Film 014 - S. Darko

(2009, colour, 103 mins)

Director - Chris Fisher

Starring - Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, James Lafferty, Ed Westwick

I was a huge fan of the first Donnie Darko. I thought it was hilarious and heartbreaking, mysterious and melancholy all at the same time with a nifty plot twist that had me talking to my mates about it for days afterward. Simply put, I thought it was a work of art. If Donnie Darko is art then, this "sequel" is a stickman drawn on a Post-It note by a blind six-year-old with no arms.

S. Darko is set seven years after the original movie. Now a teenager, Donnie's youngest sister Samantha (played again by Daveigh Chase whose appearance has seemingly matured better than her acting skills have) is on a road trip with her friend Corey (a girl, despite the name). Their car breaks down in the middle of a desert so they make their way to a small hotel in a sleepy town while they wait for the car to be fixed.

Then... well, I don't know. I couldn't make head nor tail of this film, if I'm being honest. I know that was sort of the charm of the first movie, but at least after a lot of digging around and theorising the first movie begins to make sense. This makes none at all. Apparently Samantha sleepwalks (like Donnie did), but also appears to people as a sort of angel with a bleeding head. At some point someone makes a rabbit mask for no apparent reason other than so the movie can have a bit where someone holds up a rabbit mask in a dramatic way to please the Donnie Darko fans.

In fact, it seems that the whole film's just one big attempt to re-do all the best bits from Donnie Darko, only do them much worse. The excellent school scene from the original (where time goes quickly and slowly to the tune of Head Over Heels from Tears For Fears) is completely ripped off for a rubbish pool party scene, the music is very Donnie Darko-esque, there's another paedophile in it, there are loads of quotes from the original ("they made me do it, the world is going to end" etc), Roberta Sparrow is briefly mentioned for the sake of it and there's a couple of dumb time-travelling moments chucked in to justify the "Darko" bit in the title. Even the main creepy guy in the film looks so much like Jake Gyllenhall (the original Donnie) that there's no way in hell it was a coincidence. They just forgot to put a plot in there to tie it all together.

If you're a fan of Donnie Darko, I wouldn't be surprised if you feel obliged to see this anyway. I promise you that you'll regret it. Watch the trailer below: it makes about as much sense.

1 out of 5

Film 013 - Hakaider

(1995, colour, 80 mins)

Director - Keita Amemiya

Starring - Yuji Kishimoto, Mai Hosho, Yasukai Honda

Let's face it: for western viewers, a lot of Asian cinema doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why it's refreshing to see that, despite the setting and plot being a bit mental, Hakaider does actually make sense for the most part.

The film is set in the futuristic Jesus Town (formerly Jerusalem), and sees a society ruled between a controlling government and an all-powerful leader called Girjev (Honda). A few rebels form a group to try to put a stop to them, but for the most part they struggle to make an impact. That's until Hakaider turns up, of course.

Hakaider (Kishimoto) doesn't really have a proper backstory in the film: he was an android (think a Japanese version of The Terminator) who was kept away from society and somehow ends up back in it. He saves the rebels from certain death by blowing the hell out of a group of government soldiers so the rebels, led by Kaoru (Hosho), befriend him. He ends up going a bit mental and turns on the rebels too, but eventually he falls for Kaoru and decides to help her put an end to the government by destroying Girjev and his robot helper.

What this all results in is some cheesy acting, daft action (which is sometimes surprisingly gory), and a pretty awesome final battle between Hakaider and Girjev's robot buddy.

In all, Hakaider's a fun little film. Nothing too serious, but still a good laugh. Worth a watch if you can find it.

3 out of 5

Film 012 - Zombie Death House

(1987, colour, 90 mins)

Director - John Saxon

Starring - John Saxon, Dennis Cole, Anthony Franciosa, Dana Lis Mason

Let's face it: when a film's called Zombie Death House you're not exactly expecting The Godfather. You're expecting, at best, some gory deaths and some hilariously cheesy acting. Thankfully, this delivers on both counts.

The film's first half-hour would have you believe you'd mistakenly bought a cheesy '80s action movie instead. The lead character Derek (a Vietnam war veteran and all-round hero) has been framed and sent to death row for a crime he didn't commit. So far so straightforward.

