Anyway, enough chat out of me. This is a review.

The Crazies was a film that I really wanted to see in the cinema. I thought the trailer looked great and it’s a remake of a 1973 George A. Romero film called, believe it or not, The Crazies. So I figured this might be a horror film that had some ideas behind it. Even if they were re-hashed. At least it’s a re-hashing of a film that might have been good.

Actually I have no idea if the original Crazies was any good. I haven’t seen it. I hadn’t even heard of it till this one came out… so in retrospect, it probably isn’t a classic. That’s good though, it’s always messy trying to remake a classic. They always end up trying to please too many people.

Anyway, time went by and I never bothered my arse going to the cinema to see it. I really regret that now. I ended up watching it on DVD and I have to say, I bet it looked great on the big screen. There are some big sweeping looking scenes. This was that good-looking cinematography I mentioned in the “releasing this week” post. Ah well.

What of the film though? I liked it. In fact, I thought it was good. Mainly I liked the concept… which obviously I won’t talk about. No spoilers and all that jazz. All I’ll say that it’s zombie-invasion stylee. It worked well, built up the tension. I was even a little worried there might be some “crazies” round my house when I got home. It was after 2am…

Unfortunately it was not without flaws. You always have to suspend a little disbelief for these kinds of films but when a character makes the same mistake time and time again it starts to wear away your tolerance. I was complaining loudly about said character by the end of it. Seriously. You just can’t keep wandering off when everyone’s catching murder around you. Bah. a black spot on an otherwise very enjoyable horror film.

I didn’t let it bother me too much though. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a half decent horror film I’m willing to overlook a smack of idiocy on the part of the supporting characters. Director Breck Eisner even kept it interesting enough and moving at a fast enough pace for me to (mostly) overlook some of the more obviously plot holes – just pretend it could have happened people, just pretend it could have happened.

There’s not that much to write home about performance-wise. That is, they were all fairly bland… and probably slightly too good looking. I always think that makes a horror film look cheap. Not really fair but that’s just what I tend to think. Timothy Olyphant was reasonable but the script left something to be desired… I get the impression that, as the lead character, he had more to work with than the others. So perhaps any criticism of their abilities is somewhat unfair.

It was still good though, all the tension is built by the direction and the cinematography, so I’d be looking forward to seeing more from Eisner. And from cinematographer, Maxime Alexandre, apparently he did Switchblade Romance (Haute Tension) as well…. I didn’t love it but I think I remember it looking pretty good.

Oh, I forgot to mention., I like the title. It works for me.

7/10

Ok, ok, I’ll tell you what it is. A Serbian Film is probably the most notorious film you’ve never heard of. Well actually, you might have heard of it but just not realised. It’s the film that, in the UK last year, became the most censored film in 16 years – the BBFC decided to cut 4 minutes 11 seconds out of it for it to get a cinema release. Or perhaps you heard this – it’s the one that, earlier this month, got a Spanish film festival director accused of showing child pornography. No? Ah ok. Well, it’s that one…

A Serbian Film is an example of transgressive cinema. There may be more extreme films out there on the fringes of legal but if there are, I haven’t heard of them. To boil it down though, it’s a horror film about a retired porno star. If none of these things I’ve mentioned about it have in any way piqued your interest then definitely, move along. Nothing to see here.

Still here? Ok, so either you’ve already heard of it or you’re curious about it.

Right, two last things before I get to talking about the film. Firstly, I’m not here to cater to sick weirdos, nor am I here to save you from watching it. I’m not going to describe the various “shocking” scenes in this film. If you must know I’m sure there are various sites on the internet that will tell you. Hey, you can probably find some of the scenes on YouTube, off you go. Secondly, I decided I’m not going to give a rating out of 10 on this one. I don’t see how I can. I just going to tell you what I thought of it. That’s it.

Context. I’m a very curious person. I’ve seen quite a few “extreme” films. I’m not easily shocked. I’m not particularly squeamish. I don’t watch it myself but I’m not rabidly against porn. I like to make up my own mind.

I’d first heard about A Serbian Film in August 2010 when it was announced the Film4 FrightFest would not be showing it because of the cuts demanded by the BBFC. Then I read about it, about how horrific it supposedly was, all the “ban this sick filth” kind of stuff. It’s not that I particularly get a kick out of seeing stuff like that but I’m just that curious – I’ve seen some bad things happen on screen, how bad can it be?

