catholiclefty

Certainly I saw rather a lot of films in 2008 - more than any time since my rather prolific 1997, and most probably the most ever.

In a vague approximation of the style of my 2007 list, but vastly expanded, here's my summary of the best and worst of the year. Quite a few highlights (and lowlights!) in what was a largely interesting year, where there are 25 excellent films rated 8 or above, about 15% of the total (a rather bigger number than I'd have instinctively thought), and 24 rated 3.5 or below, also about 15% (about what I expected). The other 70% didn't evoke especially strong feelings of love or hate! So here we go - all awards pertain to films released in the UK in 2008, unless I say otherwise, and all links go to my own reviews:



Best Film (first place) - Wall-E - no real competition here, a bold and wildly innovative and engaging film, which finally converts me to the Pixar camp which I've previously been more ambivalent about than most.

(second place) - There Will Be Blood - a film that manages to burrow down into your subconscious and demands thought, engagement, and multiple viewings. The virtuoso performance of Daniel Day-Lewis creates one of the most memorable characters of all time, via one of the most outstanding and consistent pieces of acting ever to grace the screen. The cinematography is also outstanding.

(third place) - a tie between the important and effective The Visitor, boasting a superlative performance from Richard Jenkins, and the frothily lightweight but deeply enjoyable Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, with a brilliant ensemble cast and one of the best musical scenes committed to film.

(honourable mentions) - 21 in total:

There were the excellent serious films, dealing with strong issues, with The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas giving a new take on the Holocaust issue, Changeling being an effective and atmospheric slant on a different era, Incendiary giving a slightly askew look at modern terrorism with a stunning lead performance by Michelle Williams, In The Valley Of Elah examining the effects of war on the people we actually send to do our dirty work for us, and The Savages giving an affectionate but realistic look at family dynamics.

There were also decent comedies in Forgetting Sarah Marshall with a hilarious ensemble cast and off-the-cuff humour that actually worked, the gentle and sweet Ghost Town, The House Bunny with a brilliant comedic performance from the highly talented Anna Faris, and the rude and raucous but also surprisingly sweet Zack and Miri Make A Porno.

Falling between comedy and drama were the splendidly done Angel, with a charmingly awkward performance by Romola Garai, and the off-beat and weird but well-scripted Dean Spanley.

There were the independent films In Search Of A Midnight Kiss, with a surprisingly affectionate eye for Los Angeles and a charming look at modern relationships, and the downright bizarre but effective My Winnipeg.

In foreign language films Conversations With My Gardener was startlingly effective and very well-constructed, La Zona dealt with social issues in a gripping way, and You, The Living delivered a well-crafted mix of comedy and pathos in its diverse scenarios.

There was the cinematic gem of a documentary Man On Wire, and the simple but effective charms of The Fox And The Child.

Finally in more-or-less my favourite genre, fantasy, there was the delightful Penelope, the reasonably traditional-feeling and well-written Inkheart, and the overblown and plot-hole ridden but still a masterpiece of cinema that was The Dark Knight.



Best Actor (first place) - not a difficult one to award, this. The laurel has to go to Daniel Day-Lewis for his astonishing Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. When most of the films I've mentioned here will have been forgotten, this character will live on in the memory.

(second place) - Richard Jenkins in The Visitor. An amazingly powerful performance.

(third place) - Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. A rare example of a performance living up to the hype surrounding it. His first real scene (with the pencil trick) is one of the highlights of the year.

(honourable mentions) - Tommy Lee Jones in In The Valley Of Elah gets a totally solid grip on his character. Philip Seymour Hoffman eats up the screen in Charlie Wilson's War and easily overshadows both Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. And Mathieu Amalric is worth mentioning for a memorable and conflicted character in Heartbeat Detector.



Best Actress (joint first place) - this one is a tie, between Michelle Williams in Incendiary, taking a character who ought to be an annoying stereotype and doing wonders with it, an absolute pleasure to watch from an actress I've never particularly rated previously (positively or negatively), and Sienna Miller in The Edge Of Love, who produces a wonderful piece of work in an otherwise so-so movie and outshines everyone.

(third place) - Naomi Watts in Funny Games - while it may be a diminished challenge in theory to participate in a shot-for-shot remake, the physical demands of this role are incredible and Watts is more than up to them while putting in an agonisingly real reaction to mindless cruelty.

(honourable mentions) - Angelina Jolie in Changeling puts in a very nice performance for someone I don't usually rate all that highly. Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky puts in an excellent showing of an eternal optimist, and Romola Garai in Angel puts in an excellent showing of a deluded eternal optimist. Anna Faris does a wonderful comic turn in The House Bunny. And I couldn't overlook my favourite actress Amy Adams who, in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, takes on a role that should be flitty, annoying and deeply unsympathetic and makes her a lovable, adorable character, and also puts quite a lot of depth and ambiguity into the character, which becomes more noticeable on repeated viewings.



Best 'what on earth?' moment - easily Buzz Aldrin's cameo in Fly Me To The Moon 3D. Why anyone thought that was a good way to end the film is beyond me.



Worst Film (first place) - Couscous - Beyond doubt the worst film I've ever sat through at the cinema, this transcended both boring and irritating and was much worse than either, combined. Far too long, deeply frustrating, and with no redeeming features whatever (bar a tiny bit of decent acting from Hafzia Herzi), this is a travesty of cinema. Also has the distinction of having the most irritating scene I've ever seen, as well as being the worst film overall.

(second place) - Disaster Movie - yes, it was indeed. Awful from start to finish. Who green-lit this rubbish?

(third place) - Import/Export - an attempt to make a film about a set of important issues, this fails at almost every step and instead is exploitative, unimportant, and irritating.

(dishonourable mentions) - 21 in total:

In action film disasters, Al Pacino had a bad year with muddled disasters in both 88 Minutes (though at least this was unintentionally amusing for most of the time) and Righteous Kill (which was just derivative and dull), Babylon A.D. was a confusing mess from start to finish that was so bad the director disowned it before it was even released, Body of Lies managed to be both very boring and very offensive, The Day The Earth Stood Still was a horribly stilted and pointless remake, The Mummy : Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor was a hollow, humourless CGI-fest that didn't even manage to have a mummy in it, and Pride And Glory did nothing original and failed to do it in a manner that was remotely interesting.

There were a couple of notable horror failures, with The Happening and Prom Night both proving to be closer to hilariously bad than horrific. I can't honestly say I hated either, as they both gave me a lot of unintentional laughs, but as horror films they miserably failed.

Comedies are always prone to failure if the premise itself fails to appeal, which certainly applies to Four Christmases with the baggage of tedious enforced heteronormality via succession of tedious characters, The Love Guru with a half-hearted attack on motivational speakers that misfired in almost every way, and You Don't Mess With The Zohan (an Israeli super-army guy who wants to be a hairdresser? Err, ok, whatever). Superhero Movie is another spoof that wasn't needed or wanted, and the only positive thing worth saying about it is that at least it wasn't Disaster Movie. Meet Dave had promise but a miserable script and an unsympathetic performance by Eddie Murphy.