The problem is, the prison he's been sent to is also home to a dodgy science experiment being conducted by the government. They're testing a highly dangerous drug on the inmates, but when they start turning into zombies the prison is quarantined, leaving Derek and some of the people he meets along the way (including the expected love interest) trying to find a way out.

What ensues is a lot of atrocious acting, a lot of hilarious "tense" moments which are about as scary as a hamster sneezing, and a lot of stupidly gory deaths which tend to bump the funny bone rather than churn the stomach.

The key moment for me is the world's slowest decapitation, performed by a Jamaican zombie who seems to put his victim in a sleeper hold and slowly ease their head off.

Zombie Death House is complete rubbish, but it's fun rubbish. It's worth a watch if you want to be entertained for 90 minutes, but don't expect to be putting it alongside The Shawshank Redemption in your list of favourite prison movies.

Check out the trailer below, under the film's original title of Death House, which promises nothing to do with zombies at all. Imagine the shock people got when they expected a rubbish prison movie and got a rubbish prison movie with extra deadly Jamaican sleeper holds.

3.5 out of 5

Film 011 - Hamlet 2

(2008, colour, 92 mins)

Director - Andrew Fleming

Starring - Steve Coogan, Skylar Astin, Phoebe Strole, Catherine Keener, David Arquette, Elisabeth Shue

I feel sorry for Steve Coogan. He's done loads of great films and TV shows but he'll always be remembered as Alan Partridge no matter what he does for the rest of career. Yes, Partridge will always be the best thing he's ever done, but it overshadows his other great roles in the likes of Coogan's Run, The Parole Officer, The Day Today, Dr Terrible's House Of Horrible, Saxondale, 24 Hour Party People... the list goes on.

Unfortunately for Coogan, he'll always be Alan Partridge to us: his recent role in Tropic Thunder did nothing to suggest otherwise and neither will his performance, enjoyable it may be, in Hamlet 2 (which I watched on Region 1 DVD but will be in UK cinemas this February).

Coogan plays Dana Marschz, a drama teacher at an American high school who dreams of one day being recognised as a serious artist. Each year directs plays based on popular movies, which are met with little to no reaction from the local community. With the school making cutbacks to save money Dana is told that the drama department is set to be axed after the current term, so he decides to go all out and write an original play, one which he hopes will be so enthralling he'll save the department while winning himself acclaim as a true artist in the process.

Unfortunately the play he writes is "Hamlet 2", a sequel to Shakespeare's classic tragedy. Despite the fact that everyone died in Hamlet, this new sequel sees Hamlet stepping into a time machine and stopping everyone else from dying, but not before encountering Jesus and bringing him to the present day. With songs like "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" and "Raped In The Face" the play gets attention for all the wrong reasons, and Dana finds himself in a fight to get his play shown.

Hamlet 2 is as ridiculous as it sounds. Coogan does a good job in the lead role, though it's off-putting to watch him talking in an American accent. Some of the other characters are rather forgettable (a few of the students in the class are just latino stereotypes and David Arquette gets paid money for delivering almost no dialogue throughout the whole film), but in general the cast gets the job done well.

Although the main storyline (the production and eventual performance of the play) is entertaining stuff, the other sub-plot - in which Dana struggles at home to keep his wife satisfied - is almost free of comedy or drama, and feels like it's just been put in there to extend the running time: especially when the sub-plot ends abruptly with an unsatisfactory conclusion.

That said, the goods far outweigh the bads and the play itself is hilarious stuff, with genuinely catchy musical numbers (you'll be humming "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" for days afterward) and ridiculous moment after ridiculous moment.

For a daft comedy with solid laughs and generally good performances all round, you could do a lot worse than Hamlet 2.

3 out of 5

Film 010 - Prom Night

(2008, colour, 88 mins)

Director - Nelson McCormick

Starring - Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, Dana Davis

It's amazing that a slasher film with a grand total of twelve deaths can be tamer than a dead teddy bear and about as scary as a sleeping puppy. One of the few recent slasher films rated PG-13 in America (the equivalent of 12A), it's pretty clear why: with no swearing and less blood than an average trip to the dentist, its about as squeaky-clean and young teen friendly as you can get.

The story goes that Donna (Brittany Snow) is getting ready to celebrate her prom night with her boyfriend and four of her other friends, but as luck would have it a crazed ex-teacher who was obsessed with her and murdered her family to be with her has just escaped from an asylum. As you'd expect, this results in all sort of "oh no, there's a killer at the prom" shenanigans.