The first thing that struck me at the end of it was that it was far more of a film than I expected it to be. To be honest I was rather expecting a mish-mashed collection of exploitative horrific scenes of gore. I thought it might be a bit of a laugh with a few good kills. At worst I thought it’d be a more extreme version of Hostel. I did not like Hostel.

That’s not what this film is at all. It is actually a film, with characters and a plot and everything. Granted, it’s not an enjoyable film. I find it impossible to say that I liked it. It’s challenging, no doubt, but that’s really the point. And it’s technically good. It looks great. This is not dodgy hand-held, “sure, we’ll just knock together any old crap” film-making. There’s real skill in this. Now, perhaps that’s so surprising that I’m giving too much credit, but this is a debut feature so credit where credit’s due. The director, Srdjan Spasojevic uses simple but effective devices to enhance the story-telling and he manages to (mostly) weave all those horrific scenes together into a coherent narrative.

The film-makers are adamant that it’s an allegory for how Serbian people and Serbian artists are being treated by their institutions. You can read their statement here.

I buy that. I don’t believe this film was made for pure exploitation. I think it was made by an angry man who wanted to put his point across in the strongest way that he felt he could reach people. The problem is, amidst the numerous scenes of rape, torture, porn and, from time to time, child abuse, it’s not an allegory that’s easy to make out – As in, I don’t see how you could possibly see it if you weren’t told. I suppose that’s why they have to keep going around telling people. Honestly, there’s no way. I know, I know, he even called the film “A SERBIAN FILM” but I’m sorry dude. There’s just no way.

I guess in a sense then, it’s not a particularly effective film. Or maybe that means it’s too effective. You’re so overwhelmed by watching poor Milos getting fucked over that you don’t notice that it’s not just Milos getting fucked over, it’s everybody. And man, does he get fucked over or what…

I forgot to tell you who Milos is. Ok. Like I said earlier, it’s a horror film about a retired porno star. Milos is the porno star. Quick intro – Our friend Milos is a nice family man who’s having trouble making ends meet. He used to, apparently, be the greatest porno star there ever was but that’s all behind him now. Until he’s made an offer, do this one last job and you and your family will be set for life. All you have to do is act natural… It’s never that simple is it?

So. I’d better get to talking about what everyone else has talked about. You know, the rape, the torture, the murder, the porn, the child abuse, how it all happens at once… Yeah. That “newborn porn” thing? That happens. Awful things happen in this film. If you watch it you will see horrible, horrific things happen. This is a fact. Let’s get this clear though. There is absolutely no suggestion that these things are ok. You’re not supposed to be looking dumbly at this, laughing away. All these things are portrayed as terrible acts. This is not an amoral film.

Some might say that this goes beyond the boundaries of what you should commit to celluloid. Having watched this, I don’t think there should be boundaries*. I don’t think anyone should have the right to stop a film-maker making a film like this. Undoubtedly this will mean that that “mish-mashed collection of exploitative horrific scenes of gore” I feared, will be made. I’m sure A Serbian Film has opened that particular flood gate, but so be it.

Personally, I haven’t been scarred for life by watching it. I said on the facebook page earlier that, how you find watching it will depend on who you are, and particularly on how you are affected by what you see on a screen. To me, scenes like these are fake. I’m sure some stuff this bad does happen to people but it’s not happening in front of me now. It’s not the news, it’s just a film.

Which is not to say that I’m never affected by the films I watch, but it’s generally emotional films that get to me. Ones that I can relate to and empathise with. I think the film that affected me the most was Grave of the Fireflies. The turn of phrase is that one “can’t imagine what it would be like”. That’s not true. I couldn’t know what it would be like but the film certainly makes me imagine it. A Serbian Film does not make me imagine what it would be like to be Milos – I don’t relate to it like that.

I’m sure that means that I didn’t experience it the way the film-makers wanted me to. I know I said it wasn’t exploitation, but at the same time I’m sure that the film-makers do want you to be disgusted, horrified, repulsed. They felt they needed to show the nasty, ugly side of whatever it was that they were railing against, by showing you something nasty and ugly. And it is nasty and ugly and all those other things. But I won’t be dreaming about what I saw. Hell, I’ve seen it twice now and I can still close my eyes at night.