As for failing children's films, City Of Ember had zero charm and zero interest, High School Musical 3 : Senior Year failed not on the premise but on the back of weak technical film-making, weak acting and a failure to write interesting songs, Fly Me To The Moon 3D was pointless (in 3D or otherwise), and Space Chimps looked ugly and offered nothing new in terms of story. Make It Happen was the most derivative and unoriginal film of the year, and Star Wars : The Clone Wars looked awful and was nothing more than a blatant cash-in.

Finally, the glorious failure of the year is undoubtedly Speed Racer. It was a bold attempt to make a new kind of film, innovative and brash. Sadly, it didn't work. At all.



Most Disappointing Films - these weren't necessarily bad films, just that they should have been so much better.

Nim's Island is the obvious example of a film that had a neat premise and terrible execution. The execution in Bedtime Stories was better but the film still feels like a waste of a great idea.

Hancock ought to have been an awful lot funnier than it was, and needed a script that didn't veer off into extended prison scenes and strange twists. Righteous Kill - De Niro and Pacino in a whole film, working together! - should have been great, but it was quite the opposite.

Of Time And The City disappointed, or at least it disappointed me - I expected something rather more affecting but much of it fell flat.

And no review of 2008 would be complete without mentioning that both Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Quantum Of Solace failed to live up to expectations by quite a way.



Best Old Film Seen At The Cinema For The First Time - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. A brilliantly inventive film, tightly written and beautifully acted by everyone involved.



Best Film To See At The Cinema Rather Than At Home - 2001: A Space Odyssey. I finally saw this at the cinema after years of almost managing it, and it was quite the experience. The visuals, the sound, all require seeing it on a decent cinema screen.



Best Film Seen On DVD - This is a tie between two 2001 films - the fiendishly clever Mulholland Drive and the vibrant and innovative spectacle of Moulin Rouge!. Though Junebug deserves a strong mention, for the superlative acting of Amy Adams.



Best Film Overall Seen At The Cinema in 2008 - Enchanted. I still feel guilty about pushing it into second place in my list from last year - if I'd written it a month later, it would trivially have been first, however much I loved (and still love) Stardust. I still love Enchanted to bits, I saw it at the cinema in 2008 many more times than any other film, and indeed than any other film ever. A genius film, and while I'm not going to claim it is technically the best film ever, it is very well-crafted, efficient, and effective. And in terms of performance Amy Adams is going to be almost impossibly hard to beat, producing here the comedy equivalent of the stature of the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.



And onto 2009, where if the first couple of weeks are anything to go by, I'll be seeing even more films than in 2008!

A list of the reviews of all the films I saw in 2008, in one place, with a link to the review and the rating I gave for the film (out of 10):


UK 2008 releases (165)

10,000 B.C. (my review) (4.0)
21 (my review) (5.0)
27 Dresses (my review) (7.5)
88 Minutes (my review) (3.5)
Angel (my review) (8.0)
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (my review) (7.0)
Appaloosa (my review) (6.5)
Australia (my review) (7.0)
The Baader Meinhof Complex (my review) (7.0)
Babylon A.D. (my review) (3.0)
The Banishment (my review) (6.0)
Bedtime Stories (my review) (5.5)
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (my review) (7.0)
Be Kind Rewind (my review) (6.0)
Body Of Lies (my review) (3.0)
The Boss Of It All (my review) (6.0)
The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas (my review) (8.5)
Brideshead Revisited (my review) (7.5)
A Bunch Of Amateurs (my review) (5.5)
Burn After Reading (my review) (6.5)
California Dreamin' (my review) (7.5)
Caramel (my review) (7.0)
Changeling (my review) (8.5)
Charlie Bartlett (my review) (6.5)
Charlie Wilson's War (my review) (7.0)
Choke (my review) (6.0)
The Chronicles Of Narnia : Prince Caspian (my review) (5.0)
City Of Ember (my review) (3.0)
A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures (my review) (6.5)
Conversations With My Gardener (my review) (8.0)
Couscous (my review) (0.5)
The Dark Knight (my review) (8.0)
The Day The Earth Stood Still (my review) (3.0)
Dean Spanley (my review) (8.0)
Death Defying Acts (my review) (6.0)
Death Race (my review) (4.0)
Definitely, Maybe (my review) (6.0)
Disaster Movie (my review) (1.0)
The Duchess (my review) (6.0)
Eagle Eye (my review) (5.0)
Easy Virtue (my review) (7.0)
The Edge Of Love (my review) (6.0)
Elegy (my review) (5.5)
The Fall (my review) (7.0)
Female Agents (my review) (6.5)
Flashbacks Of A Fool (my review) (6.0)
Fly Me To The Moon 3D (my review) (3.0)
Fool's Gold (my review) (5.0)
The Foot Fist Way (my review) (5.0)
The Forbidden Kingdom (my review) (6.0)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (my review) (8.0)
Four Christmases (my review) (3.0)
Funny Games (US) (my review) (7.0)
The Fox And The Child (my review) (8.0)
Get Smart (my review) (7.0)
Ghost Town (my review) (8.0)
The Girl In The Park (my review) (7.0)
Gomorrah (my review) (6.0)
Gone Baby Gone (my review) (5.5)
Good Dick (my review) (7.0)
Hancock (my review) (5.5)
The Happening (my review) (3.5)
Happy-Go-Lucky (my review) (7.5)
Heartbeat Detector (my review) (7.0)
Hellboy II : The Golden Army (my review) (5.0)
High School Musical 3 : Senior Year (my review) (3.0)
Honeydripper (my review) (6.5)
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (my review) (5.5)
Hunger (my review) (4.0)
The House Bunny (my review) (8.0)
Igor (my review) (5.0)
Import/Export (my review) (2.0)
Incendiary (my review) (8.0)
The Incredible Hulk (my review) (4.0)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (my review) (5.5)
Inkheart (my review) (8.0)
In Search Of A Midnight Kiss (my review) (8.0)
In The Valley Of Elah (my review) (8.5)
Iron Man (my review) (7.5)
I've Loved You So Long (my review) (6.5)
Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D (my review) (my 3D review) (7.5)
Joy Division (my review) (6.0)
Julia (my review) (4.0)
Jumper (my review) (5.0)
Juno (my review) (7.5)
Kung-Fu Panda (my review) (6.0)
La Boheme (my review) (6.0)
Lakeview Terrace (my review) (5.5)
Lars And The Real Girl (my review) (6.0)
La Zona (my review) (8.0)
Leatherheads (my review) (6.5)
Let's Talk About The Rain (my review) (7.0)
Linha De Passe (my review) (6.0)
The Love Guru (my review) (3.0)
Madagascar : Escape 2 Africa (my review) (6.5)
Made Of Honour (my review) (5.5)
Make It Happen (my review) (3.0)
Mamma Mia! (my review) (7.0)
Man On Wire (my review) (8.5)
Married Life (my review) (6.5)
Max Payne (my review) (4.0)
Meet Dave (my review) (3.5)
Mirrors (my review) (4.0)
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (my review) (9.0)
The Mummy : Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (my review) (3.5)
My Best Friend's Girl (my review) (4.5)
My Winnipeg (my review) (8.0)
National Treasure : Book Of Secrets (my review) (5.0)
Nights In Rodanthe (my review) (7.0)
Nim's Island (my review) (4.0)
Of Time And The City (my review) (6.0)
OSS117 : Cairo, Nest Of Spies (my review) (6.5)
The Other Boleyn Girl (my review) (6.0)
Penelope (my review) (8.5)
Persepolis (my review) (7.5)
Pineapple Express (my review) (6.0)
Priceless (my review) (7.5)
Pride and Glory (my review) (2.5)
Prom Night (my review) (3.5)
Quantum Of Solace (my review) (6.0)
Quiet Chaos (my review) (7.5)
Righteous Kill (my review) (3.0)
Roadside Romeo (my review) (5.0)
The Rocker (my review) (6.5)
RocknRolla (my review) (5.0)
Savage Grace (my review) (4.0)
The Savages (my review) (8.0)
The Secret Life Of Bees (my review) (6.5)
Smart People (my review) (5.0)
Son of Rambow (my review) (6.0)
Space Chimps (my review) (3.5)
Speed Racer (my review) (3.5)
The Spiderwick Chronicles (my review) (6.5)
Star Wars : The Clone Wars (my review) (3.5)
Step Brothers (my review) (7.0)
Step Up 2 The Streets (my review) (5.0)
Stone Of Destiny (my review) (4.5)
The Strangers (my review) (5.5)
Summer (my review) (6.0)
Summer Hours (my review) (4.0)
Superhero Movie (my review) (3.0)
Swing Vote (my review) (4.0)
The Tale Of Despereaux (my review) (4.0)
Taken (my review) (5.0)
There Will Be Blood (my review) (9.0)
Transporter 3 (my review) (7.0)
Tropic Thunder (my review) (7.5)
Twilight (my review) (5.5)
Vantage Point (my review) (5.0)
The Visitor (my review) (9.0)
Un Secret (my review) (4.5)
W. (my review) (5.5)
The Wackness (my review) (6.0)
Walk Hard : The Dewey Cox Story (my review) (6.5)
WALL-E (my review) (10.0)
Waltz With Bashir (my review) (7.0)
The Warlords (my review) (4.5)
The Wave (my review) (7.0)
What Happens In Vegas... (my review) (5.0)
What Just Happened? (my review) (5.0)
Wild Child (my review) (6.5)
Yes Man (my review) (6.5)
You Don't Mess With The Zohan (my review) (3.0)
You, The Living (my review) (8.0)
Zack And Miri Make A Porno (my review) (8.5)


