west, but when fellow criminals seek revenge, the townsfolk aren't happy to have a marked man in their midst. It's bit like High Noon but better - 3/5*




The Enemy Below (1st view) - Fantastic WWII submarine film, possibly, alongside Above Us The Waves, the best I've seen. The battle of wits between the captains of a US destroyer and a U-Boat (Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens) makes this much more interesting that most, and leads into a suitably thrilling finale - 4/5*




Destination Moon (1st view) - A more realistic science fiction film than many I've seen from the time, I found this fascinating from a historical viewpoint. Following the development and then the mission of the first lunar rocket, it's interesting to see the flights of fancy that occur on screen but also how much seemed to reflect accurately evens that would follow during the space race. Decent acting goes out the window, but still a great watch - 4/5*




To Let/Para entrar a vivir (1st view) and The Baby's Room/La habitación del niño (1st view) - Two short Spanish films, both from a series of horror-themed TV movies. BBC 2 showed them over Christmas and they're both better than another from the series they showed last year. The first is about a young couple who go to view an apartment, only to find themselves imprisoned by the realtor. The second sees another young couple buy a new house, but start to hear strange noise over the baby monitor. Similar to many other horrors, but decent shocks in both and they don't overstay their welcome - 4/5*

It Might Get Loud (2009), from Oscar winning documentary director Davis Guggenheim, who made a name for himself with An Inconvenient Truth (2006). He could have done another one of a similiar tone, but he didn't. He did one focusing on 3 very different rock guitarists, all from very different backgrounds and about their individual history with the electric guitar. The three guitarists in question are Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. It focuses on their lives and where they grew up. Page was once in a skiffle band, then he became a session musician before joining The Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. The Edge revisits his old haunts in Dublin, including the school where he and his friends would perform as the band that became U2. Jack White talks about growing up in the slums of Detroit, and how being in a garage band soon led to The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. The three of them meet up for a day, tell stories and play music on a soundstage as well. It's a good, low-key little documentary. Page, The Edge and White all tell good stories and it's done with an offbeat flair and the music is very good, and they're all brilliant guitarists. You'd have never have thought to have put them together for a film like this, but Guggenheim did. 4/5



Amelie (2001), after going to Hollywood for Alien: Resurrection (1997), director Jean-Pierre Jeunet returned to his native France for a little film he was working on when Hollywood came calling, but he kept on working on it. It's more romantic than the films he made with Marc Caro, but it's still very offbeat and very colourful. It's almost a fantasy in a way, but it is one of the sweetest romantic comedies ever made, with the usual flourishes we've now come to expect from Jeunet. Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) grew up isolated from other children, and she has a very active imagination. She works as a waitress in a cafe called The Two Windmills in Montmartre. After finding a box of childhood toys belonging to the former occupant of her flat. She decides to become a secret matchmaker for upsuspecting people, and it touches their lives. When she finds a book of discarded passport photos belonging to Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz), she falls for him, but she can't quite build up the confidence to tell him face to face. It's a lovely sweet film, with lots of lovely little details. Tautou is simply wonderful as Amelie, very warm, funny and believable, just like the film. Jeunet keeps the pace up in his energetic direction, and it's never boring and leaves you feeling romantic!! 5/5

Norbit) (1st view) - Yeah I know. It's crap but I couldn't help but find some of it funny - 3/5*




For All Mankind (1st view) - Three reasons I wish I was born about 30 years earlier. First, so I could be a hippie in 60's America. Second, there was better music back then. Woodstock! Third, and most importantly, so I could have seen the moon landings as they happened. No matter how many times I see footage from the Apollo 11 mission, it never becomes any less impressive or awe-inspiring, and was probably the last time people came together in unison for something that wasn't miserable or depressing. This documentary combines footage from numerous Apollo missions but is edited and presented as one single mission. As such, a lot if out of context but this is less concerned with presenting the facts, but with showing unseen, spectacular footage, and allowing the astronauts in their voiceovers to reminisce. There's some brilliant stuff here, including a collection of clips that wouldn't be out of place on a blooper reel with the all-to-happy astronauts tripping and stumbling over. Their sense of humour and elation comes across as well, and it is quite amazing to think that 40 years again there were men laughing and joking on the moon - 5/5




Kokoda - 39th Battalion (1st view) - WWII about a small group of Australians and their experiences on New Guinea. It's hard to get involved with any of the characters, but the film does a good job of showing just what a horrible situation it was to be in, including the most graphic respresentation I've seen on film of someone with dysentery - 3/5*

Gimli the Festive wrote:

Norbit) (1st view) - Yeah I know. It's crap but I couldn't help but find some of it funny - 3/5*

Very funny, now seriously what did you think?

That is what I thought. I know that makes me a terrible person but I did laugh every now and then. I feel so ashamed. I shall reprimend myself severely.



Sherlock Holmes (2nd view) - A rewatch for this, and if anything had enjoyed myself even more. Really good fun - 4/5




Timecrimes/Los Cronocrímenes (1st view) - I'm still trying to figure out some of the logic of this Spanish time travel film. Not helped by the fact that the main character makes some barny decisions and he tries to cope with multiple versions of himself. It's making my head hurt - 4/5*