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Getting my 'asking for tickets to embarassingly-titled films' kudos in early for 2009, The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants 2 is clearly aimed at pre-teen girls rather than 30-year-old men, and at least tangentially at people who have at least seen the first movie, which I haven't. Nevertheless, despite all those problems, this may be a far from original film but I found it perfectly bearable and it managed to mostly hold my interest for the duration.

Concentrating on the stories of four girls who have split up to go to college etc. and have different things to deal with in their lives, these stories get wildly differing attention, scope and care lavished upon them. One involves a girl who discovers a talent for acting, with all the terribly obvious storylines that go along with that. One involves a girl who gets involved with a Life Drawing model, a storyline that seems to go nowhere at all (was it even resolved? I'm not sure if I missed a scene or not, but the relationship just seems to end without comment). One girl goes on an archeological dig to Turkey, which is mostly tedious, and then digs into her family background, which is predictable but a bit less tedious. And one girl has a pregnancy scare, and apparently hasn't ever heard about morning-after contraception, even as a concept (she may not agree with it, but refusing to acknowledge its existence seems a bit weird). In the end, they all end up ripping off Mamma Mia (my review) (though fortunately they don't sing) in a holiday in Greece, just as their friendship looks to be waning, and this gets them all back together. And the pants? Well, they are a sort of McGuffin here, as they don't do much except provide a pretty silly excuse for the trip to Greece to wind up the story. I was sorta hoping for a Dumbo-style ending - 'we didn't need the pants at all to be friends!' - but the conclusion wasn't half as neat as that.

In surprising news, Kyle MacLachlan is in this film! He had one of the ultimate cliches of a part, that of the theatre producer, who never breaks from the cliched norms of such a role, but it is still fun to see him again. As far as the girls go, America Ferrara (the acting one) is too miserable and subdued, Blake Lively (the Turkey/family one) is quite attractive but rather bland for the most part (when she needs to emote, she's not bad though), Alexis Bledel (the naked model one) made little impression (though her story was the weakest and least involving), and Amber Tamblyn (the maybe-pregnant one) did a decent job with not exactly exciting material.

Certainly this wasn't a bad film, but it suffers under the weight of not having anything remotely new or interesting to say, and an over-romanticised view of the eloquacy and literacy of our lead characters and the interactions they are likely to have in life. 5 out of 10.

Che : Part One is a worthy and well-made film that ends up closer to a documentary than a feature film, and as such unfortunately becomes rather boring as time goes on. It almost feels churlish to complain that a film that feels like a documentary - albeit a documentary about an interesting subject - becomes boring, but that is exactly what happens. Seemingly endless scenes involve recruiting new soldiers, trying to keep them motivated, changes in command structure, battles which make little impact on your understanding of the progress of the revolution unless you understand the geography of Cuba, and really not much else. However technically good the acting and the filming may be - and it is good - the film needs a better structure to hold the interest. It does try to mix it up a bit, with intercuts of the time before the revolution, and a speech to the UN from a few years afterwards, which works to some degree, but it isn't enough to stave off the persistently nagging feeling that this whole film should be a lot more enjoyable than it is.

Benecio Del Toro makes a very good Che, and works well at bringing out his loyal, gentle and yet occasionally violent personality traits. The film is all about him, and while there are other people doing a variety of supporting roles to a variable quality, they are all relegated to not-very-important status.

I wanted to like this more than I did, and I wish this exciting story could have been told in a more exciting way. Still, it is a well-made film, even if the story needs restructuring. 6 out of 10.

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts:

- Yay! Amy Adams gets a nod!
- Yay! Richard Jenkins gets a nod!
- Yay! The Academy put Kate Winslet in the right category for The Reader! My rant yesterday paid off :-)
- Slumdog Millionaire is getting far too much love. As you'll see when I review it, I don't rate it much at all.
- The Reader doesn't belong under Best Picture either.
- The Wrestler perhaps does deserve a Best Picture nom, certainly more so than The Reader.
- At least Mickey Rourke and, even more importantly, Marisa Tomei, got nods.
- Only two of the five Best Picture noms have been released in the UK yet, which isn't especially helpful. They'll all be out before the actual awards, though.
- Only two of the five Best Actor noms too.
- And only two of the five Best Actress noms.
- Is Frozen River even going to be released in the UK? Perhaps it will be now.
- Robert Downey for Tropic Thunder!!
- Only two of the Best Supporting Actor noms are out yet in the UK.
- And only *one* of the Best Supporting Actress noms!
- Dark Knight should probably have got a Best Picture nod, even though it had quite a few problems it was a darn well-done film.
- Wall-E should have too, rather than ending up in the ghetto of Best Animated Film.

I guess if it shows anything, it shows that pushing all the Oscar films out of the door in the last couple of months of the year is still rewarded by the Academy, despite it screwing up the release schedules and meaning that people outside of a few key cities in the US haven't seen most of the films before the nominations are out. Which seems to defeat the purpose. I've been meaning to do that complaint for a few months, this seems the best place!

Still, I'm quite happy with these, especially Amy (I doubt (pun intended, I'm afraid) I'll quibble with the nom when I finally get around to seeing Doubt, given my love for pretty much all her previous work), Richard Jenkins, and the avoidance of category fraud with The Reader.