My review of the film Avatar

First of all, let me say - it is as outstanding as I had imagined. The new technique that Cameron has created to capture human emotion in a CGI creature is as good as I have ever seen, especially on the female alien Neytiri. Seeing Sigourney Weaver in her Avatar made me chuckle, as they had absolutely nailed that tight lipped smile that she is famous for. Now all Cameron has to do is create something that will sort out all the other movements of the body, which as usual are as floaty as every other attempt in film . I noticed that of all the creatures/aliens on screen, there weren't any that had fur or hair (except ponytails and weaving), which was probably what had to be done so as not to melt-down the rendering computers. I have only watched one other thing in 3D in the last 20 or so years, which was an underwater documentary at the Imax, but this badly strained my eyes and gave me motion sickness. Although the 3D in this was more subtle, I am still feeling the strain in the back of my eyes as I sit writing this. However, I did feel that because this feature was in 3D, it helped overcome that slightly flat look that CGI usually has on screen.

My fear was that from the trailers that this was going to be yet another excuse for a big budget battle sequence, and that the excuse for doing it was "well this one's in 3D, so it doesn't count". This wasn't the case; although there was the big battle, it didn't happen until the last 30 minutes of the two and half hour film, and was totally justified in keeping with the story line.

It makes no bones about the message it is trying to put across - we are killing our planet and we need to do something about it, but not by finding another habitable planet and doing the same there. It brings into the mix other big topical issues such as terrorism, "we need to fight terror with terror" says the military leader in order to rile his troops; something that I think George Bush said (or words to that effect).

This film is a brilliant way to get out messages such as these - arguably the most anticipated film of the decade, with a huge budget and marketing campaign, directed by the man who made the biggest grossing film of all time - people will flock to see it (old and young), and leave with the images they have seen burned into their psyche.

The film closes with a totally unsympathetic view on how we humans have treated our planet, and I think this is the only way to do it; I remember thinking "good, that'll teach us"!!??

My thoughts on the German film 'The Lives Of Others'

My wife sat and watched it for about 5 minutes, she then gave up and headed into the bedroom because of its slow pace; it never really got any faster. My expectation of this film was that is was going to be an 8-9 out of 10, but I would only give it about 4 because the story was very basic. I say basic because I found I could predict what the next line of dialogue was going to be several times during the running of the film. This film beat ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ at the Academy Awards for the best foreign film picture in 2007, but even though I am one of the few who weren’t impressed with 'Pan's Labyrinth', it was definitely better than ‘The Lives of Others’. Although foreign films have a rawness and edge to them which real movie buffs rave about, I am sorry to say that they are simply not as good as Hollywood films, especially in the writing. Yes Hollywood churns out a load of tosh, which you simply have to sit through to get to the good stuff, but when you do, it beats all foreign films hands down. Basically American writers are the best there are, that coupled with good budgets, a mixture of the best actors and actresses from around the globe, and soundtracks containing Western music (again the best in the world).

Review of the film 2012

The film was exactly what I was expecting in terms of special effects and storyline. The director ‘Roland Emerich’ had made the films ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, and his structure is always the same: present the characters with all their various dysfunctional stories; gradually build up into a special effects laden destruction of the planet; this in turn is supposedly what it takes for them to reassess the way they are and change. I guess, in a blatantly obvious way, the intention of these films is to show that we can only come together as a species when the world is in great peril. I heard a couple of sniggers (me included) in the audience when we saw that it was a black president in this film played by Danny Glover; not a racist thing, just obviously a reference to Obama. Then one of the two main protagonists was black, a scientist played by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. With each new film of Roland’s we are introduced to more characters, each smarter than the next, who are not white. In ‘Independence Day’ we have Will Smith as the top ace fighter pilot, then in ‘Day After Tomorrow’ there is the Arjay Smith, who points out ‘Sir, I am president of the electronics club, the math club, and the chess club. Now, if there is a bigger nerd in here, please point him out’. Finally in this film we have the black president, the top black scientist, the top Indian scientist (who saves the remaining Americans just before he dies), and finally the Chinese family who save John Cusack. One of the American’s also points out something along the lines of ‘I didn’t think we could get the ships built so fast, well that’s the Chinese for you’. Besides John Cusack’s character, the only other white person of note is Oliver Platt’s selfish politician; a role regularly filled now by white men. I will say that even though Hollywood may be casting much better roles for black and Asian male actors, they seem to have trouble picking roles in which there is a black woman in an important role. Yes we have the likes of Halle Berry, and in this film Thandie Newton, but they are lighter skinned from a mixed race background. Anyway, all I will say is that this film is a decent enough watch, but just be prepared to suspend your disbelief, in fact, just through it out of the window before you go.