Except it doesn't, because most of the "action" (if you can call it that) takes place in a suite three floors up at the hotel where the prom's being held. As a result, the film is a case of various teens and hotel staff going up to the third floor and meeting a predictable knife-related death by the hugely non-terrifying killer.

Prom Night uses every cliche in the horror book, sometimes even doing so multiple times. There are three different "closing the mirror door and seeing someone behind them" moments throughout the film: one would be unoriginal enough, but three?

The one saving grace about Prom Night is that the acting from the lead actress Brittany Snow is believable, and she somehow manages to avoid coming across like a generic slasher film airhead teen. But this just isn't enough to carry this complete dog of a film.

Slasher films have three main principles: scary moments, gory deaths and titilation (pardon the pun). Prom Night delivers precisely zero of these and as a result can only be considered an absolute failure.

1 out of 5

Film 009 - Tropic Thunder

(2008, colour, 107 mins)

Director - Ben Stiller

Starring - Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Brandon T Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan

I recently watched Tropic Thunder for the second time with my dad and my brother. As the credits rolled, my dad summed the film up perfectly in just four words: "Well, that was daft".

There's no better way to explain it as I'm concerned: Tropic Thunder is simply madder than a bucket of spanners.

The plot goes that five actors are shooting a war movie in Vietnam, but things aren't going too well as some of them are having problems emoting. The director (Steve Coogan) decides the best idea to deal with this is to get the actors in a helicopter, fly them into the middle of the jungle, strip them of their luxuries (mobile phones and such) and make them fend for themselves as he films. That's the plan, at least.

The problem is that this jungle area is home to a genuine gang of Asian criminals who are running a huge drugs operation and who don't take too kindly to visitors. Ironically, the actors are unaware of the danger they're in and think it's all part of the movie.

The ensemble cast is strong for the most part, with the possible exception being Jack Black. This is simply because his role doesn't allow for a lot of range though: playing an actor who's out of drugs and is crashing pretty badly, all he can really do is shout a lot, shiver and look a bit mad. He doesn't get a lot of great lines to work with.

The same can't be said for Robert Downey Jr, who is by far the star of the movie. As a multi-Oscar winning actor who's so serious about his parts that he literally lives the roles, he undergoes a controversial skin pigmenting operation so that he can turn himself black to play an African-American solider. Many of his subsequent lines are so stereotypially "black" that it's ridiculous, and ultimately hilarious.

Tropic Thunder is worth seeing becasue there are lot of memorable moments throughout, a few of which involve a fantastic cameo by a heavily-disguised Tom Cruise as a fat, bald, hairy movie producer. The only main problem with the movie is that the final 20 minutes of the film focus so much on action that the humour takes a seat for the most part, which can be frustrating. If you don't mind that though, this is well worth a look.

3.5 out of 5

Film 008 - The Dark Knight

(2008, colour, 152 mins)

Director - Christopher Nolan

Starring - Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman

You’d be hard-pushed to find a film that has received such positive word-of-mouth as The Dark Knight has recently. The general consensus from the countless people who helped it break box office records in the US last week is that the movie lives up to the hype, and maybe even goes so far as to exceed it.

Indeed, the fact that the film currently sits pretty at the top of the IMDb’s Top 250 movies of all-time list having knocked The Godfather and The Shawshank Redemption off the top of the list should be some indication of its current popularity. Is this justified? Yes and no.

First things first: the film is impressive, both in terms of visual splendour and pacing. The movie retains the same gloomy dark atmosphere of Batman Begins and continues to skilfully walk the line between action and story development as well as its predecessor did. It shows a Gotham suffering from an uncertain future as crime continues to plague the city while the ever-looming presence of the Bat signal and district attorney Harvey Dent show promise for a crime-free future. Anyone expecting to see some sunshine or flowers would be wise to give this a miss: this is a dark movie.

This darkness isn’t confined to the cinematography, however: it could easily be attributed to some of the actors’ performances too. Heath Ledger has been the main talking point of the film among critics – unfortunately partly due to his untimely death – but there’s no denying that his deeply unsettling performance as the Joker eclipses that of anyone else in the movie. He literally steals every scene he appears in and is hypnotically compelling to watch: one would hate to be an extra in a Joker scene because the audience’s eyes would be so intently focused on Ledger’s subtle facial nuances that they’d be almost certain never to glance at anyone else in the frame.

