h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just watched 'Book of Eli' with Denzel W...rubbish...apart fom a couple of short fight scenes he (literal) just walked through the film.

And I didn;t even realise one facet about his character until someone pointed it out to me after I'd watched it.

Watched Spirited Away again, still an amazing film. Watched Kiki's
Delivery Service with my granddaughter who thoroughly enjoyed it.

I watched "Lawless" at the weekend.

Seems to me the absolute *perfect* example of the Wittertainment "But" game.

With Tom Hardy AND Gary Oldman AND Guy Pearce

BUT

Shia LaBeouf

Ha!

FB

Oh - I get it now. I always thought it was spelt with 2 "t"s. Or is that the point? And Mark Strong is somehow involved. Or his butt is.

Blimey Charlie...

End of Watch - very very very good.

Add to the chorus of praise for Argo: sensationally good, may have sneaked my film of the year from under Dark Knight Rises nose. As well as being great entertainment (my pulse was racing at one point) it's also a great history lesson: you forget (or at least I do) just how much of a tinderbox the Middle East was in the late 70s/early 80s and this film does a great job of putting the Iranian Revolution into a wider context. It also didn't shy away from pointing out just how messed-up American foreign policy is at times.

I still can't quite believe Ben Affleck has regained his prowess as a good actor and a seriously talented director: there were lots of little touches and adornments that must have come from him and showed just how good his vision is.

I can see this winning Oscars.

My mate was one of the hostages in Iran. No, not one of *the* hostages, one of the British sub-contractors who were held for 9 months with nothing in the media. After he'd been missing for a couple of weeks, his wife started badgering the American company he worked for - gradually getting to speak to people higher and higher up the chain. After two months she finally got through to a VP who listened to her story, paused, then said "Well, he's insured isn't he?"

The Sweeney with Ray Winstone.

Oh dear

The Men Who Stared at Goats...the actually info you can find on the net is far more interesting than the film it was loosely based on...although having Euan MacGregor in a film about something called 'Project Jedi'...would have been rude not to...and yes, Project Jedi was a real US army project.

Argo - very good film...but after reading what actually happened I would happily have watch that film. The ending wouldn't have been as exciting but the bravery and organisation of the Canadians involved was amazing.

Bourne Legacy. Not exactly a bad film, just doesn't bear comparison to the real Bourne films.

FB

The interesting thing about the book is how little he writes about Tehran: it's almost an afterthought. Makes you appreciate just how much setting up was involved. Some of the actions of the Canadians were astonishing: changing their law *before they were asked* just to rescue the six.

ID:A,
One that's possibly aimed at people who enjoyed drama like The Killing.
Story about a woman who wakes up in a stream with no memory and a huge
sack of cash.(Danish film)
There were some flashes of brilliance but on the whole it was rather
implausible and it's all been done before and much better.

Ninja Assassin - does what it says on the tin. Directed by James McTeigue(V For Vendetta) Produced by "The Wachowski brothers" screenplay by JM Straczynski.

If you liked The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi you should like this...mucho CGI blood and flying limbs.

Not to be taken seriously just go for the ride.

Plus Ben Miles (Patrick out of Coupling) who seems to be a McTeigue favourite.

Totall Recall remake.

What a missed opportunity to do something interesting. It was like a Stath movie, but not nearly as good, and with 10 times the budget.

It is not so much that it was a bad film, as that it could have been really quite good if they had just had a little nerve.

Hint to film makers, if the subject of your film is all about memory and what is/isn't real then *AMBIGUITY* is your friend, it really is. Don't play with a straight bat.

FB

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGsB9dORBg

It really didn't seem like it was 2 3/4 hours long. But then I'm happy with the genre. If fantasy isn't your thing I suspect that it would feel evey one of those minuites.

I didn't see the 48 fps version or 3D. I'm with Mark Kermode on the question of 3D. The cinematography was fabulous - or the CGI was, it is pretty much impossible to know what is real and what isn't sometimes (ok, I know that orcs aren't real). It is a bit comic-book. It is lighter than LOTR - after all, it WAS a child's book.

Just two bits of advice for anybody going to see it. Don't take a whole bag of Midget Gems. Have a pee before it starts.

I have always been bothered by this being made after LOTR.

Andy Serkis was brilliant and Martin Freeman was mostly not Tim at all.

I wouldn't bother seeing it again (but mostly don't watch films twice), but will probably buy the boxed set later with the added footage making the whole thing a monster, and then having a long weekend watching The Hobbit followed by LOTR. Wearing hairy socks.

Sorry this was long. But it's not so long as the film.

PP.

Yesterday I watched the first half of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This is a movie that won an Oscar for the screenplay and is the second most profitable movie ever when looking at cost versus profit. I can only conclude that I must have stumbled across some alternate dimension version of that movie, because it surely can't be the one I watched.

Sightseers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-57LRQdXqD0

Oh dear.

PP.

Bandslam.

When this was released in cinemas, the girls had just moved on from High School Musical so didn't particularly want to see Vanessa Hudgens being 'hard', which was basically what the film was marketed as. So we didn't go.

I've *now* discovered (after seeing the film, which is actually rather good) that this was one of the most widely-criticised marketing campaigns for a film *ever*.

We all really enjoyed it. It's about nerdy teenagers learning to like themselves. It has some good laugh-out-loud moments (I particularly liked 'There is no such thing as conversational Elvish'), it doesn't have the ending you expect, it looks and sounds good.

So definitely one I'd recommend

Mol