UK 2007 releases, seen in 2007 but seen again in 2008 (2)

Enchanted (my review) (my earlier review) (11.0+++)
Stardust (my review) (10.0)


US 2008 releases, not yet released in UK (2)

A Girl Cut In Two (my review) (5.0)
Hamlet 2 (my review) (6.0)


Older films seen at the cinema in 2008 (14)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (no review yet)
The Apartment (1960) (my review) (7.0)
Belle De Jour (1967) (no review yet)
The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant (1972) (no review yet)
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) (no review yet)
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) (my review) (10.0)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946) (no review yet)
Jules et Jim (1962) (my review) (5.0)
The Lord Of The Rings : The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) (no review yet)
The Lord Of The Rings : The Return Of The King (2003) (no review yet)
The Lord Of The Rings : The Two Towers (2002) (no review yet)
Marie Antoinette (2006) (no review yet)
Strangers On A Train (1951) (no review yet)
White Christmas(1954) (no review yet)


Other films seen on DVD in 2008 (25)

Adaptation (2002) (no review yet)
Batman Begins (2005) (my review) (5.5)
Being John Malkovich (1999) (no review yet)
Bewitched (2005) (no review yet)
Catch Me If You Can (2002) (my review) (7.5)
Cruel Intentions 2 (2000) (my review) (4.0)
Dick (1999) (no review yet)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) (my review) (8.0)
Elf (2003) (no review yet)
Elizabethtown (2005) (no review yet)
Ella Enchanted (2004) (no review yet)
The Ex (2006) (my review) (3.5)
Junebug (2005) (my review) (9.0)
The Last Run (2004) (my review) (2.0)
Mary Poppins (1964) (mentioned here, no full review yet)
Moulin Rouge! (2001) (no review yet)
Mulholland Drive (2001) (mentioned here, no full review yet)
Psycho Beach Party (2000) (my review) (7.0)
Serving Sara (2002) (my review) (4.5)
Standing Still (2005) (my review) (5.5)
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) (no review yet)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) (my review) (6.0)
V for Vendetta (2005) (no review yet)
WarGames (1983) (my review) (6.5)
The Wedding Date (2005) (my review) (4.0)

Back in 2004, even though I wasn't remotely in a 'going to see lots of films' mode, I was very keen to see Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, for reasons I can't actually remember. Unfortunately I was ill at the time and so didn't get to see it at the cinema - and while I've watched it on DVD a number of times since, I finally got the opportunity to see it at the cinema this week, so I did!

This is a stunningly brilliant film in which absolutely everything works. The acting, the direction, the characters, the narrative, are all uniformly outstanding. For a film that hinges on a mumbo-jumbo hand-waving medical procedure - the scientific details of which are silly, but utterly irrelevant - there is a realism about this film and what it says about live, love, relationships, memory, and what makes us who we are, that is peerless in execution.

The non-linear plot is just complex enough to make you take a little effort working out what is going on, but not so complex that it remains baffling for too long - and here the non-linear nature of the plot is fully justified and part of the genius of the film. The links between the real world and the events going on merely in memory is clear and sharp without ever being hit over the head by an anvil with the difference - and the effects in the memory shots are very clever while being simultaneously disconcerting, an excellent example of accomplished directing. The resolution has an expert setup that stems from the surprising and clever plot-twist that occurs to a secondary character, and when it arrives it is handled perfectly. There's no easy answer, no 'happily ever after', but it isn't dispiriting either, and we along with the characters accept that bitter-sweet conclusion for what it is. It's one of the best (and cleverest) setups in a film I've seen, and one of the best resolutions.

Jim Carrey is superb in this role, and it is one of the greater iniquities related to the Academy Awards that he didn't get an Oscar nomination for his performance here. Introverted (not a word usually used for him!) and delicate without being the kind of real loser this part could have been played as, he creates one of the most realistic characters seen in a film. Kate Winslet also gives an outstanding performance, as she manages to pull off the part of a quirky, often bitchy, often plain weird character in a way that remains lovable and sympathetic. There's no question as to why these two characters end up together, and what they get from each other, and there's no question as to why their relationship has both strengths and weaknesses. Their characters both are fully achieved in isolation, and fully realised together. It's a pairing that just shouldn't work at all on paper (and even less so when Jim is the quiet one and Kate the crazy one!), which just goes to show why you shouldn't always pay attention to what 'ought' to work.