The rest of the cast is also on top form, with many of them giving flawless performances that sum up their characters to a tee. Aaron Eckhart is effective as Harvey Dent, particularly halfway through the movie when he undergoes a rather disturbing transformation; Maggie Gyllenhaal makes the role of Rachel her own, to the extent that it’s hard to imagine Katie Holmes (who played the same character in Batman Begins) doing so well. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are once again given some memorable lines and provide some dryly warm comic relief, and Gary Oldman once again shows why he’s the best Commissioner Gordon.

Ironically, perhaps the only main performance that isn’t consistently outstanding is that by Christian Bale as the emotionally tormented Batman. As Bruce Wayne he’s compelling to watch, and as the film progresses and events unfold he starts to embark on a downward spiral that’s bleaker than anything even seen in a Batman film (yes, even Mr Freeze’s one-liners in Batman & Robin).

However, once he dons the Batsuit he somehow develops a distractingly gruff voice which makes him sound needlessly angry, even when he’s just having a normal conversation with someone like Commissioner Gordon. This is a minor issue in an otherwise fantastic performance, though.

The Dark Knight is another fantastic Batman movie from Christopher Nolan and serves as proof that Batman Begins wasn’t a fluke. The film does suffer from the odd slow moment during the middle third, but it’s never too long before the Joker turns up and captivates you all over again. This movie would be worth seeing for Heath Ledger’s performance alone, but thankfully there’s also a great movie there too.

4 out of 5

Film 007 - Hot Fuzz

(2007, colour, 121 mins)

Director - Edgar Wright

Starring - Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Timothy Dalton

I thought it was nice and ironic that "film 007" in my mission stars Timothy Dalton, a former James Bond. You know, because of the 007, and... you know... meh, stop spoiling my fun.

The Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright writing combination is one that has yet to disappoint for me. Both series of Spaced were hilarious and Shaun Of The Dead was a great tribute to a genre dear to my heart. With Hot Fuzz, Pegg and Wright attempted to do to action movies what Shaun did to horror, and they pull it off with style.

Pegg plays Nick Angel, a top cop who's sent to a dull village in the middle of nowhere so he doesn't make his teammates in the city look bad. It soon becomes clear though that despite the sleepy, boring image the town suggests, there are criminal goings-on afoot. It's up to Angel (along with his assigned partner played by the awesome Nick Frost) to find out what's going on.

Pegg is supported by a fantastic cast of British actors including the aforementioned Timothy Dalton, who's fantastic as the evil Somerfield manager. There are also some fun cameos from the likes of Steven Coogan, Martin Freeman and Bill Bailey which all add to the daft "we're just having a laugh here" nature of the film.

Simply put, Hot Fuzz is a terrific film. The more you watch it the more you spot (there are loads of tiny references that you might miss first time around, such as the street named Norris Avenue, a clear tribute to Chuck Norris), and the script is hilarious from start to finish. Highly recommended.

4.5 out of 5

Film 006 - Prime Time

(1977, colour, 75 mins)

Director – Bradley R Swirnoff

Starring – George Furth

Now here’s one I’m sure that nobody else will be featuring in their blog! Prime Time (also known under the alternative titles American Raspberry and Funny America) is basically a collection of spoof commercials and TV shows all tied together under a pretty simple plot: someone somewhere has taken over the TV airwaves and is broadcasting dodgy programmes and commercials, leading the public to go a bit mental and the president to decide to take action.

In reality, it’s a bit of a rubbish plot, especially when you consider that in all it must take up around 5 minutes of the film’s total run time. The rest is taken up with the sketches. There’s no YouTube video under this review, and there’s a reason for that: not a single clip was suitable for all audiences.

I know some films try to offend, but considering this was filmed in the ‘70s, a time when the words “political” and “correctness” had yet to be used together, they could get away with a lot more. A HELL of a lot more. Simply put, if you’re anything other than a white male atheist, you’re going to get offended here. Blacks, the handicapped, women, homosexuals, Christians, Muslims, paedophiles, pro-choicers, fat people and South Africans all get mocked here (among others, believe it or not), and while some of it does still sort of work comedy-wise, a hell of a lot of it is just so out-of-date now that it’s only offensive and nothing else.