My review of the film Harry Brown with Michael Caine

Watched ‘Harry Brown’ at the cinema, and was very impressed; I think my sister would be happy that I couldn’t really find any flaws with it. It was gritty, the cinematography great, and it certainly didn’t hold back when it came to showing disturbing scenes. The cinema experience itself also went hand in hand with the film, that is, when walking into the foyer and finding it empty, I was surprised to find the actual screen room 80% full with pensioners. I was also to discover that there were also some much younger people in the audience, and just like in the movie, they were disrespectful to the older generation among them. Just before the film actually started, I heard a voice followed shortly by a much louder one – ‘what, I can’t eat popcorn in the f***ing cinema?’. There was another little exchange that I couldn’t quite make out, but it soon ended with a couple getting up and moving to another seat; I was actually really embarrassed, but what could I do? Then just before the film started I heard the lady sitting next to me say ‘could they have made the text any smaller?’, referring to the beginning credits being actually very small, even I had to strain a little – didn’t they think about their target audience?! I wondered if the “senior” members of the audience were watching this film as it was a fantasy of theirs, that someone would come along to help them. If I was watching this film at home it would have been more comfortable to watch, but as this was a packed cinema, I had to sit through old people dying and the C word being used over and over again (along with all the other lovely words). I suppose in a way that this was really how it should be watched, with people from both age groups to hear how they both reacted to it. Many people have been pointing out that this film glorifies ‘the vigilante approach’, but it doesn’t, even Michael Caine himself said the film was about what could happen. My sister said I might wonder ‘how the hell could a pensioner could do those things’, but his skills and reactions were exactly as you would expect from someone about his age; thus the reason why he ended up in hospital after a shoot out.

Knowledge Boy's story of Sat Nav

This was emailed to me today-

I’m on the K just waiting for my second ever 56th .......I saw your sat nav v knowledge videos on the Anderson shelter and just wanted to say I thought they are brilliant. I also wanted to let you know of a absolutely true story that happened to a mate at my work. Keep in mind this is not a myth, folklore, hearsay or anything else. This is cast iron and stonewall sure straight from the horse’s mouth.

My work colleague calls a minicab to our call centre at Pratt walk, SE1 and ask to be taken to London Zoo. The driver barely speaks at all, let alone English but insist on the full post code. My friend has neither postcode or address of this rather main tourist attraction and explains “you got to know where the zoo is, inside the park with lots of animals”.



The driver mumbles under his breath but appears to have got a response from the sat nav and takes off. Strangely he drives Juxon street and then turns right on Vauxhall walk. From there he works his way down to Black Prince Road and even weirder turns left onto Albert Embankment. He then goes around the gyratory by Vauxhall, over Vauxhall bridge, past Victoria station, Hyde park corner, Park Lane and proudly stops on the right next to the central reservation on Park Lane and points to the “Animals at war”-monument and asks for, brace yourself, £ 22.

Needless to say my friend gets out and refuses to pay and, surprise, flag down and London taxi to find regents park!



Keep up the good work

I went to see ‘Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs’ at the cinema today; an animation, but one that has had good reviews. After purchasing my unlimited card I had been concerned that there wouldn’t be enough on to warrant it, but the more I look, the more I see there is worth seeing. I pushed my luck a bit with the timing, by getting to the ticket counter 15 minutes after the start time (adverts would last 15-20 minutes) I was appalled to find one person running both the ticket and food counter. There were 2 separate adults at the front, followed by a woman with 4 children, and the guy was seriously faffing about. I stood there for 2 minutes, looking all the time at the ‘ticket-ripper-guy’, wondering if I could get away with showing him my pass; but I knew he would give me the company policy spiel. 5 minutes passed and I was now panicking and starting to fidget, so I made a move when I saw the ‘ticket-ripper-guy’ not standing at his post. As I got to within 10 feet of “the border” he suddenly appeared with a broom in his hand, but there was no turning back now, I just strode confidently past him as if I had just popped out for popcorn (wait a minute, I had no popcorn in my hands, okay, so a chocolate bar I had hidden). It wasn’t as if I had stolen anything, I mean, I had an unlimited pass so no money would have changed hands anyway, but that didn’t stop my heart from pounding for the first 10 minutes of the film. A decent enough film, which had lots of ideas nicked from various others such as ‘The Matrix’, ‘Revenge Of The Sith’ to an almost identitcal scene from ‘The Toughest Man In The World’ where Mr T’s character (this time Earl Devereaux) runs through a giant Dorito instead of a wall –

htp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Q6DGOfp6k

Loved the inverted Mohican on Mr T’s character by the way.
I couldn’t help thinking about Alice in Wonderland most of the time, as it was striving to be as weird and wacky as that in many of its concepts. This film, like many I have seen recently (the last being ‘The Invention Of Lying’) was blatantly shoving current issues in our faces – in this case a child being bullied for being studious, children eating too much junk food, television only wanting dumb pretty girls, etc… The film unfortunately didn’t come close to the brilliance that was ‘The Incredibles’

My review of the film 'The Invention Of Lying' by and staring Ricky Gervais

It was off to watch ‘The Invention Of Lying’ today, which wasn’t something I particularly wanted to see, but there wasn’t much else. I thought I would give it a try as I remember something Ricky Gervais said when questioned by Jonathan Ross a while ago, about the quality and success of his previous films. He had only played minor roles in these films, and that when he chose a film to star in, it would be a different matter. Well, the film completely took me by surprise, even though I went in there half expecting it to be a rip off of ‘Liar Liar’; Far from it. I will say that there has to be a complete suspension of disbelief, as there are many events/inventions/designs that simply wouldn’t have happened in a world without lying. Also the film is about not telling lies, but much of the film is people offering information that they simply didn’t need to. Another thing that got on my nerves a bit, but maybe part of the reason it got financed, was the blatant product placement by Budweiser, Coke, Pepsi, and most blatantly of all Pizza Hut – could those pizza boxes have been anymore waved in our faces. Other than that it was well written and presented, and didn’t attempt go too far with the religious connotations.