Don’t get me wrong. It is horrifying. And disgusting. And repulsive. It’s not like I felt blasé watching it. I’m not that jaded. Even though I’d heard about some of the things that happen, I hadn’t heard about others. It is shocking stuff, it just doesn’t prey on my mind now.

Anyway, if you’re asking yourself “Should I watch A Serbian Film?” then… well. I can’t tell you that. I could not recommend that anyone watch it. And I deliberately leave out the “in good conscience” modifier there – I could not recommend anyone watch it – even to be cruel, even for a laugh to see them squirm. But conversely I can’t say that no-one should watch it. I would possibly tell certain people I know not to watch it, because I know them well and I know it would disturb them, but that’s as far as I would go.

Fact is, you’ll have to make that choice for yourself. I do think people should be warned – if you watch this film you will see horrific, extremely violent things happen to people. And a lot of sex, that seems to get forgotten over violence sometimes. You probably haven’t seen anything like A Serbian Film before. You’re probably not going to enjoy it. Remember you were told this. I’ve seen Martyrs, I’ve seen Visitor Q, not even close.

I had the good fortune, the second time, to see this with a group of people. A group who didn’t know this was what they were going to see. I liked that, it was nice to get to talk about it afterwards and hear what other people thought – certainly it was better than sitting alone in my room wondering what the hell I was going to do with the rest of the evening… One person remarked that it was a conversation starter. Perhaps…

Have you seen A Serbian Film? No, what’s it about? Err…

Have you seen A Serbian Film? Yes. Ah, ok, did you enjoy it? Err…


Like I said earlier, I’m not doing a rating out of 10 on this one, I’ve chickened out… To sum up, all I’ll say is that, in my opinion, it’s not shite.

So there you have it, it’s up to you now.

* = Well, there should be legal boundaries in the sense that no-one taking part in the film should be exploited or subjected to any risks but I mean artistically.

… Then I didn’t hear about it again until it popped up on DVD this week. I figured, hey, why not?

I have to admit, I had low expectations… real low. I really didn’t like Open Water. But, to be honest, I’m actually glad I did bother in the end.

The Reef is a much more interesting film than that one. Written and directed by Andrew Traucki and starring a cast of unknowns… well to be fair, I have no idea if they’re known in Australia, but they’re unknown to me, it skips along at a jaunty pace. While I wouldn’t claim that I really felt for the characters, they were decent and likeable so you didn’t want to see them get eaten by an ol’ Great White. As I so often would in these types of films. Traucki even manages to throw in a bit of subplot which doesn’t feel tacked on for the sake of it. Definitely a cut above the usual.

Speaking of the shark, or sharks, they looked good! No cheapo special effects here. Those were real sharks and with them the film-maker managed to create some real tension. No mean feat in a film where you’re pretty sure you know what’s going to happen from the minute you look at the DVD cover.

All in all, it’s a good addition to the genre. Worth a look, and a bag of popcorn, if it appears in your local DVD store.

Hmm… this may actually be the shortest review I’ve ever done.

7/10

The Reef is out on DVD from 24th January 2011.

If you don’t know by now that this is my favourite genre of film then… I guess you just haven’t read my review of The Road, or my top 10 films of the decade article where I talk about Children of Men, or the previews of Repo Men, The Book of Eli or Daybreakers. Which is grand. I don’t expect people to read everything I write…

But anyway, if you didn’t know that, now you do.

Knowing that then you probably won’t be surprised that I’m well excited by the latest trailer for Priest. This may lose me some friends and alienate people but… I’m a sucker for these kinds of films. What can I say? I think it just looks cool.

As far as I can glean, it’s about these priests who are meant to fight evil. It would appear the evil is in the form of some kind of mad looking vampires. I don’t know why. I don’t really care why so it’s all good. All I’m sure about is that it’s all very dark and ominous looking. Just the way I like it.

Further research reveals that it is loosely based on a Korean manhwa of the same name.* Interesting. Hopefully this means there’ll be some kind of plot to back up all this action in the trailer.

