Star Wars Episode 3: The Revenge of the Sith

So we finally arrive at last. The final chapter of the saga that follows Anakins journey to the dark side. The Jedi get their buts kicked (including the younglings, whatever they are) yoda does his thing again and the sith go primetime. Yep. the force is strong with this one...




UGC Cinema
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*****

The Interpretor

Classy thriller about a UN interpreter who overhears a whispered death threat and then becomes a target herself. Nice pace, great acting and quality directing from Sydney Pollack.

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****

Alien vs. Predator

Nice Sunday afternoon stuff this. A team follows a tunnel under the arctic to an undiscovered pyramid that's left over from some serious battling between the aliens and predators of the title. Paul Anderson does another good job here and it's good to see the predators back again, although Lance Henriksen dies again, he should know about them aliens by now...

DVD2
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***

The Amityville Horror

Remake time again, but I remember reading the book of this as a kid and being scared silly. Also enjoyed the 1979 film but here it's all a little funkier and modernised. There's more jumps and shocks and even influences from recent japanese horrors make an entrance. It's pretty good in places but the house didn't feel as spooky as the first time. One thing is for sure though - no matter how well this does at the box office they are not likely to remake Amityville 3D... and yes I went to see that as well first time around.

UGC Cinema
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***

Constantine

Very cooool movie with Keanu as John Constantine, a kind of exorcist on steroids who uncovers an evil takeover of the world and kicks some demon ass etc etc even an angel.

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****

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I was slightly worried when I heard about this production last year, the BBC series and the books were so classic that it seemed wrong to mess with them. However as I watched tthis evening I was laughing out loud,the casting is ace and there's some great nods to the past with the original Arthur Dent playing the answering machine and the original Marvin robot in the queue as they are filling in forms. Overall the classic bits are all here and this is a fun (shorter) version that keeps the laughs going.

UGC Cinema
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****

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie

Watched this one with Ben... it's the movie version of the manga show based on the trading card game... phew.
Basically one long duel that makes no sense to anyone who doesn't understand the game but then that's pretty much the point I guess!

DVD2
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**

Cursed

Cool little werewolf movie that far exceeded my expectations. A terrific early scene in a car park, the usual legend hokum and some great tongue in cheek acting made this modern spin on the genre entertaining whilst staying true to the classics.
Nice party early on in benefit of the USA animal rights group PETA was a a nice gag and a welcome use of Lon Chaneys cane later on helped the cause.

UGC Cinema
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****

Sahara

Well, this is one of those products that does exactly what it says on the can. It follows a salvage crew who get mixed up in a civil war, a rescue mission, a search for a missing boat and a virus outbreak. It starts promising enough but soon slips into formula fare but it's entertaining enough...

UGC Cinemas
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***

Ring Two

This is the US remake of the Japanese flick - I've got the japanese one on DVD but have yet to get around to watching it... I found this one ok, not as scary as the US Ring or Grudge seemed almost slow in places but it was all made up for by the way she crawls out of the well. Yikes...

UGC Cinemas
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***

The Assasination of Richard Nixon

Stylish film starring Sean Penn (maybe one of the coolest actors around) playing a joe average type whose life slowly falls apart and he slips further into desparation. It's a great film with Penn acting his pants off as the guy who slowly crumbles before your eyes.

UGC Cinemas
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****

The Machinist

Slick thriller about a guy who hasn't slept in a year.
He thinks he sees a new guy at work, visits a cafe at the airport each night and has a girlfriend but the pieces slowly start to pull together to reveal the truth. Well acted by Christian Bale (skinniest part in a movie ever!) and I liked the camerawork and colours.

UGC Cinemas
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****

Control Room

Excellent documentary that follows the Al Jazeera TV network just before and during the iraq war. Based at the media HQ it is scary to see firsthand the stories unfolding and the spinning and staging that took place.

DVD (in Krakow, Poland)
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*****

Street Theatre

Doc that interviews various street entertainers during a canadian festival. You also get to see some of their acts and there is some good stuff in it!