There are a few moments that, despite being shocking, did make me chuckle because they were so silly: a key sketch for me was the news report about the couple who spend thousands of dollars on legal fees to get the abortion law changed from a limit of 24 weeks to 5 years, so they could get rid of their badly-behaved four-year old son. When the abortionist arrives and leaves with the boy in a cage, with the news reporter happily saying “the ironic twist is that tomorrow was Johnny’s fifth birthday”, I couldn’t help but smile in disbelief at how they managed to get away with it.

The fact is, this really isn’t worth hunting down unless you’re desperate to see something pretty offensive. It’s a very rare movie and is only readily available on DVD as part of the Drive-In Movie Classics 50-movie box set (which, incidentally, I do recommend since it’s region-free and has 50 really crappy (and therefore fun) movies for less than a tenner on Amazon New & Used). There are a few laughs to be had, but it’s really only interesting on a “there was more free speech back then” level.

2 out of 5

Film 005 - The Godfather Part II

(1974, colour, 200 mins)

Director – Francis Ford Coppola

Starring – Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

It’s been widely claimed that The Godfather Part II is one of the few exceptions to the “sequels are worse than the original film” rule, along with the likes of Terminator 2 and (arguably) Aliens. Indeed, I’d go along with this: not only is it a worthy follow-up to a fantastic Italian gangster movie, it’s simply a true masterpiece in drama, plot and pacing.

The film clocks in at just under three and a half hours in length, but unlike the lengthy Fellowship Of The Ring (reviewed earlier this week) there’s a decent reason for it here: it’s effectively two films in one.

The movie jumps back and forth between two stories: as well as the expected continuation of the first movie’s story, with Michael Corleone (an intense Al Pacino) taking over the family business after the death of his father Vito, there’s also a sort of prequel storyline involving numerous flashbacks showing how Vito came to end up in New York and the story of his rise from Sicilian immigrant to “the Godfather”.

With Vito dead, Marlon Brando doesn’t star in the film, and while that may have seemed to some like suicide for the success of the film (after all, his much-imitated accent from the first film is the stuff of legend), his absence is more than made up for with the introduction of Robert De Niro, playing the young Vito in the flashback scenes. Speaking almost entirely in Italian throughout the whole film, De Niro’s performance is so impressive that he ended up taking the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (making him one of only four people to win an Oscar for playing a mainly foreign language role).

If you’ve not seen the original film, the sequel is certainly not recommended: the film assumes you know who everyone is and makes no attempts to get you up to speed. You’re expected to know that Michael Corleone is in charge now, you’re expected to know that De Niro’s meant to be a young version of Brando’s character and you’re expected to know who all the other main characters from the first movie are.

If you have seen the original however, The Godfather Part II is a fantastic follow-up that continues the excellent storyline and matches (and even exceeds at some points) the quality of its predecessor.

5 out of 5

Film 004 - Premonition

(2007, colour, 96 mins)

Director – Mennan Yapo

Starring – Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon

Premonition is a clever film for stupid people. Much like the Director's Cut version of Donnie Darko, it tries too hard to make sure the audience knows what's going on. The difference is that while Donnie Darko was quite "out there" and the explanation would have been welcome to some, Premonition's plot is so straightforward you'll probably have worked out what's going on long before Sandra Bullock's character does.

Bullock plays a housewife who is informed by a police officer that her husband died in a car crash the previous day. Obviously distraught at this news, she tells her two young daughters what has happened and invites her mum over to stay with her for the night. When she wakes up the next morning, her husband is alive again and making breakfast in the house. Passing off the day before as a bad dream, all is well again until the next morning when she comes downstairs and finds everyone ready to attend her husband's funeral.

It soon becomes clear that Bullock's character is living out the days in her week in a random order: one day it's Thursday, the next it's the Monday before, the next it's the following Saturday. This means that some days her husband's dead, the next he's alive. On some days her daughter has unexplainable scars on her face (with Bullock yet to experience the day in which she got those scars), on other days she's fine.

This much is pretty clear to work out throughout the film, as there are plenty of telltale signs – you often hear people mentioning what day it is and it's not in order, you see Bullock checking a phone book and noticing a page ripped out then on another day you see her ripping the page out – so by the time she comes to the "shocking" realisation that the days are occurring in a random order (and then takes out a big sheet of paper and literally spells it out for the audience when she writes down the correct order in which everything happened), you've already come to that conclusion yourself. It's a twist that you already knew about.