Course there’s some out there who remember Legion (which I didn’t see) and are very skeptical. Maybe they’re right to be. I couldn’t possibly comment. I do think Paul Bettany plays a great creepy bastard though and that any film can be improved by the casting of Cam Gigandet. So…

Speaking of Cam Gigandet, I looked back over my Burlesque review and I’m actually shocked I didn’t mention him. I swear, they must have decided that Ali was made of steel in that film. Made of steel.

Anyway I’m looking forward to it. I may live to regret saying all of this though. It could turn out to be awful. Here’s hoping for a good ‘un.

Wikipedia (today, 21st Dec 2010) defines burlesque as “a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration.” That’s not really what the people in this film are doing at all. It’s more… cabaret. Guess they couldn’t really call it Cabaret though. Given the number of remakes floating around these days that would have been way too confusing.

I just thought you should know that from the outset. If you’re looking for a film about burlesque, this is not it. It’s not even particularly humorous. Well, not intentionally… However, if you’re looking for a fun, light film with good dancing, fabulous costumes and great music then this is the film for you.

I have to admit, I was very skeptical about Burlesque. I was not impressed with the trailer at all. I really wasn’t on for a small-town-girl-in-the-big-city, realising-dreams, dramaorama. Fortunately for me, I decided to go along anyway… I like musicals and even though it didn’t look very musical, I’d heard it was, so all good.

Thinking about it, you shouldn’t even watch the trailer. It’s completely misleading and it really doesn’t emphasise the songs… which are great, and for which I actually think it has a good shot at an Oscar for. The one thing I will say about it is that at least it doesn’t really give anything away. Not that there’s much of a plot or anything to give away… but at least it doesn’t fall into that trap of showing you all the good stuff that so many trailers do these days. For some reason they’ve just decided to show you a load of crap bits instead. I really don’t get the trailer at all. Watch the video at the end of this article. It’ll give you a much better idea of what to expect.

But enough about the trailer. What of the film? As I’m sure you’ve realised by now. I really enjoyed it. It’s not a particularly good film in the sense of… well… however one would classically define a good film; I’d imagine you’d worry about plot, script, characterisation, that kind of thing… but like I said, if you’re just looking for a bit of light-hearted fun and some great singing then it’s great.

In my eyes it doesn’t take any massive mis-steps and that’s where a lot of otherwise comfortably cheesy films fall down. There’s no really annoying characters, the actors aren’t appallingly bad. There’s a few real clunkers of lines but nothing you can’t ignore, or laugh about if you’re so inclined. And while the plot is nothing to write home about, it was a little convoluted in places but there was enough there to keep it rolling along at a decent pace… you know, to fill in the gaps between the singing and dancing… and the looking at the fabulous costumes. Did I mention they’re fabulous? Fabulous. I am a bit of a magpie though.

That said, as much as I enjoyed it. I do want to complain about one thing. Stanley Tucci got a decent bit of screen time. He could have done more, had more of a character but no-one did so ok… but Alan Cumming was criminally underused. I love Alan Cumming. Plus he was the only character that did anything approaching burlesque in the film. They could have given him at least one full routine… even if it was just to justify the title… no? no? Bah. Anyway that out of the way, it’s still good.

Obviously now, I wouldn’t recommend everyone go see it though. First of all, you have to like musicals. This isn’t a true musical as it were but if you hate them, you’ll probably hate this. Second, you have to not worry about having to take a little leap of faith when it comes to plot. Lastly, you have to like Christina Aguliera. I mean she’s in it a lot so if you don’t like her or her voice it’ll be a problem. If you have one of these issues, stay away. Stay very far away…

…Or you might get hit by a sequin.

7.5/10

… Or perhaps it’s not that odd at all. The success of the recently revived Star Trek and, of course, of Avatar proved that audiences are still willing to go to a sci-fi adventure in their droves. Undoubtedly TRON: Legacy was already at least pre-production when both these films came out but after seeing how big those films were it surely must have made Disney feel that they would be on safer footing when it came to how to pushing it out to the mass market.

And on that they seem to have spared no expense – they’ve created numerous interesting featurettes about the making of the film and game, made country specific efforts to engage with the major social media such as Facebook and Twitter. They ran competitions on Irish websites to win tickets to a special preview screening of 23 minutes of footage. They even live-streamed the UK premiere on Ireland.com. It’s great to see so much effort being made to allow the online community around it to develop.

