Knocked Up

Not as good as some reviews have suggested, but far better than the title suggest. A superior romcom that perfectly walks the line between the rom and com.

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American Splendor

Not sure the quirks really work 100%, but well done for trying.

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The Bourne Ultimatum

Paul Greengrass and his shaky camerawork return for the final (yeah right) installment of the Bourne series. Better than the second film, maybe equally as good as the first. More wintery Northern European settings, more fighing, more running etc.

There's a cool bit set in Waterloo station which involves Paddy Constantine.

The Bourne films are easily the best action franchise of the last 5-10 years.

One of the things I really like about the Bourne films is how spare they are, you never see Jason on a plane or really any other type of transport unless he's running away or doing some other action stuff. It's like early William Gibson books, jumping from one scene to the next London, Madrid, Tangiers, the connective tissue stripped right back.

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Ocean's Eleven

Just really average, thoughtless, bland hollywood fare.

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Tales form Earthsea

On one level this is a perfectly passable piece of anime. Unfortunately it's got the Earthsea license and so I'm watching it and comparing it to some of my favourite books. On the one hand this engenders a hell of a lot of goodwill, on the other there's a lot to live up to. The films main problem is, as Le Guin herself has said

Much of it was ... incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.

The film just doesn't fit anywhere in the Earthsea chronology or the world that I know. The 'Big Bad' is deeply unimaginative, I mean it's basically Mumm-ra, and where the books have a coherent and deeply thought out reality the film is largely composed of fantasy cliches. There is also a dreadful scene where Tehanu sings a really bad song.

There are some good points: The scenes of the archipelago extending into the distance are beautiful and the film's deliberate and even pace is true to the books particularly when the soundtrack isn't overwhelmed by the vaguely celtic LOTR-esq score. I find myself really wanting to like this film but it's just disappointing. I think this is how big Star Wars fans must have felt after watching the prequels.

Ursula Le Guin's response to the film

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Abigail's Party

It's good but it's very much a play rather than a film.

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Children Of Men

Still great. The main criticism of the film I've heard seems to be that the situation isn't adequately explained. i.e. the idea that everyone's infertile is just too far-fetched. There's not much you can say about that other than to point out that 1. All films esp. science fiction films require you to accept some set of circumstances that aren't fully explained. 2. What do you want some Star Trek style nonsense about DNA degrading or something> and 3.point out that one in seven couples are infertile and the number is increasing, and no one knows why. A doctor who I was talking about it suggested that the situation was analogous to growth rate in bacterial populations.

Anyway, everything about this film is superb from the cinematography and special effects and the subtly rendered background of a world in decline.

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Die Hard 4.0

Die Harderer: A solid, if uninspired addition to the series. The plot deviates somewhat from the standard Die Hard framework i.e. John Maclane isn't trapped, he can walk away at any point wheras int he previous films he had no option. There are no really memorable action set pieces beside the car flying into a helicopter which appears in the trailer, but some funny one liners push the whole thing above the action movie mean ("did you see that?" "I did that" etc.).

It's a bit of a barren summer for blockbusters, unimaginative sequels, tired franchises etc. the only point of light on the hollywood mega-budget horizon is the third and (supposedly) final Jason Bourne film.

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Red Road

One of those relentlessly bleak British films that Charlie Brooker so memorably caricatured as "Concrete and Piss". Jackie a CCTV operator starts stalking an ex-con around the tower blocks of Glasgow. Without much dialogue the film gradually reveals her motives, slowly building a complex picture of a very real character. All the while she finds out more about her target, he changes from a picture on a fuzzy surveilance screen into a real person leading Jackie to question her actions. All this is handled with skill and assurance and the camera work is breath takingly bleak, but the film didn't quite work for me, it felt more like a TV drama than a cinematic experience. Worth a watch if your in the mood for something depressing though.

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Harry Potter: and the Order of the Phoenix

Solidly entertaining, though it didn't seem to have an ending, it just kind of stopped.

Why don't the bad guys just attack during the summer hollidays?

Not as dark as either 3 or 4 in the series in spite of the story. 3 remains my favourite.


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