Initial Conditions

This is basically to counterbalance the “appalling film list” that I have from a couple of posts ago. Here’s the top three from five genres:

Comedy

1. Airplane!

I am serious. And stop calling me Shirley!

2. Serial Lover (watch it and tell me the french have no sense of humour)

3. Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy

I love lamp!

Action

1. The Terminator

Come with me if you want to live!

2. The Bourne Ultimatum

3. The Italian Job

Hang on lads, I have an idea….

Animation

1. Spirited Away

2. Who framed Roger Rabbit?

Get me a scotch on the rocks.. and I mean ICE!

3. Toy Story

Science Fiction

1. The Matrix

2. Star Trek: First Contact

3. Back to the Future series

Horror/Thriller (genre inserted to please Davo)

1. Cloverfield

2. Jaws

3. Psycho

[Musicals (struggling)

1. Team America: World Police (scraping the barrel because it's not really a musical)

2. The Wizard of Oz

3. er.. I don't really like musicals...I was struggling to think of a fifth genre!]

Tries to be “Meet the Parents” but fails miserably. Rubbish.

Incidentally, one of the characters mentions to his father (to avoid spending Christmas with him) that he is going to

Spend the vacation in Burma inncoluating babies: Burma’s an island in Asia!

and I was the only one who laughed at this in the whole cinema (because Burma is not an island, obviously). I clearly need to rethink my sense of humour…

I go on about this a lot. It’s basically a list of terrible films that I bring up to ridicule my flatmate. Here’s the list in full:

Stop! Or my Mom will shoot

Kindergarten Cop

Police Academy: Mission to Moscow

Super Mario Bros.

Doom (I have a massive rant about this somewhere on the web, I’ll post it as soon as I find it!)

Jingle all the way

Ghost Dad

Star Wars Episode 2

Batman and Robin

Die Another Day

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

etc. if you have any more suggestions, tell me!

EDIT: I just realised I did another post like this. Oops!

Despite gruesome deaths this lacklustre comedy leaves you feeling “meh”.

An entertaining way to spend 100 minutes. Very weird cameos.

A short history of bad films I saw at the cinema, in no particular order.

1. Batman and Robin. George Clooney, Arnie, “Ice to see you”. No, no, no!

2. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. “I know, let’s put that guy who makes the noises in it. But let’s not worry that he wasn’t ever really all that funny. No, 4 laughs a film is too many.”

3. Doom. The Rock was in this, but if you had actually cast actual rocks in this movie, you would barely have noticed the difference. Oh and why oh why write such a contrived plot for the film when the game HANDS YOU ONE PRE-WRITTEN??? Arrrgh!

4. Super Mario Bros. Oh Daisy, I see you have a shotgun and say “Guys, you have to see this!” before the credits roll. Are they going to make a sequel to this bilge so we actually see what it is? Are they arse. Do I care? Nope.

5. Balls of Fury. Jack Black clone goes from zero to hero by winning some table tennis. The film’s main flaw is that a main gag is that the chinese guy who is some kind of Table Tennis guru turns out to be Christopher Walken, but you know this anyway from the DVD/ movie poster. That, and not being as funny as it advertised.

6. Wanted. “You are my son” (notice the avoidance of “I am your father”) is fast becoming my least favourite movie cliche ever. This wasn’t even said in irony, which makes it all the worse.

7.The Godfather. Only joking, I haven’t seen it, I just wanted to be controversial.

8. Divorcing Jack. Robert Lindsay+dodgy accent+claiming that you’re in Bangor when you’re obviously in Donaghadee+ not being anywhere near as entertaining as the book= a DVD which is good as a coaster and not much else.

9. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Haha yes, some chinese films are badly dubbed. Ok, you can stop this gag now. Oh and now the dog has been badly dubbed and the villain is calling himself Betty. Go away and leave me in peace, you horrible, evil film!

10. Snakes on a Plane. You sit and wait for this one line to come and when it comes it’s been so obviously just edited in that it lets you down massively, and to boot it isn’t really any good.

So there’s my list of shame. Doubtless I’ve missed some out, but you’re free to add to it…

A brilliant film this, probably the best I’ve seen this year.