DVD (in Krakow, Poland)
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****

Hostage

Yeah!
Bruce Willis is an old hostage negotiator who is drawn into a situation he doesn't want to be involved with. Some kids take hostage the inhabitants of a large house, unfortunately it's a house that's also wanted by some nasty crime lords. Lucky Bruce is around to save the day!

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***

Melinda & Melinda

Great Woody Allen movie about how you look at life.
It starts with some people in a restaurant who are discussing a situation and whether it would make a good comedy or a tragedy - the rest of the movie is that story but from both points of view... Old Woody is on top form here.

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****

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea???

Yep. That's right and here's his big screen outing with some plot about saving King Neptune's king and the grand opening of the Krusty Krab 2 restaurant. The opening scene with the Pirates is great and when David Hasselhoff show's up to save the day it's ace. Wonderful and absorbant.

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****

Robots

CGI Kids Movie about a gang of robots who are scared of being made obsolete by big nasty shiny robot who's evil mother is running the show from behind the scenes. Entertaining enough and wonderfull graphics and set pieces as well as some top vocal talent from Robin Williams etc.

UGC Cinemas
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****

Boogeyman

Cool little horror movie about a guy who's Dad was taken by the boogeyman when he was a kid. As he grows up the problems reappear as does the boogeyman. Many times!

UGC Cinema
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****

Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies

In the USA this was called Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, but no-one in the UK apparently know's what White Castle is... It's a mucho cool burger joint that serves delicious mini burgers and the two dudes get hungry and set off on a doped up road trip, riding cheatahs, hang gliding and lots more. Funny and entertaining...

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****

Road Trip

I love Tom Green and he's great in this movie. This follows a dude's rush across the country to rescue a tape that was sent by mistake to his girlfriend that is gonna be trouble if she see's it...
Car's blow up, they get into all sorts of mess and Tom Green eats a mouse. Pretty much it - but funnier than it should be in an Animal House kind of way.

Sky
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***

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This remake of the 1974 movie is the usual affair. Not particularly interesting, dark enough or with any of the horror of the original... Nah.

Sky
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**

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

This is a neat sequel (seen an odd number of good sequels recently...) which picks up exactly where the original leaves off. Basically we see how the Umbrella Corporation tries to cover up the action of the first movie and meet some new people, a great monster and loads and loads of zombies. Apparently they had to close some of Montreal for a few days to pull off the exteriors and it seemed to pay off.

DVD R2
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****

Ginger Snaps 2 - Unleashed

Watched this on Sky this evening as I really enjoyed the first Ginger Snaps movie back in 2000. It followed a girl who was slowly turning into a werewolf and this sequel follows her sister Brigitte as she tries to avoid the same fate as her sister... great sequel.

Sky
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***

Resident Evil

Time for this one again - Viruses and Zombies...
This is one of the best movies based on a video game (not usually a great start - House of the Dead anyone?), I guess the main reason was that the game was actually scary too. This is a tight movie with a cool story about a corporation that's conducting research into genetics and viruses in an underground lair. Someone lets the virus out and the computer in charge takes action... loads of moody corridors, zombies and mutant dogs to look out for. Coolio.

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****

Godzilla versus Hedorah

Following an email from George Dawn I dug this one out of the VHS archives!
This is Godzilla versus the Smog Monster - an evil monster that feeds off the polution and smoke of Tokyo. It's a classic and amusing movie - the Smog monster is a large grey blobby thing with evil red eyes. The best scene in the fights was the part where 'zilla blows fire and aims it at the floor to propel himself through the air... The songs are great too, as are the animated scenes that appear throughout.

VHS
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***

Napoleon Dynamite

Cool movie about Napoleon, one of Idaho's geekiest kids. He lives with a mad grandma and a 32 year old brother who spends ages on the net chatting to women... He juggles his bizarre family life with helping his mate to become class president. Great fun, some cringey moments and a hilarious final dance sequence... wait until the final scenes after the end credits too.