This would have been forgivable however had the film made sense, but the sad fact is that there are more questions than answers by the time the closing credits roll. Some of these are simply gaping plot holes (halfway through the film we found out that Bullock is committed to a hospital on the last day of the week and accused of causing her daughter’s scars, then the doctor tells the police officer that she came to see him about her husband’s death the day before it happened and therefore her behaviour was suspicious, yet this whole scene is completely forgotten about by the end of the movie), whereas others are just silly mistakes (the girl gets the scars while her dad’s still alive, yet when Bullock tells the girls that he’s died (as seen at the start of the movie), she has no scars. Then when it comes to the funeral, the scars are back).

It’s a shame because had it been executed flawlessly it could have been an extremely clever film. As it is, it insults our intelligence half of the time (by revealing “twists” we’ve already worked out ages ago), and insults its own the rest of the time (due to the silly continuity mistakes).

Give this a watch if it ends up on the telly but be ready to get annoyed with it by the end.

2 out of 5

Film 003 - I Am Legend

(2007, colour, 101 mins)

Director – Francis Lawrence

Starring – Will Smith, a dog, loads of CGI people with dodgy jaws

Let's face it: Will Smith is at his best when he's starring in big-budget action blockbusters. Men In Black, Independence Day, I Robot, the Bad Boys films... hell, even Wild Wild West. His latest, I Am Legend, is based on the classic sci-fi novel of the same name and sees him taking on the role of Robert Neville, a doctor stranded in New York three days after a huge virus outbreak wipes out most of the city and transforms the remaining residents into cannibalistic mutants.

These mutants are actually the least impressive part of the movie for me: their faces look like fleshier versions of the androids in I Robot and when they scream with rage (as happens at least once every five minutes), their jaws drop needlessly low and they end up resembling the main villain in The Mummy (1999).

That said, I Am Legend is a pretty atmospheric and well-paced film, despite the fact that for most of the first part of the movie all you're really watching is a man with a dog driving round an empty New York. Once Smith encounters the "daywalkers" things start to pick up a bit, but it's all generic horror movie fare as he first finds himself wandering through a pitch black house infested with them, and later ends up slowly trying to escape with a wounded leg as the sun goes down and they close in on him (they are harmed by exposure to sunlight).

I Am Legend follows a load of typical movie clichés and it's pretty predictable throughout. If a film has a doctor trying to find a cure for a virus and all through the film he keeps trying new treatments, getting more and more frustrated as the film progresses, it should be pretty obvious that he'll find the cure just as he needs it the most. If zombie films usually involve one friend turning into a zombie, and the main character of this film only has one friend, it should be obvious what's going to happen. And if he keeps having flashbacks recalling his attempt to get his wife and child out of New York before the military seals off the city, you should really be expecting that eventually you're going to get the flashback that shows it didn't quite go as planned.

You may be getting the impression that I didn't like I Am Legend: far from it. It looks fantastic, the soundtrack is amazing and Smith's acting is excellent throughout. As long as you can put up with the pretty generic storyline and the rubbish CGI Mummy-monsters then you're in for a treat.

3 out of 5

Film 002 - The Cannonball Run

(1981, colour, 95 mins)

Director: Hal Neeham

Starring: Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Jackie Chan, Farrah Fawcett, Dom DeLuise

I don't really know why I decided to watch this, but I saw it lying around among my dad's DVDs and remembered I loved the Smokey And The Bandit films when I was younger. Since this has the same director and the same sort of action, and cosidering I love the'70s and '80s I thought I'd give it a bash.

It’s strange how some old films are just as enjoyable today as they were when they were first released, whereas others just feel completely out-of-date now. So for every 70s and 80s classic like Full Metal Jacket or The Exorcist that still continues to attract new followers and fans every day, there are others that simply don’t have the impact they did back when they were first released.

One such film is The Cannonball Run. In the early ‘80s it was a great success, with a huge cast of celebrities and loads of inside jokes, but today many of the references would fly over people’s heads and some of the celebrities wouldn’t be recognised.

That’s not to say it’s not still a good film, however. The Cannonball Run is a comedy based on a series of real-life illegal road races that saw people competing to get from one side of America to the other in the quickest time possible. The film follows a number of individuals entering the Cannonball in a race to get to California and win a huge cash prize. Think the Gumball 3000 rally crossed with Wacky Races and you’ve got a rough idea.