My biggest fear is of course that this is building it up too much. I mean you’re reading the writings of a person who looks at their feet during trailers in the cinema in an effort to go into films with no expectations. In this case though, I’ve seen the trailers. I was even lucky enough to go to the 23 minute preview. I really really hope this film is worth it. Ok, I still have reservations about how 3D can look a bit dark and murky sometimes but I did think the footage looked great, and that scared me. I don’t want to hope too much… but also… I love sci-fi so there’s no way I’m not going to be excited about this film.

So I’m not going to go on about it any more… lest I spoil it on myself. I’ll leave you with the trailer and an official remix of Daft Punk’s Derezzed from the soundtrack. There are some great unofficial remixes out there on YouTube if you’re looking for a longer version though.

TRON: Legacy comes to Irish cinemas on 17th December 2010.

But I digress… like I said, loads of films out this week, loads! So I’d better get to it.

Unstoppable is the widest release this week. It’s the latest collaboration between director Tony Scott and Denzel Washington, who’ve previously worked together a good number of films before… from last year’s The Taking of Phelam 1,2,3 through Déjà Vu and Man on Fire all the way back to Crimson Tide in 1995.

The gist of the story is that there’s this un-manned train on the loose carrying a load of toxic chemicals and it’s going to derail in an innocent little town and kill a load of people unless Chris Pine (ohh… Chris Pine) and Denzel can stop it. Personally, I suspect “Unstoppable” may be a misnomer. But I haven’t seen it, so what do I know?

I also suspect that this film with be much like the last few Scott / Washington collaborations… in that Denzel will be the hard-ass who saves us all from Peril. Add in the fact that film is penned by, Mark Bomback, who is notable for writing Live Free or Die Hard, and I think you can pretty much guarantee that’s what’s gonna happen.

I have to admit, I wasn’t overly blown away by the trailer. That high contrast, over saturated grainy look wasn’t really working for me and all I could think was that it sounded an awful lot like this movie I saw late one night on one of those dodgy tv channels. No, not that sort of channel. One like SyFy… no, not those kinds of films of SyFy… It sounded an awful lot like Atomic Train. Now I’m not saying Unstoppable is a rip off… but… you’ve got to admit, aside from the fact that there’s no atomic weapons on the train, it sounds a lot like it. They also tell us that this is “inspired by a true story“. Ok. I’m sure it’s “inspired” by a lot of runaway train movies.

Anyway despite my reservations, I’m still probably going to go to this. I mean, runaway train? It’s gotta be a bit of a laugh. I’m sure they’ve worked their asses off to get the whole gamut of tension in there and yes, I do love Chris Pine so I’m sure it’ll be a reasonable hour and a half* of popcorn fun.

The American looks like a whole other kettle of fish altogether.

Starring George Clooney, this is Anton Corbijn second feature film,after the Ian Curtis biopic Control. I didn’t really rate Control at the time, click the link through to the review and you’ll know why, but it stayed with me and it did leave me wanting to see what Corbijn would do next. And here it is.

George Clooney plays a hitman who’s hiding out in the Italian countryside awaiting his last assignment. I’ve deliberately avoided learning any more about it since well… you always expect “hitman on his last assignment” films to go a certain way… so if it doesn’t I want to be surprised.

The one thing I have heard about it is that it’s not really the way the trailers would suggest. Apparently it’s not an action film at all but rather a measured character study. I like the idea. After Control I think Corbijn would do a good job with a film like that and at the very least, given Corbijn’s photography credentials it should look great.

Other films out this week.

Machete – I did a little preview of this one last week so you have a look at that and the trailers here.

London Boulevard – Feature film debut from director William Monaghan, an Oscar winner as the writer of Scorsese’s The Departed. To be honest from the trailer this looks like a bog standard Landahn gangster film… it stars Colin Farrell and a few of the usual suspects, Ray Winstone and Stephen Graham in particular stand out. Oh, Keira Knightley is in it as well… Not that the usual supects (and Knightley) is a bad thing. I like all of them but I’m a bit tired of crappy gangster films. I’m hopeful this one will be decent…

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest – final film from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. I presume if you haven’t seen the first two then this one isn’t going to make a lot of sense.

