A massive list of films I’ve seen recently (and some spoiler ‘best bits’)

I seem to have seen quite a few films in the past few weeks both in the cinema and on DVD and not blogged about them, so here goes…

Alice in Wonderland (IMAX 3-D)
Tim Burton’s much-hyped remake that plays a bit fast and loose with the Alice story. I enjoyed it and it was very good but I felt it lacked a certain something, probably because I was very excited by the prospect what with being a bit Tim Burton fan. There’s always that thing that if you go expecting something amazing you’ll end up disappointed. In the end it was a bit more miss than hit really. The visuals like the way the card soldiers were conceived were very good though.

Best bit: An armoured Alice starts listing the six impossible things she believes before breakfast. “Number six! I can kill the Jabberwocky!”
Jongudmund’s rating: 7/10


How to Train Your Dragon (IMAX 3-D)
Dreamworks do a Viking saga with dragons, explosions and lots more. The storyline veered from average e.g. formulaic outcast inventor kid (see A Bug’s Life, Jimmy Neutron, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) becomes the hero and earns the love of a pretty girl, though to something a but unique, e.g. the reason the dragons have to keep stealing sheep. The film succeeds because by the end I wanted to own a dragon, so obviously it had an impact. My only (minor) gripe was giving the Vikings Scottish accents.

Best bit: The IMAX came into its own with the scene in the ash cloud as wispy ash seemed to float all around me. Otherwise any of the dragon swooping and soaring sequences.
Jongudmund’s rating: 8/10


Date Night (Cinema 2-D)
I have not laughed so much at anything labelled a comedy. That’s because usually Hollywood comedies are usually dire retreads of vaguely funny ideas. This was busting with funny moments, from Steve Carell’s exasperation that Mark Wahlberg won’t put a shirt on, through to lowlife criminals having a domestic, and constant horror that the main characters took someone else’s restaurant reservation. It had a bit of a too neat ending, but I can’t begin to count the laugh out loud moments, and there were one or two excruciating bite-your-knuckles-with-embarrassment moments too.

Best bits: Steve Carell licks a stripper pole (gross!); Tina Fey seeks to play down Carell’s insult to a mob boss – “It’s okay, when he says vagina, he means your face!”
Jongudmund’s rating: 9/10


Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (DVD)
Average animation really. A few laughs. As in How to Train Your Dragon (above), the nerdy protagonist inventor becomes a hero, although his creation (a machine that turns water vapour into food) eventually threatens all life on earth. I think kids would enjoy it, but it’s not going to be one I watch frequently.

Best bit: Honestly hard to think of one. Nice to hear Mr T doing one of the voices.
Jongudmund’s rating: 5/10


Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (DVD)
I loved the first Ice Age movie. The second one was okay, and this is similarly mediocre. For some bizarre reason Sid the Sloth decides to hatch some eggs he finds in a hidden underground valley. Turns out they are dinosaur eggs. What I liked about the first Ice Age movie was the vaguely realistic depiction of strange Ice Age animals, like giant sloths. But I’ve seen enough dinosaurs. Some of the other side characters like the possums are starting to get annoying. This franchise just ain’t cool any more. Although Scrat’s dalliance with a femme fatale who is trying to steal his nuts just about rescues it.

Best bits: One of the dino hatchlings has to cough up other ‘kids’ that he tried to eat in the play-park and keeps coughing up the wrong ones much to Sid's embarrassment; the Scrat versus Scratte love triangle with an acorn
Jongudmund’s rating: 6/10


Sweeney Todd (DVD)
Tim Burton’s bloody filmic version of Sondheim’s blood-letting musical. Bit of a complicated plot (although I followed it), and the usual grimy gothic sets you’d expect with Burton, plus lots and lots of blood. Spurting and splashing and oozing and bubbling blood. Johnny Depp is just scary as Sweeney. Helena Bonham Carter brings a lot of pathos to pie-maker Mrs Lovett. Sacha Baron Cohen is very amusing as a rival barber. And Timothy Spall and Alan Rickman are suitably loathsome as corrupt beedle and judge respectively. Pretty much everyone dies in bloody throat-slitting fashion and for good measure their skulls crack when they drop down the chute under Sweeney’s chair. Oh, yeah, and there’s blood.