The setting is basically an excuse to stick loads of actors in loads of different cars and give them a daft gimmick to both add to the wackiness and make it trickier to guess who’ll win. Each team of characters have their own gimmick that they’re using to try to get to the finish line without too much hassle. You’ve got Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise in a stolen ambulance (so they can drive through towns with the siren on and not get stopped by the cops), to Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr as fake priests (after all, which policeman would book a priest?), to Roger Moore as a Jewish man who pretends he’s Roger Moore, the film’s nothing short of daft. There’s even a young Jackie Chan in his first American movie, as a Japanese (for some reason) competitor with a supercar loaded with hi-tech gizmos.

Although many of the jokes are a bit out-of-date now, there are still some fun stunts and car chases (and it’s all real, none of that CGI rubbish), and despite the awful soundtrack and the gaping huge plothole at the end of the film*, it’s still worth a watch if you have an appreciation for late ‘70s / early ‘80s chase films like Smokey And The Bandit.

3 out of 5

Movie Clip:
While waiting for a bridge to open, the Cannonballers get into a fight with a gang of bikers.

"Getcha Head In The Game!"

I've noticed a disturbing theme in the recommendations made by the members of my magazine's forum. Allow me to quote some of them here:

"but what if this was to happen... day 365: Chris has now watched every film in the world....except for High School Musical 0_o i know it wouldnt but it would be funny...fail or watch high school musical, which would you chose" - c1a2w3t4

"I trust you will be watching both High School Musicals." - Deku Scrub142

"Happy Feet, Street Fighter: The Movie (The live action one), Shark Boy and Lava Girl, Shrek 3, Bambi, Super Mario Bros. Movie, High School Musical 1 and 2" - Narutosaiyan

"chris writing an abusive reveiw of high school musical would be awesome (if your willing to put yourself through the torture)" - dark_hunter

Seriously guys, what the hell? How badly do you want me to suffer? :-)

Here's the deal. If I get 20 comments on this entry, asking me to review High School Musical, I will buy (or rent) it and review it. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. So spread the word, tell your friends and get people commenting here - I'll get more people reading my blog and you'll get the review it seems you want me to write. Even if I have to sit through a damn Disney musical.

Film 001 - The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (Extended Edition)

(2001, colour, 208 mins)

Director – Peter Jackson

Starring – Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm

I planned on watching a quick film today to get the mission off to a fairly easy start. Ironically, my dad decided that today would be the day he finally started watching the extended DVD versions of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (something he’s been meaning to do for a few years now). So I figured “meh, why not”. At least pretty much every other film I watch this year will be shorter.

There have been some pretty big gambles made throughout the history of film. Some ended up being financially successful – George Lucas’s new Star Wars trilogy springs to mind – whereas for others the risk of a big budget didn’t pay off: stand up, Waterworld.

But for New Line Cinema to let Peter Jackson, a director with no real blockbuster hits at that point, take a huge budget ($500 million dollars including publicity and marketing) and film a nine-hour long trilogy of movies back-to-back – not to mention the fact that the films were based on one of the most well-respected works of modern fiction ever – was one hell of a huge gamble.

Thankfully, it paid off.

The Fellowship Of The Ring is the complete opposite of your typical action-packed, 90-minute “popcorn film”. Clocking in at around three hours in length (with an extra half an hour on top of that if you’re watching the extended DVD version I watched), the pace is slower than a snail going through mud and there’s very little action throughout the whole of the film, with only one major sword fight. Yet despite this, the film doesn’t actually drag.

It’s strange, because had this been any other film with any other director I’d probably be saying that it was incredibly dull and asking the likes of “how many wide overhead shots of a group of people walking on a mountain do we need”. Yet for this film, somehow, it doesn’t matter. In choosing his native New Zealand as the shooting location, Jackson has given the world of Middle Earth an amazing backdrop and every one of those wide shots – dull as a two-watt bulb in other films – look amazing. This film is screaming out for the HD treatment.

In terms of the other components of the film, there can be no complaints. The acting is absolutely spot-on from everyone involved, with the possible exception of Billy Boyd who just seems out of place with his accent. While I do love hearing a Scottish accent in a film (it brings out the patriot in me), it just doesn’t work in this fantasy setting. How come all the other Hobbits in Hobbiton have decent “Farmer Giles” accents, whereas one single Hobbit sounds like he’s just turned up from the west end of Glasgow? Had Boyd tried a similar accent to that of his Hobbit mates then it’d have made his character more believable. As it was, every time he spoke I just kept thinking that he was a Scottish actor rather than a Hobbit.

