Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Wah Wah - Gemma

Written and directed by Richard E. Grant and based on his childhood in Swaziland, this movie is highly entertaining. With plenty of laughs and great acting, definitely worth a look.

Rating: 8/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Gemma

No deep thinking required - just good entertainment. Laughs all the way. Johnny Depp is hilarious. You probably need to have watched the original as well!

Rating: 8/10

Jindabyne - Gemma

This movie is quite emotional and you need to concentrate to understand everything thats happening. Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne are fantastic. It is a really enjoyable movie to watch.

Rating: 7/10

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Joyeux Noel - Adam N

This film is set during the first world war and is a dramatisation of an actual event, when German soldiers on the frontline called a truce with French and Scottish soldiers on Christmas eve. Both sides shared food, wine and song with the truce lasting into the next day. The film highlights the absurdity of war and is slow to get started but really enjoyable to watch once it gets going.

8/10

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Zozo - Adam N

This is a Swedish-Lebanese film about a boy who must go alone to Sweden, to live with his grand-parents who immigrated there, after his family are killed during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980's.
It's set in both Lebanon, as his family prepare to go to Sweden, and in Sweden, after the boy (Zozo) makes it there on his own.
The Lebanese side of things is good, except for the bit where he talks to a chicken and the chicken talks back. The Swedish side of things is pathetic and I stopped watching it.

3/10

Brokeback Mountain - Adam N

Brokeback Mountain is the tale of two cowboys who find themselves on the same job, looking after a bunch of sheep on Brokeback Mountain where they start a sexual relationship that is ultimately doomed due to an unacceptance of homosexuality within their society. Hence, they meet infrequently under the pretense of going fishing and even start heterosexual families, one in Texas and the other in Wyoming.
The scenery is great and the acting is superb, although I had to watch it with subtitles on as the southern accents (mumblings), especially from Heath Ledger, were exceedingly hard to discern.

8/10

The Weather Man - Adam N

This is watchable but not great. It doesn't touch on anything you haven't seen before but is probably better acted than most. The story has Nicholas Cage playing a successful weather man, although the success in his job does not carry through to his family. He basically spends the film realising that his dreams of making everything right again with his family are nothing more than dreams.

5/10