The support is also incredibly good. Kirsten Dunst, who admittedly I've always liked, manages to pull off first carefree/stoned/drunk/silly, then the girl with a crush on an older man, then turns on a sixpence and becomes the devastated/confused girl with closer links to the plot than we first thought, and never seems remotely unrealistic at any point. It's a lovely performance with the skill that I, at least, have come to expect from her. Tom Wilkinson is as excellent as ever - he seems to be in most films I watch nowadays, but that is by no means a complaint, he's a downright excellent actor and a pleasure to watch. Mark Ruffalo doesn't get a whole deal to do, but what he gets he does very well. And as for Elijah Wood - at first I thought he was the weak link in this cast, but I'm happy to take that back. He plays his creepy/unpleasant/ignorant part in just the right way. Jane Adams has only a handful of lines but one of them contains the unexpected (well, to me at least! Perhaps others see this coming a mile off) plot twist and is delivered perfectly.

I really, really like this film, nothing about it is lacking and it delivers much to think about, while being simultaneously entertaining and deeply touching. Nothing short of 'masterpiece' can describe this, and it is quite firmly on my 'top 10 ever' list. 10 out of 10.

I wasn't too sure what to expect from Psycho Beach Party, but I did expect it to be interesting. Any film starring Amy Adams, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy and Kimberley Davies from Neighbours certainly warrants the description 'interesting' in my book!

This was more than interesting though - this was mostly good fun, and even clever on occasion. While I have little specific familiarity of the type of 60s 'beach' film this was spoofing, the basic idea is clear enough and it seemed to my reasonably uninformed eye that this was a pretty good satire. The story moves along nicely enough - this isn't a long film, probably just about right - and while I felt the double (triple?) twist at the end was a bit of a cheat to the viewer (and done before. And since, not least in Buffy's controversial 'Normal Again'), it wasn't enough to make a big dent in the general enjoyment of what preceded. There's lots of really excellent dialog - most of it is sharp and witty, and very little falls flat.

Lauren Ambrose, who I've not encountered before, is quite the find here, with an excellent piece of acting. This role allows her to show off her acting skills, and she pulls it off in spades. A most impressive performance. Decent-looking too (I seem to be developing rather a liking for ladies with red hair, surprisingly enough...) Kimberley Davies was better here than I recall her being in Neighbours (I think I wasn't paying attention to her acting all that much in Neighbours :-) though having said that I don't think she was ever the most attractive lady at any time during her tenure on the show. A question that demands contemplation :-) Nicholas Brendon was alright, though not all that removed from his Xander. All these people, and all the other roles, managed pretty well to get the balance between outright cheese and an informed spoof.

Amy Adams is good fun here, and may not be in a great number of scenes but is used well when she is on-screen. She's not exactly unpleasant to look at here, either :-) - rather more herself than in Drop Dead Gorgeous, imo, even though there's not much of a (chronological) gap between the two. It's hard to complain about bikini scenes - though her dancing scene is her best bit in the film.

A good, fun film, that's (deliberately) much closer to a B-movie than the rather risque film the title may suggest. Silly and enjoyable. 7 out of 10.

With the imminent, incredibly hyped release of The Dark Knight, I thought I'd go back and try to re-evaluate Batman Begins. This seems to be a much-loved film by a lot of people, so while my original impression was far from positive, I gave it another go.

Unfortunately my second impression wasn't much more positive. I've no objection to a 'dark' superhero movie with a tortured 'hero', but this doesn't quite fit the bill. The opening faffing about with ninjas (or whatever) and Liam Neeson is over-long and actually quite boring. Then, some plot conveniences later, he becomes a moody and uncharismatic Batman, with an irritating voice that verges on the inane, and gets embroiled in a complicated but remarkably tedious plot where, eventually, he manages to save the day in a conclusion that is convoluted and far too miserably lit.

The only thing that emerges from this second showing in a much more positive light is the performance of Katie Holmes, who actually does a reasonable job in a thankless role with horrible dialogue. She's far better here than she was said to be by most people. Christian Bale is fine, bar the silly Batman voice. Everyone else is more or less ok too - Tom Wilkinson is in this, as well as seemingly every other film on the planet! - but the story lets it down badly.

I didn't get the fuss about this then, and I still don't get it now. I hope The Dark Knight lives up to the hype rather better. 5.5 out of 10.

I thought I'd better go and see The Apartment while it was re-released, given it is apparently a classic (currently at 96 on IMDb's top 250). And I can't say I was disappointed - though I also find it hard to believe it is one of the best 100 films of all time.

The premise is a little silly - all these big-shot executives can't manage to work out getting their own place for their seedy affairs? - but that's quite alright if you're setting up a farce. However, this isn't a farce - the film changes direction abruptly and then becomes something not especially comical, though I suppose it is kind of sweet for the most part. It ends pretty well, though you may well wish people could jump to the right conclusions rather earlier in the film.

This is probably the first film I've seen Jack Lemmon in, I'm a little ashamed to say, and he was easily the best thing in the film. He strikes the right emotional balance for the film at all times, and can do both comedy and more serious moments very well. It's also the first film with Shirley MacLaine I've seen (excluding In Her Shoes, and there is rather a gap between those two points in her career!), and I wasn't as impressed - her character here has an irritating ethereal dozy-ness about her - despite the fact she shows a lot of self-awareness on many occasions - which I think is meant to be endearing but verges closer to annoying for most of the time. I think that was the character though, rather than the fault of Shirley MacLaine. Fred MacMurray is the kind of outwardly respectable but rather irritatingly immoral character that seem almost stereotypical in many films from this time - perhaps that's not fair, but it seems that way.

The thing that interested me most was that the details of the bachelor life in New York 50 years ago don't seem wildly different from today! If this doesn't have the first 'channel-surfing' scene in cinema, it must be close to it.

It's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours, and I'm glad I've seen it, but this doesn't pose any threat to anything already on my favourite films list. 7 out of 10.

Ok, I'm just about out of films with decent amounts of Amy Adams in them, so I'm definitely at the stage of watching the ones I've not exactly been excited about seeing (though I've still got Psycho Beach Party left to see, I've left that till the end as I expect to have good fun with it). The Ex (or 'Fast Track' - different names for a film is rarely a good sign)... really doesn't have a great amount of Amy in it either, though as ever her couple of brief appearances lift the film considerably (though not substantive enough to help in the way she helped Talladega Nights, for example).

This is a pretty pointless and, sadly, mostly tedious film that follows a new family as they try to settle into a new community, the mother to looking after a new baby and the father to trying to succeed at his new job. The problem is that we're given very little reason to care. The father, Zach Braff, is playing more-or-less the part he always plays, which was entirely suitable for Garden State (which I really rather enjoyed) and far less suitable for this film. The job he finds himself in is just a little too zany, a little too silly, and far too mean-spirited to function as a decent narrative. Jason Bateman's character has exactly the same traits as the job, and it makes for a character that doesn't work. I don't think this would have worked with anyone doing it, so I'm not blaming Bateman, but almost nothing about it works.