Thankfully, Boyd’s accent is the only thing in that film that was unwelcome to my ears. The film has a fantastic orchestral score that really tugs on the heartstrings at just the right moments.

Although the other two films in the trilogy are better due to the introduction of Gollum and huge battle scenes, The Fellowship Of The Ring is still a fantastic film, even if all that really happens throughout the three and a half hours is a lad getting a ring, being told to destroy it, getting chummy with some bigger guys, heading out then splitting up to go on two different adventures that don’t actually happen yet. In the grand scheme of things, it’s only a prologue: you couldn’t just watch this film on its own and be satisfied at the ending. But what a prologue it is.

4 out of 5

The "To See" List

As I previously mentioned, I write for a video games magazine. Not only does the magazine in question consistently sell 50,000+ copies a month, it also has a popular forum which (thankfully) is graced with some of the friendliest, most entertaining members you'll ever find.

I decided to stick a thread on that forum to let them know about this task, and they've been really supportive. Some of them have also suggested films that I should watch, no doubt for one of three reasons:

1) Because they love the films and want me to enjoy them too
2) Because they'd love to know what my opinion is on those particular films
3) Because they're the worst films they've ever seen and they want me to suffer and (hopefully) write an abusive review

Whatever their reason, I've taken some of their suggestions into account and have added them to my big "to see" list.

Basically, here's a list of the films that I'd like to see at some point during the year. I'm subscribed to an account with LoveFilm so I've got a good DVD list going with them at the moment, so this list will comprise mainly of the better films I have queued on my LoveFilm list along with the suggestions made from the members of my magazine's forum.

THE LIST (AKA "TEH LISTZORZ")
300
Akira
Amelie
American History X
American Pie: Band Camp
Belleville Rendezvous
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bogus Journey
Bio-Dome
Blazing Saddles
Bruce Almighty
Children Of Men
Children Of The Corn series
Cool Runnings
Cruel Intentions
Dead Man's Shoes
Die Hard 1-4
District 13
Enter The Dragon
The Fountain
Flags Of Our Fathers
Hard Boiled
Head Cheerleader, Dead Cheerleader
The Host
Inland Empire
Johnny Tsunami
The Killer Shrews
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Life Is Beautiful
Little Miss Sunshine
Midnight Cowboy
Mortal Kombat
Old Boy
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 and 3
Schindler's List
Short Circuit 1 and 2
Sideways
Street Fighter
Super Mario Bros
Tarantula
Taxi Driver
The Thing
The Usual Suspects
The Virgin Suicides
World Trade Center

Some of those films I've seen before and fancy watching again for the purposes of reviewing them, some I've always wanted to see and some were forum members' recommendations that I have never heard of (I'm particularly scared of Johnny Tsunami, which I believe qualifies as point 3 in the reasons at the top of this entry). I mean, take a look at this:

Seriously, what the hell is that.

Anyway, that "to see list" might look big, but the reality is that (including the series and multiple sequels) that's only 56 films.

Of course, that doesn't mean it won't be difficult. Especially if there are more Johnny Tsunamis waiting in the wings.

A New Beginning

Last year, I tried to watch 366 films in 366 days. I ended up doing about 12 and giving up. Where I come from, that's generally regarded as a failure.

This year I'm not going to set myself such a ridiculous task, but I still want to watch and review films in my spare time, because they're my other major love (along with video games and Celtic). So this new blog will consist of reviews: mostly of movies, but maybe with the odd retro game review thrown in for good measure. Basically, it just depends on how I'm feeling.

Yes, the first seven reviews are the ones taken from my "366 in 366" blog. That's because I've shut that one down now and I didn't want those reviews to disappear.

The films that will be reviewed in this blog will be wide-ranging. For the most part I won't be reviewing modern films: this is because I don't usually get the chance to go to the cinema, and I prefer older, more off-the-wall films. As a result, you can expect many of the films I review to be either 70s or 80s classics, or weird and wonderful B-movies that you may never have heard of.

Anyway, hopefully this site is more successful than the other one (!) and I hope you enjoy.

Chris