Having only watched Batman Begins last week, I was unfamiliar as to the new direction the Batman series was going, though I gathered it was a lot closer to the Michael Keaton portrayals than the poor Val Kilmer and George Clooney ones (the latter of which I will never speak of again as it makes the 1960’s TV series look dark).

First, my gripes, for there are few. Christian Bale’s Batman voice isn’t suited for lengthy dialogue. At one point, he sounds distinctly like the Sea Captain from the Simpsons, but that is a minor point. More pressing is Rachel Dawes Doctor Who-esque regeneration into Maggie Gyllenhall, which seems to have gone unnoticed by the remaining cast. I guess it’s all you could do when Katie Holmes is busy, but they could have put someone who was slightly more convincing.

Spleen vented, time for praise. Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker as an amoral criminal who does bad things “just to watch them burn”, and the effect he lends the Joker is effective: you are genuinely scared for everyone he encounters.

Christian Bale’s strange voice aside, the rest of the cast do a fine job, and praise to Gordon Freeman for not being an old mentor for a change- while he does occasionally dole out a bit of wisdom, that role falls largely to Albert, who is marvellous, as is Gary Oldman’s commissioner/lieutenant Gordon.

The plot itself is gripping enough (basically some criminals wanting Batman dead and the Joker taking it on) and the transformation of Harvey Dent to Two-Face, of which the Joker is especially proud, adds an extra air of menace (and is better than the Two-Face of Batman Forever, who might have been better if The Riddler wasn’t also involved) and a dilemma towards the end at sea will leave you on the edge of your seat. Thankfully it’s free of contrived plot twists and a Deus Ex Machina ending which I’ve seen too much of lately.

But don’t take my word for it, go see it. Now.

As for the next film, we can only speculate as to who the villain will be. The Riddler? The Penguin? Catwoman (bad Halle Berry films aside)? Poison Ivy? (please no) Mr Freeze (=career suicide)?

Product placement watch: I could only see Dell (and that wasn’t obvious) and Lamborghini was quite prominent although you could argue this wasn’t really product placement. Good show for not selling out.
Addemdum: I’ve slagged off Hollywood for doing too many remakes/sequels of old films lately, but when they’re actually good and not blatantly just attempts for actors to revive flagging careers, I don’t mind them so much. The end.

A fraternity of assassins, but with a twist. The assassins do not take orders from men but from.. okay I won’t spoil it for you, but the answer to this question isn’t especially satisfying anyway. You are likely to be more confused than not by it, so I shall spare you.

This is a summer not-quite blockbuster which had potential, but failed to really excite me. It follows the story of a man whose life has nothing going for it until he meets Angelina Jolie. A life changing event in itself, but then she takes him to join the fraternity of assassins, where Gordon Freeman eventually tells him that he is to undertake a revenge mission (after lots of training and montage-esque sequences. I do love a montage..). This mission leads to a plot twist Justin saw coming a mile off (although I didn’t notice until he pointed it out) and a dénouement that just seems so ridiculous and rushed that you wonder if you missed something important. Not to mention that there are too many stock characters to really make you interested in any of their fates.

The very last scene was very well done though, and the action scenes were very good to watch, as was Jolie’s interesting lady-moustache (which appeared and disappeared as the film went on) and the bit where the main character (whose best friend and girlfriend were getting rather friendly) finally flips at his work made me laugh. There were other funny moments too, but I can’t really remember them.

So my verdict is that it is an entertaining enough way to spend two hours- but you probably won’t remember it in two weeks.

Addendum: this film is rated 18, and the only reason I can think of for this is that it’s rather bloody with some particularly disturbing shots of people being shot and beaten up. Caution is advised..

Last Wednesday Will and I went to see Iron Man.

I’m not terribly familiar with the mythology surrounding Iron Man, the only thing I had to go on was some patchy memories of some cartoons when I was younger. I actually thought for ages that Iron Man was a baddie, but there you go. So I can’t really say if the film is faithful to its roots.

So all I can really say is that it’s pretty entertaining and that while Robert Downey Junior is quite convincing, Gwyneth Paltrow as his assistant was less so. It’s definitely worth watching, but it’s just not especially memorable. Perhaps the inevitable sequel will be…