The denouement renders the entire film pointless, which doesn't exactly help when the whole thing has felt more or less pointless anyway. Very disappointing. This is supposedly a comedy, but I don't recall laughing once. The film is, sadly, even more bland than this review is.

Maybe worth seeing just the once for Amy's brief appearance - at least not playing a bride, for once! - but there's nothing else to recommend this. Not awful, just very boring. 3.5 out of 10.

Well, this should be good, right? Uniting people from two of my favourite films ever, The Princess Bride (Fred Savage) and Enchanted (Amy Adams, of course). But, then, Princess Bride was good despite Fred Savage - who isn't really in it all that much - and Amy isn't exactly in this film much at all, despite getting second-billing which bears no relation to her screentime.

The other, rather more serious problem is that The Last Run is a pile of garbage, and an unpleasant, misogynistic, dismal, pointless pile of garbage at that. There is nothing appealing about any of the characters, the plot meanders hopelessly between being a vague rom-com and an excessive playboy style of film, and then veers into a depressing and aimless riff on sex addiction. There's no real resolution whatsoever, despite the fact the movie is crying out for one. The characters have no morals to start with, and no other appealing traits, so who cares? There's oodles of gratuitous nudity, but frankly for that you're better off watching say Showgirls, as at least that's (inadvertently) funny. Or if you want a movie vaguely in the style of this, but done well, go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which works in almost every way that this doesn't.

Fred Savage isn't appalling, but his character is, so who cares? Amy has almost nothing to do, though what she does is fine (she looks good, as ever, too) but really, if there's one thing she should want to have off her resume for just being an appalling and unwatchable film, it should be this (yes, Cruel Intentions 2 looks like Citizen Kane compared to this).

Ugh. I just want to forget all about this. Easily the worst film I'd seen this year to that point (I saw this about two weeks ago, but only just got around to writing something about it), although incredibly it has already been trumped to the post of 'worst film of the year', as will be seen when I write my next review. A miserable 2 out of 10, and most of that 2 is due to me being generous because Amy is in it.

I suppose I expected rather a lot from Jules et Jim - certainly, as the first film by Truffaut I've seen, I was expecting something rather interesting.

And it starts well. The scenes between Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) are fun and dynamic to begin with, a reasonably interesting girl Therese (Marie Dubois) is introduced, and it all looks very promising. But, sadly, she isn't the third side of the love triangle we're going to get, and instead we're then introduced to Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) to fill that role. The film hinges on the idea that Catherine is some sort of interesting, obsessive, desirable character, and yet to me it does nothing whatever to show this. Frankly, what any of the (many) men that fall for her actually see in her is beyond me - she's boring, moody, not especially intelligent, not good-looking, and not good company. The story in the second half of the film falls to pieces - Catherine's alternation between seduction and rejection and seduction again of various people goes on for far too long, then suddenly she gets a gun, then the guy she's just tried to shoot is friendly again with her, and then gets in a car with her (perhaps he deserves to die for being such an idiot).

There are a few amusing scenes, there are some interesting things in the direction, and Jules and Jim are rather likable, at least until they meet Catherine. The bits of philosophy littered around probably point to some attempt to convey a deeper message, but I'm sorry to say I didn't care less. 5 out of 10, and I think that's probably a bit generous.

Somebody kindly decided to bring Standing Still out on DVD in the UK last month, which was most convenient given I had no luck picking up a copy while in the US (though I did find a second-hand copy of Psycho Beach Party, which felt like more of an achievement anyway...) And it got into the charts briefly, so I guess I wasn't literally the only person to buy it.

The idea here is quite a neat one - we see the evening before a wedding, so we're introduced to lots of characters, given almost no backstory, and so it is as if we're a guest at the evening too, and mostly required to work things out as we go along. Which is closer to real life than the average film - but as a film, this needs to work cleverly, and it doesn't really come off in anything approximating to a smooth manner. There are too many characters with little or nothing to do, and too many characters we don't really care about. A couple of the threads almost work, but the film as a whole also suffers badly from the 'big revelation' supposedly being tragic but actually just sounding silly.

The cast is more than large enough to encompass a wide range of acting abilities, but the very structure of the film doesn't give us a great deal of insight into any of them, so it all becomes a bit much-of-a-muchness.

Amy Adams has a reasonably-sized role here, and at least has something to do, even if nothing spectacular. There's another wedding dress for her (!), another lesbian scene (!) (yes, another. I forgot about Cruel Intentions 2 for a while, but that had one - well, at least one, sort-a-lesbian scene - too), and she's heroic enough to look really sympathetic when her fiance is telling his near-hilarious 'tragic' story. She plays one of the few characters with any depth at all, and does about as well as you could expect her to do. To me, more than once, she looked rather similar to how she looked in Charlie Wilson's War - which is a very rare occurrence of her looking very similar in two different roles (whoever it was called her a 'chameleon' - I can't actually find the quote now, though I'm not looking very hard - was certainly correct).

Anyway - nice try, doesn't really work. 5.5 out of 10.

I picked WarGames up cheap on DVD recently. I'm surprised by a few things about it - it must be ages since I've watched it.

- It's partly set in Seattle!
- The technology isn't entirely stupid. Some is, yes, but it is less preposterous than I thought.
- I don't remember Ally Sheedy being cute at all, never mind as ridiculously cute as she is here, especially in the scene where she's just been jogging where the whole 'global thermonuclear war' thing starts in David's room. Very nice!

So, I remembered it being cheesy, but I didn't remember there were actually a few good things about it too. Good!

(31 December 2008) : I guess I need to rate this. 6.5 out of 10, I think.)

Well, it took me rather a while to get back to my old-Amy-Adams-films 'January' project - and goodness knows why it has taken me so long, its not as if I'm lacking in enthusiasm for watching films with Amy in - but, anyway, back to it......

Serving Sara has been sitting on my 'to watch' pile for four months (hardly a record - Mulholland Drive was waiting prominently on it for about five years, but I'm pleased to have got through that now, too) and, apart from Amy Adams, I'm not at all sure I was keen to watch it. It's a film-starring-one-of-the-ones-from-Friends, and in general that hardly bodes well.

Still, this wasn't quite as appalling as I was expecting, one terribly unnecessary and out-of-place long scene involving a cow apart. Throwing that 10 minutes or so in the bin, the rest is almost watchable in a mindless way. A few bits are even marginally funny, and there are a few slightly surprising twists (even if they don't make a great deal of sense from a legal perspective).

Matthew Perry is...err...ok, but nothing special. I've never really been a fan, but he isn't horrible here, and I'm not convinced the film would have worked any better with someone else. Elizabeth Hurley is decent enough too - I'm not one of her (apparently many) bashers just for the sake of it, and she may not be stunningly good at comedy, but she's certainly passable. She's always been reasonably decent looking too. Bruce Campbell is wasted in a minor role. Cedric the Entertainer plays a character just about as annoying as his name. Jerry Stiller is wasted too in a role that only involves sitting behind a desk. And... there are other people in it, and they're not memorable.

