This film wins the award for most time spent in Mars Dune Buggies

This was an interesting little Sci-Fi piece if not borrowing very heavily from Apollo 18 and the whole notion that there are all sorts of microbiological nasties lurking out there in space for unsuspecting astronauts.

As the film opens manned (and womaned) missions to Mars appear to be well underway with a survey team digging up bits of rock and sand. Then one of them finds something resembling life and…well I think you can guess the rest.

Whilst I enjoyed the film my only complaint would probably be that a lot of the scenes were too drawn out, especially hours of travelling in Mars dune buggies. Whilst I appreciate this would probably be close to reality and all, something else could perhaps have happened as well. No “Ash is a goddam Robot” moments here (yes it borrowed from Alien also) just here is mars, here is monster, run, run away.

I’m an American teenager. I have seen decades of Summer Camp Slasher flicks yet I still go camping alone on an island believing everything will be “OK”

Have you ever seen Friday the 13th? Well just imagine one of those horrible American summer camps with one lowly camper and mix in Friday and you pretty much have Solo!

It was an interesting premise I suppose: In order to prove they have the right stuff to help campers, new counsellors have to spend two days alone on an island just off the camp.

Of course very quickly we realise that the young damsel is not actually alone and the slashing and screams really get started.

Nothing much here, frankly fairly boring but if you like slasher flicks and don’t mind knowing pretty much whodunit in the first half hour of the film (pretty easy to guess this one), give it a go.

An interesting little film from the days when Charlie Sheen was not being rushed into Rehab.  Sheen plays an advisor to the president (Sam Waterson) who wants to take on that mighty nasty military machine that rules America with Corporate money.

Naturally Corporate money has something to say about the kindly Waterson’s plans for scaling down Military spending and a fairly interesting conspiracy flick ensues.

Whilst not nearly as good a film their are strong elements of The Three Days of the Condor in here which makes it quite an enjoyable couple of hours.

Its interesting to see Linda Hamilton of Terminator fame playing a less than burly print journalist, complete with really silly, girly hats.

Oh and Paula Patton was in it too..

A fairly funny if not at times confusing offering from Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, Bill Paxton and Edward James Olmos. At first we are presented with two bank robbers and it all looks fairly straightforward – then things start to get complicated!

Outstanding performances from all as you might expect, although I tend to think Edward James is starting to look just that bit too “cuddly” to play Columbian Drug tsars (So say we all),.

I’m not sure if anyone told Bill Paxton that it was sort of a comedy film, as he played it pretty much dead pan start to finish. If anyone gets points for being the best nasty character he wins hands down.

Submarines..you wouldn’t get me in one!

A friend who is crazy about submarine flicks gave me this film to watch and what I found was a very interesting horror film based around a WWII American submarine. As the film begins the submarine picks up 3 mysterious strangers from a ship wreck and then things start getting strange.

The confined atmosphere of the submarine adds a lot to the tension of this film and unlike your standard sort of Ghost story, the haunted can’t just pack the family Truckster and runaway to a Motel 6 in the Middle of the night!

I won’t ruin the film for you by telling you how it ends, but it stands up to the Horror test very well.

This is a very funny film about a man who loses his job and ends up inadvertently working as a Hit Man for the local mob. Along the way he meets a traveller who he persuades to do the actual killing for him, as he can’t quite stomach the job.

Not exactly The Godfather but a very quirky and well written film with some delightfully funny scenes.

Leonardo was “Great” as Gatsby but what was with all the Nasty sounding Hip Hop?

I was always very affected by the F. Scott Fitzgerald book of The Great Gatsby, although when I first read it at 14 I thought it was a tale of undying love, now middle-aged I think it was more about what a mega-bitch Daisy was!

I was looking forward to this big budget film. I was a little disappointed with the film made of the book in the seventies starring Robert Redford and expected this “Titanic” production would redeem Hollywood’s treatment of the book.

The film itself was absolutely brilliant and captured every subtle nuance of the book. The characters were just as I had always imagined them and the acting performances were superb.

The film was utterly ruined by a dismal choice of music for the soundtrack. In the first hour the films brilliance was soiled by completely inappropriate nasty sounding hip hop, not a tune from the era as you would expect, but some gangster rapper chanting away about killing someone or other. In the second half of the film for some reason this seemed to stop and the score actually fitted the movie. Now don’t get me wrong, I quite like hip hop, but it was completely out of place in this film. Maybe they realised this in the second hour? Very strange.

I buy a lot of DVD’s and this is certainly one I “would” purchase, but they will have to get rid of the ridiculous music soundtrack first. I am hoping for a DVD with a “nasty rap off” option.

Ok this movie is scary! Don’t watch it late on a Saturday night in the wee small hours as I did and make sure the cat is put to bed and not going to  suddenly leap on your lap at the most frightening part…

Based sort of on the true lives of Paranormal Investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the film follows one of their most famous cases of a house haunted by several malignant spirits. I’m not exactly buying into the whole ghosts-exist-this-really-happened argument, but the investigators featured in the film were at least real.

This film resembled Poltergeist in a lot of ways and I have a feeling the original film was also based on this case. Basically a large family move into a large old house and then start being terrorized by thumps in the night. We learn the house has had a terrible history, you know the standard sort of thing!

A scene from A Soft Touch

A very funny and interesting Scottish film which tells three loosely connected stories.

In story number one Boab is having a bad day. He gets kicked out of his football team, his parents ask him to move out, he loses his job and his girlfriend dumps him for another bloke. Suffering from his bad day Boab sits in a pub drowning his sorrows and runs into god complete with Scottish accent and colourful swearing. God decides he’s had enough of him just letting everything go bad for him without trying to stop it and turns Boab into a fly. Boab uses his new fly-guise to wreck havoc and revenge.

In story number two we meet A soft touch and follow his marriage falling apart due to his  unfaithful wife. In the end he of course just gets back with her, despite her having him beaten up and variously humiliated.

Story Number three is by far the weirdest: in a bolt of lightning a LSD addled young man swaps places with a new born baby and wakes up in the mothers arms. After keeping his peace for some time he finally speaks up (the baby is a very cute puppet) and tells his new mother he’d like to go to the pub instead of going to the park!

When I first received this review title I thought it was some sort of weird Stars Wars porn flick (ie. Skywalker ranch)! But then I discovered it was something quite different.

I don’t know..are we sick of these “found Footage” films yet? This was not a bad film, maintained tension well, turned out quite interesting, but I don’t know..I’ve seen it all before.

When such films were first being made (The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Gamera..I mean Cloverfield etc.) it was a way of generating extra tension and making us watch the screen intently as tapes dropped in and out. I am slowly starting to just find it cheap and irritating, almost like the film maker was too lazy to make a film properly.

Not a bad plot and the final discovery will have you clutching your chair and all that of course, just wish they’d made the same movie in a traditional narrative style.