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Some Like It Hot 1959
Very happy to have had a chance to see this on the big screen. I seem to laugh in different places to most people, but this films affords so many opportunities to laugh that it doesn't really matter, if only half the jokes are landing you're still having a great time.
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Robot & Frank 2012
Very sweet little buddy movie that has some touching things to say about ageing and a great idea of what the near future might look like, sort of like Black Mirror if it hadn't been written by a gloriously twisted bile volcano.
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Jack Reacher 2012
Really run of the mill nonsense that thought it was much smarter than it really was. I was hopeful because of McQuarrie's presence, but I guess it has been a long, long time since The Usual Suspects and The Way of the Gun.
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Sightseers 2012
Great fun and full of guilty belly laughs, this feels far more accessible than Wheatley's higher profile Kill List but these things being relative given the subject matter it's bound for a cult audience - though it will surely be a favourite. There's something wonderfully British about the whole affair, and while I'll try not to spoil anything, suffice to say there's something very reflective of a lot of Brits in the rage over the little things, and I suspect…
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Dune 1984
I'd heard so much about Dune for so long I think I'd been somewhat put off sitting down with it, and ten minutes in I was wondering what people complained about. The head floating in the space dolling out plot as an introduction gave me a wonderful sense of nostalgia, there was a time when that sort of thing was all the rage, and then the first few scenes had such wonderful set design and costumes - somewhere between Flash…
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Prometheus 2012
Found this a bit underwhelming second time around, not because the film itself is any better or worse, that argument has gone around enough, but because on the small screen the visuals are robbed of their majesty and they really were the best thing about the film. I was quite keen to watch the blu-ray as I'd had to see this in 3D, which is a distracting bollocks of a medium, but even losing that wasn't enough to give this…
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Killer's Kiss 1955
Killer's Kiss used to be the oldest Kubrick film anyone got to see (until the rerelease last year of Fear and Desire, a film Kubrick had tried to destroy) and so was seen as the starting point of one of our greatest filmmakers. Interestingly viewing it again with Fear and Desire as a new baseline shows how far Kubrick had progressed as a filmmaker in such a short time, and clarifies how his star was rising enough to bag a…
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Chinese Zodiac 2012
Jackie Chan off relic hunting again, with wacky family friendly comedy, a social conscience, and about 15 different languages - sometimes in the same sentence - making it a challenge for any subtitler to keep up. At times utterly baffling, others gloriously entertaining, it's great to see Jackie back to what he does best (hint: it's not serious acting) even if this is a fair distance from his greatest work. To be fair to the man, he's no spring chicken,…
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Tai Chi Zero 2012
Utterly bizarre bit of Kung fu nonsense, from the makers of Detective Dee (a huge hit that I didn't really like) this gives us martial arts meeting steam punk by way of Scott Pilgrim. If you can't imagine that, I don't blame you, but it's probably not as good as it sounds. Barely coherent, barely entertaining.
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Fire with Fire 2012
Straight to video style nonsense, felt like a Seagal film he's too old to make. Willis probably shot all his scenes in about 3 days and ran off with a paycheck far larger than the actual stars', which was probably worth it as his name added legitimacy to a cheap bit of action nonsense. Worth remembering though Bruce, you can't pull that trick too many times before you name loses weight!
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Tower Block 2012
A film with a lot of promise that failed to deliver, and was saved from some weak plotting and direction by a couple of good performances, and a stand out one from Jack O'Connell. Surprised that this was chosen to close Frightfest last year, being not particularly horrific, gory, or frightening, and I can only imagine it was the familiarity of the faces that got it that honour above the half dozen really great entries to the festival I've seen.