But, then, we have the only reason I watched this in the first place, and Amy Adams isn't exactly in the film much, but what she does is memorable enough. Wearing some suitably (for her character) minimal clothes (very nice tummy!) and looking as gorgeous as ever - if not more so - she also, as you'd expect, gets her teeth into a reasonably (though not entirely) insubstantial role and makes something pretty impressive out of it. And I'm not sure if what she can do with her cleavage is unique, or especially impressive, but I don't recall seeing it done before :-) Fun to see another scary 'wink' from her too, as in Junebug.

My main gripe is that the director Reginald Hudlin in his mostly tedious commentary says that Amy's first scene was much longer and 'naughtier' (!) but was cut to keep the film PG-13. But, very irritatingly, there is no sign of this in the deleted/extended scenes on the DVD. Grr. What have you done with this, Mr Director?

I can't really recommend this film, but with the exception of the cow scene, you can certainly watch it without too much irritation. Though only if you either have nothing better to do, or you're an Amy Adams completist (like, err, me). 4.5 out of 10.

I've seen all of the top 6 grossing films in the box-office chart from last weekend. That's quite scary. I'm single-handedly keeping British cinemas running at this rate!

I've also - finally - seen Mary Poppins again, which is really quite lovely (if dragging ever-so-slightly in a few places, though not in a major way). 'Feed The Birds' is really one of the best-written songs I've has the pleasure of having stuck in my head! I need to go and see St. Paul's again now, I'll probably go tomorrow.

I also watched Mulholland Drive over the last couple of nights, after trying to get around to watch it for the last 6 years or so. Very good, very Lynch, very odd, and requiring much thought. I may well say more about this in the future when it has sunk in a bit.

Given it was my *January* project, I really ought to try to bring some closure to my 'Amy Adams back catalogue' project before the remainder of the year runs away with me. Perhaps. Anyway, I've seen Junebug a second time now, thanks to BBC2 being kind enough to premiere it a couple of weekends ago, and my actually catching a Saturday night film for once rather than missing it. I enjoyed it more the second time, especially as I wasn't planning to watch it. While I've been putting off writing a review for a while now, I'm going to attempt to give it a fair go. And here it is.

This is a film in which not much happens, little is explained, less still is resolved, and almost no conclusions can be reached from it. The characters are ambiguous in many ways, but their motivations have a strong ring of authenticity and this gives them a reality that is seen in few other films. As do the events portrayed. Life is usually pretty ambiguous. Somehow it all comes together to make up a film which is really rather satisfying, even though on paper it seems it really shouldn't be.

The film centers on George (Alessandro Nivola) taking his new wife Madeleine (Embeth Davitz) to visit his family in North Carolina for the first time. But this is no stereotypical 'meet my dysfunctional family and see how we all get along' film - George's family are treated with respect and affection by the film, and in a bold move George is actually the least important, and in many respects more cynical and even unpleasant, character in the film. He really isn't present most of the time. Indeed, he is almost unfairly redeemed by the fact his rare appearances largely coincide with the most memorable scenes of the film, of which more in a moment. I see a little of me not so long ago in George, which isn't really all that pleasant a revelation. Madeleine, conversely, seems to be really trying to get along with George's family, although I seriously doubt it is a coincidence that she is the daughter of a diplomat, and she seems to be using her diplomatic skills to some degree here. She is treated pretty miserably by George, who is happy to let her do all the work with his family, to complain at her in a very unjustified way (at least coming from him), and seemingly do very little else other than have sex with her, a lot. However, it is hard to see how sincere Madeleine is - more than once her diplomacy seems to be replaced by something that is either affection or condescension (probably depending on how you see the character) and her attitude to an unexpected outbreak of anti-Semitism is rather less moral than one would hope.

George's brother Johnny (Benjamin McKensie) is a sullen, vaguely unpleasant, edgy character who is clearly feeling totally trapped both by living with his parents and by his marriage to his very pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams). There are flashes of his non-trapped, pleasant self which make the contrast effectively and allow sympathy for the character. Ashley is almost the opposite - a completely outgoing, optimistic, chatty, never-stopping force of nature - but one who is wiser and deeper than you may at first think. There is real depth and affection to this wonderful character who, in the hands of a lesser screenwriter or a lesser actress, would have been a stereotype, and an irritating one at that.

George's mum Peg (Celia Weston) and dad Eugene (Scott Wilson) do pretty much what you'd expect in a film of this type. They still care for each other, but their love has withered away somewhere over the course of their lives.

This is a very well-crafted film. There are a few puzzling directorial affectations, such as the hollering men at the start, or the shots of the woods that look too much like Glastonbury Grove in Twin Peaks, but other things (the shots of empty rooms, even the putting up of the airbed) work well. The set-piece scenes - George's hymn in the Church, and the final scene with Ashley in the hospital - fit the structure perfectly, and are very memorable. The hymn is gorgeous, too, and the whole scene surrounding it says so many different things, all at once. It should also be noted that this is probably the only film I've ever seen that has a masturbation scene that not only isn't gratuitous, but is actually an effective and important device in constructing character.

All of the acting is very professional and very watchable. Amy Adams fully deserved her Oscar nomination here, her Ashley is an outstanding performance. While the character is designed to stand out, it also has the same potential problem as Giselle in Enchanted - an inch one way and the character is an ironic and irritating stereotype, an inch the other and she would be too sweet, too cloying. Fortunately Amy is talented enough to walk this tightrope perfectly, just as she does in Enchanted. All the other acting is good too though, from Embeth Davitz's level of ambiguity, Benjamin McKensie's nuanced frustration, Celia Weston's matriarchal attempt to control her family, Scott Wilson's gentle resignation to his life, or Alessandro Nivola's general facade.

I'm not entirely sure why this film works, yet somehow it does, and I'm even less sure why I find it enjoyable, but I find it most enjoyable. Amy Adams makes the film, as pretty much every critic has pointed out, but there's a lot of other good things to be said about it too. Not perfect, but very good indeed. Well worth a look, and then a second look. 9 out of 10.


Edit : I've just realised I've written this whole review without really mentioning the artist, who advances the plot in various ways and sets the whole thing in motion. Well, I'm not sure I view him as much more than someone who is convenient to the story. A MacGuffin if you will, though I'm not sure I'm allowed to use that term to refer to a character as opposed to a thing. Maybe I need to think about him some more. End of edit!


I think I may draw a line under my Amy Adams back-catalogue project now, formally at least. It isn't exactly finished, but I've got through Amy's most important roles to date. When I do the rest (Serving Sara, The Ex, The Last Run, Psycho Beach Party (if I ever get a copy), Standing Still (ditto), and whatever else I haven't got to yet), I'll review them, but I'm not going to try to do those in any particular timescale. Still, it was a very worthwhile project, a far more enjoyable idea than I'd usually manage to come up for the start of the year.