DVD R1
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****

Jersey Girl

Ok. It's taken a while to build up the courage to watch this Kevin Smith movie. Smith is an awesome writer and usually hilarious film maker so why the delay... J Lo. Basically the whole problem was with the Ben Affleck / Jennifer Lopez thing. This is the movie that there relationship started on. This was bad for dear Kevin as the subsequent media blah overlooked the actual movie... anyway, so I watched it. It's great. One bonus is that J Lo dies early on! What's left is a thoughtful movie about life, kids and the rest. It's well written with the usual Kevin Smith things going on in the background - it's better than the average romcom thing and I liked it mucho.

There's some awesome extras on the DVD - especially Roadside Attractions made for the Jay Leno show...

DVD R2
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****
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Arabs in the Midst

Attended this premiere of a documentary that explores the perceptions of Arab people in the UK. Made by a local guy, he travels around the country interviewing people about how they feel Arabs are potrayed etc as well as their feelings about being integrated or not into communities in the UK. It was an interesting idea and full points for getting a movie made and screened, but I found it overlong (90mins) an hour would have been better and as it was mostly talking heads it got kinda dull by the end - there's a series planned so hopefully some of these issues will be addressed later on, be interesting to see what happens - some intriguing ideas to follow.

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**

Psycho 2

Norman is back.
Ok it took 22 years before he was released and starred in this sequel but it was worth the wait. I remember going to the movies to see this in Bradford at the ABC and although it's maybe not the best film in the world I love that house... Perkins is great as Norman and the soundtrack is especially creepy around the edges.

DVD R2
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****
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Catwoman

Halle Berry does Catwoman. This is an 'origin' movie that is a little different plotwise to the DC Comics versions but as an action movie is ok. There's loads of CGI stuff and although the acting is a little hokey at times - this wasn't as bad as I expected! Think comic book and it's ok stuff. One weird thing was that Halle Berry does seem to be coloured to match the CGI rather than the other way around... intertesting approach.

DVD R1
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***
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Assault on Precinct 13

Caught this again at a late show...
Looked really carefully for the forest but still no luck...

UGC Cinema
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***
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Sideways

This is a great movie. It's a kind of mid-life crisis road movie, with wine tasting.
It's one of those rare treats that's a great movie and doesn't pretend to be anything more than that. Well deserved of the recent Oscar nominations etc - let's hope it does well...

UGC Cinema
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*****
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Team America World Police

Yeah.
Went with Andycam - it's funnier the second time...
"I'm so ronely, I'm so ronely..."

UGC Cinemas
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****

Murder by Numbers

Sandra Bullock stars as a hard nose detective in this formula crime thriller. I had seen the first half of this last year so was keen to catch the end (not that I couldn't work it out!). It's a genre movie that has a couple of smart (but annoying) teenagers who think they can plan the perfect murder and then come up again Sandra the detective who works it out... including the obligatory cliff top ending - literally in this case. Not too bad - if you like genre crime thrillers, easy and unchallenging.



DVD R2

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***

But I'm a Cheerleader

John found this movie in the sale at WHSmith whilst we were doing the Costa Coffee thing and looking for stuff to spend Christmas Gift Vouchers on. The description made us both laugh so we got it. The plot follows a cheerleader who goes out with the quarterback from the football team at high school who is sent to a place called 'True Directions' by her parents who suspect she is a lesbian (this is news to the cheerleader!). It's a sexual re-orientation camp that has the opposite effect. This is a great movie that handles the subject well and turns out a funny film from an idea that could have so easily gone the other way...



DVD R2

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***

The Girl Next Door

Not a bad teen comedy thing about a dude who falls for the girl next door only to discover that she's an adult movie star. It's actually better than it sounds... honest.



DVD R2

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***

Godzilla's Revenge

This is I believe 10th in the Godzilla series, and most would argue a lowpoint... although Ben & Jake loved it. The plot follows a little boy who is bullied and wishes he was on monster island. He visits the place in his dream and becomes friends with Godzilla's Son who inspires him to be brave. The saving grace is that there's some ace battles where Godzilla does his thing with various monsters... the dubbing is ace - especially Godzilla's lad.