My Afternoons with Margueritte (La tête en friche) – French comedy drama on limited release. Starring Gérard Depardieu as a illiterate man in his mid 50′s who befriends an older and well-read woman. Over the course of their afternoons together they discuss life, the universe and everything. I imagine. Reports are that this is a pleasant little film. Unusually for a limited release, this is playing in Movies@Dundrum and IMC Dun Laoghaire… and more usually, the Screen cinema off D’Olier St. and Cineworld on Parnell St.

Unstoppable, The American, London Boulevard, Machete, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and My Afternoon with Marguerite are all on general release from Friday 26th November 2010.

* = Just looked that up, shorter than I thought, great!

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, the reason I mention Grindhouse is because that’s where our friend Machete, legendary and deadly ex-Federale entered the public consciousness. Sandwiched there between Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof was a fake trailer for Machete. I may not have seen Grindhouse but I saw that trailer!

As it turns out, while it was a fake trailer, it was actually a film that Rodrigeuz had been itching to make for years. As Rodrigeuz explained “When I watched John Woo’s movies, they made me want to be Asian. Woo and Chow Yun-Fat’s Hard Boiled and The Killer really inspired me to make films that would create that feeling in the Latin arena.” And who better to play that Latin hard-man action hero than Danny Trejo

I like Robert Rodrigeuz. Hmm… or more accurately, I like the idea of Robert Rodrigeuz. I’ve only actually seen two of his films – Sin City and From Dusk Till Dawn in case you were wondering – but he always seemed pretty cool. I particularly like the fact that, even though he makes these kind of exceptionally violent films, he still sees fit to make the likes of Shorts and Spy Kids… Hey why not?

I should mention as well, if you’re on Facebook there’s a great competition on the Machete UK & Ireland Facebook page to win a Playstation 3. All you have to do is… show us your machete tricks! Ah no, that’s not actually what you have to do, have a look over at the page to see. Competition is open till 26th November 2010 at 5pm and is open to the UK and ROI. Undoubtedly, terms and conditions apply.

Anyway, have a look at a couple of trailers of Machete and see what you think. I know I’ll be going along for sure.

Machete releases in Ireland and the UK this Friday, 26th November 2010.

]]> http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/feature-machete-2010/feed/ 1 http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/releasing-this-week-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-1/ http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/releasing-this-week-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-1/#comments Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:35:07 +0000 Nicola-t http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/?p=3162 There’s only one show rolling into town this weekend, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 has arrived. It’s playing in pretty much every cinema in the country except for Light House cinema, Irish Film Institute and The Screen… in fact in most places it’s probably playing in two screens. There are two other films coming out this week in a couple of those three cinemas. More about them anon.

I’m actually not going to be able to say much this week. I’m on a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 blackout. I was a big fan of the books when I first started reading them but… I never got around to reading the last book. As a result I have no idea how this all ends up. I’m worried that if I read anything at all about it it’ll be spoiled on me.

So, I literally can’t wait to see this film. I’ve already seen one or two things in twitter that I suspect I shouldn’t have and even on TV, just in passing, I’ve heard very small things I don’t want to know. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet but I’ll definitely be trying to see it at the earliest possible occasion. I have no idea if it’s going to be any good and I’m a bit worried about it being only a first half but it going to have to be done.

I was thinking about explaining a little bit about Harry Potter for those who may not be familar with the series… but I just can’t imagine there are people out there who wouldn’t know about it. Even if you have no interest and know hardly anything about it, I’d have to imagine you’d still know that it’s about a group of young magicians who are fighting evil. If you didn’t know that I’d be fascinated to hear where you’ve been for the last 13 years.

I should explain about not reading the last one though. Basically, when I tried to read the sixth book I just reckoned that it was far too long. And thus, badly edited… in the sense that it wasn’t. Even though I’d read all the others and loved them, I was completely defeated by the length of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The one thing that does worry me about this film is that it does seem a little long… 2 hours 20 odd minutes is quite a run time for a film that, being a “Part 1″, will undoubtedly end somewhat unsatisfyingly… Still I’m desperate to see it, I just don’t think I’ll be going to a showing after 7pm is all…

Ohh… so excited. I sincerely hope that no-one will try to spoil it on me here. Please don’t. I swear I’m going to see it as soon as possible.