Firstly, I realise this is now February so my 'Amy Adams back catalogue' project isn't exactly just a January project anymore, but I've actually done rather well (given how long it takes me to usually get around to watching DVDs) so I may as well press on with it. So, The Wedding Date:

A so-called 'girly' flick - this isn't exactly the kind of film I'll watch unless for a specific reason. That doesn't mean I can't be pleasantly surprised by such a thing - for example, In Her Shoes was probably one of the most random and, on paper, most unsuitable for a bloke-in-his-late-20s-to-see-by-himself films I've ever been to see, which I took in solely because Cameron Diaz was in it (and, yes, also because I was very bored indeed that day), and yet I found it an enjoyable and entertaining couple of hours.

Unfortunately, however, that doesn't apply to The Wedding Date. This film is a bit of a shambles, really. The morality is all over the place, the central love story is unmotivated and unbelievable, and the plot is driven forward in a confusing and irrelevant way, with subplots that go absolutely nowhere. The dialog is just plain odd, the characters just caricatures, and the England setting both predictable and pointless. The film is really short, which I suppose is a good thing, though the DVD contains 10 minutes or so of cut scenes which you have to wonder why they were cut out of an already very short film, especially as they fill in a few (though by no means all!) of the plot holes.

That's not to say there isn't anything positive to say about the film. Debra Messing is actually surprisingly good and watchable given what she has to work with here. I've not seen her in anything before, having never watched Will and Grace in my life, but she actually had quite a bit of potential here. Jack Davenport again effectively plays his Coupling role, which is far less interesting without Steven Moffat's pin-sharp comedy writing behind it - I'm not sure I'm much of a fan of Mr Davenport outside of Coupling, actually. Sarah Parish should probably be in Coronation Street, though that's not necessarily a criticism, and she doesn't have a great deal to do here. Dermot Mulroney is problematic, at best. I found it very difficult to work out if he can't act, or if he was acting an odd and unsympathetic role quite well. Either way though, if there is no chemistry between the two leads of your film, you've got big problems - and here, one well-done scene apart, there isn't any real chemistry.

Like Debra Messing, Amy Adams does her best here with a character who not only is largely unsympathetic but is also unclearly motivated and stuck with clunky dialog. She's clearly doing as much as she can, but it's an uphill struggle. A couple of scenes are good examples of how an excessive amount of over-dramatic makeup can make someone look considerably less attractive than they actually are. Conversely she gets to look very nice in a wedding dress - a rather less excessive and more realistic one than in Enchanted, although also rather less, err, enchanting. She also gets to poke her head out of a car again - this time in Piccadilly Circus, which is almost the same thing as Times Square. There's some sort of really odd pattern emerging here... :-)

Sadly, the best efforts of at least some of the cast notwithstanding, this is not a good film. I can't really give this anything better than 4 out of 10.

In many respects, Talladega Nights is a similar film to Walk Hard, which I saw last week. Both are rather silly, both full of good one-liners, and both star John C. Reilly, though in this case the inevitable Will Ferrell is the actual star. Unfortunately, however, this is rather less good than Walk Hard, and that is probably mainly down to the fact that the story of a singer will have some decent songs to support the story when it is flagging, whereas a story about a NASCAR driver only has racing. And I'd much rather have the singing, especially if it is as decent as that in Walk Hard.

Some bits of this film work, but unfortunately far too much falls flat or, even worse, is introduced and then goes nowhere at all. The 'which Jesus do you prefer' dinner scene is probably the most amusingly memorable scene overall, and that is right near the start of the film. Indeed, for a 'life story' film, success and stardom come surprisingly early, and most of the film is taken up with dealing with what happens next - a bold choice, but one which throws off the timing of the film considerably, and it suffers for it. Much of this drags, never more so than when Sacha Baron Cohen's surprisingly dull character is on-screen. A one-joke character can't sustain this much screen time, and he should have either been given much more to do, or had his part severely trimmed.

Gary Cole is the second-best thing in this film, and you wish he could have more time on-screen, though his narrative purpose precludes his having a much bigger part. I'd almost forgotten how much fun Gary Cole is to watch when he's in the right type of part.

Amy Adams is, in my ever-so-humble opinion, somewhat inevitably, the best thing in this film, and you really do wish she had more to do - ok, so I'm biased, and I only really watched this film because she was in it, and she clearly wasn't in it anywhere near enough, but it is a straightforward fact nevertheless :-) While she is present but basically doing and saying nothing throughout much of the film, it is only about 75 minutes in, just when you're tempted to give up on the whole thing entirely, that she gets a barnstormer of a scene that almost makes the whole film worthwhile. Very, very enjoyable. And then she gets a couple more scattered scenes which are pleasant enough to watch, but once she has gone and stolen the film, it is even more difficult to care about the half-hour or so left when she's not on-screen, especially when Sacha Baron Cohen's tedious character returns. This is a smaller part in terms of screen-time than she had in Charlie Wilson's War, but in many ways a better role because she actually has something to do. Which she does very well indeed. She looks very pleasant here too, about which I shall not complain.

I doubt I'll have the patience to sit through this all again in order to sift out the flashes of inspiration from the doldrums - if I put this in my DVD player again, I'll be watching the 'Jesus' scene, and the scenes with Gary Cole and Amy Adams, and then moving on to something else. 6 out of 10, and at least 1 of that 6 is for Amy's all-too-brief brilliance.

As with Cruel Intentions 2, I'm also rather surprised I'd not seen this film before - in fact, until I looked into it, I think I assumed I already had. I thought I'd seen all of the significant films Kirsten Dunst had done around this point (bar Dick, which I've had on DVD for years and never got around to watching). But, no. Perhaps I was confusing this with Bring It On, which I have indeed seen?

But I'm glad I did work out I hadn't seen this already, as, unlike Cruel Intentions 2, Drop Dead Gorgeous is a very good find - this movie is a very sick puppy indeed, and hilarious for it. It's been a long time indeed since I've seen a film this laugh-out-loud funny. On the face of it, a film about a high-school beauty pageant in Minnesota is a pretty unattractive concept for an hour-and-a-half of your life, but this all fits together expertly with a clever script, good visual gags and a high-class and high-performing cast. It does run out of steam towards the end, and the last 15 minutes could be trimmed without any great loss, but up until the 'natural' stopping-point of the film at that 15-minutes-from-the-end mark, this is consistently very enjoyable indeed.

Kirsten Dunst is really very watchable - and very gorgeous - in this (she's even good at some of the more physical humour scenes), and indeed most of the cast put on a very good show. Brittany Murphy does another good job here, as in Clueless (now that I think about it, what has happened to her career? She definitely had promise, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere). The only exception is Denise Richards, who once again proves she's not a very good actress. But, in terms of the part she is playing here, that's not the handicap it is elsewhere.

And Amy Adams does a fine job here, especially considering this is her first film, and pretty much everyone else in the film is a pretty established star already. Her part has too much of the demeanour of an American-style-cheerleader for me to find her especially attractive here - but her role, like the film itself, is very watchable.

A very entertaining film indeed, assuming you're in the mood for something a little silly. Well worth a look.

((31 December 2008) : I rated this 8 on IMDb so I should do the same here.)