DVD R1

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***

Ocean's Twelve

The sequel to Ocean's Eleven (which itself was a remake) comes with a stunning cast and crew, loads of gloss and some cool editing and production. It lacks however much of the charm of the earlier one.



I found this a little annoying at times, there's some good stuff in here but it doesn't hold together well, is a little show-offy and basically I don't really get why 11 criminals would want to pay back the loot from the previous job with interest anyway? I'm a heist movie fan, but not this one.



UGC Cinema

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**

Assault on Precinct 13

Remake time here - this one is an update/reworking of the John Carpenter classic from 1976. I like the original so didn't hold out much hope here. The plot has been developed more and wasn't too bad, in fact it was tense in places - all in all it was good.



The last scene which involves running around in a forest was entertaining, especially because the forest wasn't that visible in either of the aerial shots earlier in the movie, yet a run out of the door and a right turn leads straight into it when needed...



UGC Cinemas

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***

Piranha

Joe Dante's 1978 classic killer fish movie.

Has a secret military base that have been breeding mutant piranha fish that are unwittingly let loose into the river network. Of course there are more people swimming and playing in the river that day than any other. I love these movies...



DVD R2

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***

Las Vegas

Caught up with a couple of episodes of Las Vegas.

Episodes 2.2 and 2.3. Cool.



Sky

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****

Driller Killer

Seemed appropiate after the previous movie.

Abel Ferrara's movie about a guy who slips into madness due to various pressures and a punk band that rehearse next door. This was before cordless drills yet he seems to do his stuff around the place without having to plug in at all... not noticed that before!



DVD R2

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*

Along Came Polly

Another Ben Stiller movie - this is an entertaining romcom with Stiller playing the usual loser character and Jennifer Aniston doing her usual thing. For some unknown reason it also featured a ferret. In fact the only interesting extra on the DVD is a programme about the ferret making it to the premiere. really.



DVD R2

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***

24

Double bill which starts off Day Four for Jack Bauer. He was only in CTU for 10mins before he sneaked into a holding room and shot some dude in the leg... maybe he needs a day off.



Sky

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***

Meet the Fockers

Big budget follow up to Meet the Parents, which didn't really end in a I-need-a-sequal kind of way. It's a lot of jokes based on the surname as you'd expect, although the material is thin Hoffman and co deliver some amusing characters but it could have been better.



UGC Cinema

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***

Criminal

Coool movie about small time criminals double crossing each other. Some great acting and a cool pace to it make this one worth checking out. There's a little annoying plot detail, but generally a nice film.



In Flight Movie (Back to the UK)

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****

Taxi

Watched this one whilst flying back to the UK. I am a big fan of the Luc Besson original (and it's sequal) so was interested. It's really bad - even the car chases don't come close to the french sequences. I have no idea what they were thinking. Should have slept instead...



In Flight Movie (Back to UK)

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*

Band of Brothers

Wathced the pilot of this series during a power cut back in Nairobi, it wasn't too bad. A little too american patrioticness around the edges and David Schwimmer was hilarious but apart from that I enjoyed it. Simon Pegg appeared delivering a letter which was a highlight too!



Was gonna watch some more but the battery ran out on the laptop!



DVD R2

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**

Just Cause

This was a fairly formulaic thriller with Sean Connery playing some lawyer turned lecturer. Follows story of a wrongly convicted killer on death row who asks for help... The alligators were good actors but the best thing about this is that we watched it on a laptop outdoor whilst staying in a place called Boma in Southern Sudan miles from anywhere. Cool venue...



DVD R2

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**

The Whole Nine Yards

Amusing comedy with Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis playing neurotic dentist and wanted hitman. Caught this again and really enjoyed it, it was just what was needed - lightweight and amusing.



DVD R2 (Nairobi)

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***