Other films releasing this week…

Chico & Rita – Animated musical romance set in Cuba. Chico & Rita charts the love affair between a talented jazz pianist and beautiful singer, through ups and downs, fame and obscurity. I haven’t seen it and there’s only a 50/50 chance that I ever will but the trailer I saw looked like a sweeping romance set to the soundtrack or evocative Latin American music. Playing in the IFI and Light House in Dublin.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – 2010 Cannes Palme d’Or winner. I’ve never seen a Thai film before. Maybe this will be the first… course I’ll have to wait till after I see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’ve heard mixed reports about this one, I suppose “ponderous” can be a compliment or a curse depending on what else you combine it with. It apparently explores the last days of the titular character through dreams, apparitions and out of body experiences. Could be interesting, could be boring as hell. Also playing in the IFI and Light House cinema only.

That’s it for this week… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Chico and Rita and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives are all in Irish cinemas from Friday 19th November 2010.

]]> http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/releasing-this-week-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-1/feed/ 3 http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/review-paranormal-activity-2-2010/ http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/2010/11/review-paranormal-activity-2-2010/#comments Sat, 20 Nov 2010 14:32:49 +0000 Nicola-t http://www.averagefilmreviews.com/?p=3014 You may wonder why, after how little I thought of Paranormal Activity, I decided to see Paranormal Activity 2… Let’s just accept that I did and get on with the review.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in Dublin when I pegged it down from The Barge to Movies@Dundrum to catch a half empty screening of PA2. Half empty but populated by teenagers. Which was actually ok to be honest, it added a bit of atmosphere to the proceedings. A crowd of girls screaming definitely made some things seem scarier than they were. Actually that’s not true at all but it was nice to see someone was scared.

I was gonna ramble on but you know what? I can’t be bothered. Fact is I think this movie was a complete waste of time. I mean seriously, didn’t I see this film last year?

I know this is absolutely my own fault really. I listened to the hype. I’d heard that this one was better than the first one and, rather naïvely, I had assumed that this might because they had gone the way I wanted them to go. That is, I imagined that they might have moved away from cheap jump scenes and into a more creepy, insidious, psychological type of a scare. In my mind this is what “better” meant. Obviously I was wrong. Apparently “better” means… No… I still can’t work out what “better” meant in this context. Wait, maybe they were referring to the fact that the makers have switched over to using more static cameras. This one didn’t make me feel like I was going to puke… I guess that could be one thing that was better.

To be honest, when I first left the cinema I wasn’t that annoyed with this film, I never am that annoyed straight away. That’s probably because I’m all hopped up on sweets and popcorn. It’s only after about 20 mins that I settle into what I’ve just seen and start to pick at it… That’s when I really realised this film had nothing going for it. I was so bored watching it. So bored. Nothing happens. At one point I was just counting the number of times we saw the different camera views… I don’t have an eidetic memory I’m pretty sure that by the end of the film I could have drawn, in detail, all the views we saw and the layout of the house, no bother. An hour and a half of staring at CCTV footage with nothing happening. Oh wait, I tell a lie. There was that pot that fell down. Glad I spend €10 to see that.

As much as I disliked the first Paranormal Activity, I have to admit that it did have one thing going for it. It had a good idea. It was a small idea and it’s not one that worked for me at all, but I do think it was good. At the core of it I didn’t think Paranormal Activity was a bad film. I could see what they were doing, I just didn’t like it. Once you’ve used up that idea you need to move on. I don’t know how these guys have got away with churning out exactly the same film on a vastly inflated budget. Honestly, who green lit this script? Why? Why? And actually, how did they manage to spend so much more money making it. I hear the first one was made for $15,000. How did making exactly the same film cost like 200 times more? Seriously.

Whoops.

I said I wasn’t going to ramble on. I guess I was wrong. Look, straight up. I hated this film. It brought nothing new to the table. This was just blatant profiteering and I handed over my cash. What can I say, fool me twice.

You know what the worst thing is? They’ll probably fool me a third time as well… After all, I am ever the optimist.

3/10

Actually, because I’m in a generous mood, I’m going to give it one thing… but it’s a spoiler so you’ll have to highlight the brackets.
[I liked the haunted pool cleaner, that was funny.].

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