I'm rather surprised I haven't looked this up before. The first Cruel Intentions was one of my favourite films back in the day (admittedly mainly because I used to rather like Sarah Michelle Gellar - before she got far too thin in later Buffy seasons - but also because it was a reasonably satisfying and well-written film). Indeed, if I'm remembering correctly, this was the first ever DVD I bought (I've bought one or two more since then!). So how this has passed me by entirely until now is anyone's guess.

Cruel Intentions 2 started as a TV series based on the original film, but never actually made it as far as the small screen, and instead was cut up, with extra scenes added, and made into some odd hybrid of prequel to and remake of the original. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The narrative economy of the original is entirely missing, and instead things are all over the place - as you'd expect in the first couple of episodes of a continuing TV series, but not a supposedly self-contained film. If you feel so inclined, you can try to reconstruct the actual intent to some degree from the trailer on the DVD, which bears very little relationship to the final product. But only try if you're really, really bored.

There's a lot of people in this film that I've not seen in anything else since - which in a way is a shame, as much of the acting isn't appalling, but this really isn't going to be much of a career-booster. Even Amy Adams can't save this from the mire it gets itself into. She's fine here in acting terms, though not outstanding the way she is in more recent films. She looks very nice though :-)

What else can I say? Rather than the satisfying end to the original film, this goes for the non-sensical twist ending, which is rather amusing on one level, but if it had been any more competent a film to start with would have been a plot disaster. But you've probably given up caring by this point in the film, so the stupid twist is probably a more enjoyable end than actually trying to make sense.

Also, there's a memorable horseriding scene :-) There's also a twins/sisters/cousins/whatever (I can't remember which and I don't care - I really wasn't paying much attention when Amy Adams wasn't on the screen) naked-in-the-shower scene, which should win awards for most gratuitous and least sexy shower scene in any motion picture ever in the history of film.

Err, and that's it. If you want to see an early Amy Adams performance, and see her wear some far-from-unpleasant lingerie and/or a school uniform while playing a 'nasty bitch' character, then this is worth a look (put it this way : I won't be throwing this out of my DVD collection, though if I watch it again, it won't exactly be for the gripping plot or nuances of characterisation!). But if you're actually looking for a watchable and satisfying film, you're infinitely better off with the original. If IMDb's rumours about why the series was cancelled was true, it seems we may have to thank Rupert Murdoch for doing the world a favour by throwing this series in the bin (and allowing Amy Adams to go on to better things). And I don't thank Rupert Murdoch very often for much, I assure you!

Addendum : I neglected to mention the scene where Amy is poking her head up out of a car, out into Times Square. Ok, so it isn't a manhole, but the completely accidental foreshadowing of Enchanted is pretty amusing. Well, I thought so, in any event :-)

((31 December 2008) : I rated this 4 on IMDb so I should do the same here.)

This is one of those films from that period while I was living in the USA that I seem to have missed entirely. I've even seen the Simpsons parody of the film without having the faintest idea what it was parodying. I guess I've have to watch this episode again now!

I haven't seen Leonardo DiCaprio (Frank) in a film for quite some time, but he wasn't disappointing here, and his performance (in, admittedly, a mostly-fun part) is really rather good. Tom Hanks is fine here too - nothing outstanding, but he does the job required in a decent enough way. Christopher Walken is very watchable, and you want him to be in more of the film than he is.

The plot itself is pretty fun - by definition, there's a lot of locations, a lot of action, and a lot of things going on, and mostly it all fits together (despite the very long list of goofs in the IMDb entry!). The character motivations mostly make sense. although they don't get in the way of the action, which is probably what is required here. The direction is fine, as you'd expect from Spielberg, but nothing outstanding springs to mind.

And... Amy Adams? Well, her character (Brenda) is delightful, whether wearing scary braces or jumping on top of Leonardo (probably the first time I've thought 'hmm, being Leonardo DiCaprio isn't such a bad deal' since watching Baz Luhrmann's Romeo And Juliet and the scenes with Claire Danes :-) Now I mention it, I must dig out that film and watch it again. But anyway...) It's a nice part, played as well as I expected from such a talented actress. But, it also brings me to the big gripe I have with the plot of this movie. There's quite a bit of character development invested in Frank and his relationship with Brenda. It's not as if he's just using her - he really seems to be trying to get off the roller-coaster he's on by this point. But once the Feds catch up with him, and their not-very-likely-to-succeed plan to reunite doesn't work, she is never mentioned again for the rest of the film! Now, I know this film is based on a real story, and life doesn't usually have neat endings - and this film was about Frank, not Brenda - but it really, really annoyed me that this story wasn't tied up in some way. I hoped when he was flying off at the end that he was going to see her - just a brief goodbye scene or something would have sufficed, but we weren't going to get it.

So, a decent film, and for the most part rather good fun. Not enough Amy Adams, but what there is is very watchable. And the end is too frustrating (even if it is 'really what happened'). It has some problems, but is well worth a look. Even if only for the neat animated titles, which prove that a simple idea can often be the most effective.

((31 December 2008) : I didn't give this a rating at the time. I think 7.5 is fair.)

A few personal opinions about 2007 films - overall a pretty good year:

Best film - Stardust - a beautiful, involving fantasy film. It doesn't do anything incredibly surprising for such a film (despite the comparisons flying around, this really isn't much like The Princess Bride, but then it is wise not to try), but does it so well and in such a polished and charming way that this is a delight to watch from start to finish. From the second I first saw the trailer, I was pretty confident I'd love this, and I was right. We need many more films like this please.

Second-best film - Enchanted - running Stardust much closer than I expected for film of the year, this innovative and uplifting Disney film makes or breaks on the back of Amy Adams' Giselle - and fortunately, she is absolutely perfect in the role (in acting, in singing, and in being very attractive). The songs have stuck in my head in a way that nothing has since the Buffy Musical all those years ago. And the effect-work is so well-done and seamless that it actually takes effort to notice it is effect-work at all, and is all the more impressive for it - other film-makers take note how this should be done! A unique and rewarding movie that, again, I could (and will!) sit through time and again.

Best non-new film (but new to me) - The Seventh Seal - not much competition for this one, but I'm sure it would have won anyway. A challenging and resonating film, exploring the mysteries and frustration of faith. There are too many great moments to mention, but I think my favourite is the scene in the confessional between Death and Antonius Block - devastating in intensity and meaning, and directly echoing the questions any person of faith faces.

Worst film - Transformers - oh dear, this was a disaster. Loud, confusing, non-sensical, disastrous attempts at humour, a rip-off of the silly elements of other movies such as Independence Day, military-loving, and cold. Yes, the effects were technically good, but if that is all the film has, it has effectively nothing (see The Phantom Menace, for example). Terrible, and a terrible shame. Thank goodness that the return of Doctor Who, for example, was managed so much better (well, apart from the 1996 movie, but we'll ignore that for the moment!). I'd rather go and watch Chuck and Larry again than this car-crash.

Honourable mention - Knocked Up - yes, I only went to see this because I find Katherine Heigl most attractive. But I expected a typical stupid gross-out movie, and instead got a touching exploration of modern relationships. Yes, with the silly gross-out bits too, but they were incidental to the fascinating main story. Not what I expected, and a pleasant surprise.