Me and Orson Wells

I wonder if it will ever become "me and Zac Efron".No.

The Merrry Gentleman

I miss Micheal Keaton,oddly enough i do,did,ish.... its straining at the moment,he directs at age 58 and my choice for Batman STILL!,even though at 10 the first one was excruciating to watch.This film really is nothing,there is no real relevance to it, its a 5 minute segment of a real film stretched to ridiculous levels,Kelly McDonald is wonderful to watch but in the same way a woman selling washing up liquid is,women have breasts don't annoy me with silly talk and we will get along fine,and this is pretty much what this film is,very quiet and at times promising, each scene is almost the beginning of a simple necessary clarity, the film promises but repeats its nothingness perpetually,till a beguiling ending that is over simple yet completely demanding,you must revisit characters that never change looking for a moment where everything becomes clearly defined and it never does.

Oh yes the storey is of a hit man blah girl something friends(i'm making it look interesting with added blah),but on screen it can be,Kelly's constant put downs to to unattractive men compelling, as they deem her not out of their league which is unfortunate for her,but a definite first for cinema,a heroine who is not over beautiful but in the league of average men,these little moments make it fun,then the dullness finds it way to ruin ideas which were just really an audience projected ideas hoping to become fruitful.

The men who stare at goats

Ewan McGregor is a failed Hollywood actor,his first stint,a life less ordinary was his first instance with a smugness that has filtered down through all his work when he believes his hype,any argument suggesting otherwise is simple,its his work with Danny Boyle on Trainspotting and Shallow Grave,there is very little else to redeem himself with.This review is more Ewan that "Goats",as he is its failure,a nerdish smugness and a complete lack of effort and over reliance on a boyish charm that has gotten him this far,but when sitting along side George Clooney,its inconceivable to expect natural charisma to play against his dry mouthed american accent,which is odd,he pronounces every sylabell with a grin,that can rip any tension, humour or life from a charachter that he can ever try to build.

Anyway,Goats is simply buffalo soldiers with no grounded reality and a reliance on the name actors to be funny with a script so dull the reason the poster features just four actors faces is....really it,its has 4 people who have the confidence to think they can make unfunny words work though sheer will,Kevin Spacey living off hype now 10 years old,a charming Jeff Bridges and an ageing but playing to it George Clooney,are in a film together that is really about nothing has no real statement to make about anything,has a repeated Star Wars joke that is not amusing,and it knows it,there is a self referential tone throughout,of we know its not great but come on Ewan McGregor doesn't know what a Jedi is!....he! come on LAUGH!.Thats it really,a charmless endeavour and proving that Ewan needs to do "Porno" soon

A Christmas Carol

Dickens once wrote a series of travel essays inside Britain's mental and psychiatric hospitals,to comment on the state of Britain at the time...so in a slightly veering comment it is possible to say Micahael Palin is the closest ancestor in terms of travel documentation,as a derivative of the artse then Robert Zemecks is a natural follow up to Turner a modern artist pushing boundaries but safely reaming in confines of often stale artistic comforts.Zemeckis last live action films contact,what lies beneath and contact,are to a certain degree original,he has always been an dynamic filmmaker but with tool a progressive medium to turn him slightly bland.Motion capture here has been used for the first time as a medium to best express the story ,Bewolf and the polar express were trailers for what can be done,but were never more than a advertisement,and its a shame that such a forward thinking storyteller was hampered by a new medium.Carol works on two points Jim Carrey genuinely caring about the story and Robert Zemeckis writing a screenplay faithful in tone and matching Carrey's abilities by not adhering to his comedic strengths but applying a screenplay that veers to another side of Carey,using his abilities to 90% then tantalising the audience with no punchlines,its a cranky old man joke...with a touch of holocaust denial thrown in to balance the charachter. This could easily be performed as a one man show, in context the biggest flaw is its balamce,Scrooge becomes too good too soon,it needs length to ease this genuinely evil character to the ending without too much difference between tones.Softening the beginning would have balanced the tone but as it is the films biggest strength, the confidence of the filmmakers to let be Scrooge so vicious and in doing so highlights why he is so popular.It works by not pandering to a supposed audience,and giving Disney a great villain again,which as in the great new romance of thinking Pixar are great(its a lie,to get adults thinking its ok to see animated films),works and got me thinking about when and who was the last great animated villain....it definitely was not Pixar related.

Couples Retreat

.........into pity,death traps,minefields and nazi zombie face slapping bitches who read books about lost love,threading string through cushions and then arguing about what shade of pink should be welded to your face.

Couples retreat even with this Directors Cut tagline should not be seen.Sadly the cinemas offer of a free blinding before each film was not valid anymore.

I have a girlfriend,who now is referred to in my head as FACEBITCH,as,if this is something that couples become,in reference either to the characters in the film,or who would want to see this again,then my lass is now FACEBITCH,just for being a woman.

Its not good.So Review over,here is what you do,if you loved one,or hated one,either way its probably the same thing anyway, appears with this film near you.There are simple steps that must be undertaken.

Step 1:Shoot her in the face with a gunbadger(it fires badgers).

Step 2.Laugh.

Yep that's the only time you are going to laugh if this film is involved.

An Education

Nick Hornby can write.He can also read.He read a book about an adolescent girl.He....is not an adolescent girl,but he thought he could write a film about a girl(oh clever),and he physical did,and was on variety's top 2007 outproduced scripts.Then...2 and a half years many accolades from festivals and another very solid disappointed,from internet journalists to be specific.This is pretty much the same hype that surrounded "the notorious betty page",a standout performance that will attract award recognition.Only it won't,as with Betty Page the performance is excellent only its in the wrong film.

Carey Mulligan is 24 playing a 16 year old,but with the wisdom and integrity of a 24 year old who daydreams rehashing her life at 16 with the knowledge charisma and wit of a 24 year old.She stands out with the same unabashed ludicrousness of 50 cent playing any role,people talk down to her,the treat her as written,and it works for a while,she works simply and elegantly throughout,but the other actors are terribly good so good in fact,that when the realisation that she is in fat nowhere near a teenager creeps into the audience the actors continue to treat her as such.

Story wise......1961, London(imagine this as the star wars opening crawl),young girl likes learning,meets a guy(so easily damn, bad Nick,you are not attractive,elaborate from your own experiences,and possibly help others,who may be me),goes for a drive.......(last one was a full stop,i like brackets).

The story is irrelevant,as with any biographical tale ,its the social context,the charged politics,the over the shoulder current affairs comments,the minor characters suggestions,music,films,anger,real taught anger at minor background ideals,that set the tone for real impregnation into a world,timeline is not important dress is not either.This fails badly at every one of these things,its 1961!,and there is no life in this world at all,her grand opening to life,is eh going to classical music concert and Supper!,and back in time for bed.Yay!.

This film is disjointed,the real performances are from cameos Emma Thompson,Sally Hawkins,and Olivia Williams are wonderful as always,but as they are so good the unbalance mediocrity of the main cast,tipping it to reveal the gaps flaws and pointlessness of it all.

There are so many flaws it shines on performances that should be nuanced, and a screenplay which if the filmmakers handled it as proper filmmakers would have make it look like a man writing about a girl in adolescence and shown it to be false,instead the small parts are highlighted and the writing keeps the pace bearable.