Best bit: Feeling betrayed by his accomplice, Sweeney waltzes Mrs Lovett into her pie oven and slams the door on her as she burns.
Jongudmund’s rating: 7/10

Just occasionally I get to say 'told you so'

Terri, our current resident waif and stray, has just started working down the local Odeon and brought home some bad news the other day.

"We're not getting Alice in Wonderland for the IMAX," she announced. "Apparently Disney are being arses and no one's going to show it."

Now, while it was true there was a spat between Disney and the cinemas because Disney want to release the DVD a mere 12 weeks after its cinematic release instead of the industry standard 17 weeks, I thought it was unlikely nowhere would show it at all. True enough a few days later the Cineworld chain broke with its movie-showing brethren and said they would have it.

But apparently Odeon were holding fast. Tez insisted it wasn't going to happen. I went 'Yeah, it will...' And then today the BBC reported that... 'Yeah, it will.'

Which in a way is a shame because Disney do perhaps need someone to stand up to them. And stuff comes out on DVD so fast now anyway it's slowly killing off the joyous wait for the film you really crave to see again. Pretty soon we'll all have films beamed instantaneously into our heads whether we want them or not.

But in another way it's cool, because I'll get to see a Tim-Burtonified Wonderland at the IMAX just down the road. Oh, yes, and because I got to say the most satisfying three words in the English language to Tez.

Told you so.

Films and DVD review: 9, Up in the Air, Cloverfield

Two trips to the cinema within a week is unusual for me. The first one was to the newly revamped Chapter Arts Centre (which is very swanky indeed) to see an oddball animation called 9, produced by Tim Burton, no less.

The set up is this: a small stitchpunk doll comes to life in a strange room in the ruins of a bombed out city. He has the number 9 on his back. He goes outside and meets other like him (numbered 1 to 8). Together they try to work out what happened to all the people.

It’s a promising start, and the animation was done well, but as Cathy said it lacked that certain something. It wasn’t a film I’d take small kids to as it was distinctly more grown up than most animations. There were a few problems with the script – characters seemed to act in quite self-contradictory ways, particularly the traditionalist number 1. So, all in all, I enjoyed it, but it’s not one I’d watch again in a hurry.

We did get to see a trailer for Tim Burton’s next cinematic foray: Alice in Wonderland, which looks like it will be a relatively faithful version of the book in all its weirdness. It’s being made by Disney, but hopefully will still be as dark as a Lewis Carroll/Tim Burton crossover could be.

The second cinema trip was to see Up in the Air, the new George Clooney vehicle. This was made by the same guy who did Thank You for Smoking, which surprised me when I saw it a couple of years ago.

The formula is similar: the main character is a smug git who does a fairly reprehensible job, but does it well, but then has some sort of awakening. There were a lot of thinking points in the film – why is the main character so obsessed with accruing airline miles and loyalty points when he also gives ‘motivational’ lectures telling people to abandon all the relationships that tie them down. That was interesting. What kind of person avoids commitment to people yet value loyalty to corporations?

Helped by a relatively sharp script and some genuinely funny lines, and of course, George in fine form, this film moves along at a good pace. Cathy and I both spotted the twist that was to come near the end, but someone in our audience didn’t, letting out a very loud gasp that caused most of the other punters in the cinema to titter. And generally, I left feeling glad I went, which isn’t always the case.

And now a DVD review. I watched Cloverfield the other day, which I have discovered is a film that bitterly divides people between those who thought it was interesting and enjoyed it and those who thought it sucked mighty ass. As all JJ Abrams projects seem to do.

Personally I’m glad I didn’t see it in a cinema as the handheld camera angle, the running and the shaking were tiresome. But, as a monster movie I thought it worked okay. There were no answers, and characters were left in the dark, which meant you the viewer are in the dark too (literally at one point), but in a way I liked that. I like having to think in a movie and I find them more effective when I have to engage my imagination.

So, for me, Cloverfield worked. I probably won’t watch it again, simply because of time constraints, not because I didn’t like it.

Jongudmund’s Ratings:
9 ~ 5/10 Worth a look
Up in the Air ~ 8/10 Like!
Cloverfield ~ 6/10 One for DVD