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)
Colour
*****

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)
Colour
****

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!

UGC Cinemas
Colour
***

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.

UGC Cinemas
Colour
****

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.

UGC Cinemas
Colour
****

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
Colour
****

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
Colour
****

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...

UGC Cinemas
Colour
****

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
Colour
***

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
Colour
**

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
Colour
****

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
Colour
***

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.

DVD R2
Colour
****

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
Colour
***

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
Colour
****

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
Colour
****
.

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.

UGC Cinema
Colour
**

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
Colour
****
.

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
Colour
***
.

Assault on Precinct 13

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

UGC Cinema
Colour
***
.