Welcome to my film guide. This is a complete-as-I-can-make-it list of all the films I have ever seen and my one-sentence thoughts on each. This will be a constantly evolving list as I add new films and remember what I thought of old ones. I’ve put them in roughly chronological order of release.
My 10 Most Recent Reviews:
1. Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny [2023] – “They look like snakes.” “No they don’t!” 1969 is never going to look as interesting as the 1930s, but this fifth instalment in the Indiana Jones series does its best to hit the right notes and was overall an entertaining adventure romp.
10. Now, Voyager [1942] – “Banana trees!” While some of the actions in this drama are dubious, particularly by today’s standards, it is a far more positive story than I anticipated so pleasant in its way.
1921
The Kid – ‘Are you the father of this child?’ ‘Well – practically.’ The opening
title of ‘A picture with a smile—and perhaps, a tear’ sums it up; an enjoyable
silent movie (apart from the pointless dream sequence).
1923
Our Hospitality – I could watch this silent movie just for the fascinating old timey
train but it is a decent story too as usual with jaw-dropping stunts.
1924
Sherlock Jr. – despite a thin plot, this silent movie packs a punch nearly 100 years
later with wall-to-wall shocking stunts.
The Navigator – ‘I think a long walk will do me good.’ Overall lacks the grander stunts
I have come to expect from Buster Keaton silent films and loses me in the final
act because of ‘cannibals’.
1925
Go
West – ‘She’s not going!’ While the
story of a man’s love for a cow and the lengths he will go to to save her life
is lovely, it is overshadowed by the finale of this silent movie in which he
leads hundreds of cattle to their slaughter.
Seven
Chances – more consistent
than some Buster Keaton silent movies, which are always visually impressive but
the repeated inclusion of an offensive blackface routine ruins the film.
1926
The
General – ‘After a nice,
quiet, refreshing night’s rest.’ All the train chase plot of this silent movie is
excellent but the final act is a let-down and it’s extremely awkward that the
hero is on the wrong side of the war.
1927
College
– the dullest Buster Keaton silent film
I’ve seen, because there is almost no plot.
The
Jazz Singer – referred to
as the first ‘talkie’, this disappointingly still uses caption cards, the
audible dialogue being adlibs over the music (although this is cool); oh, the
unexplained and sudden blacking up is baffling.
1928
Steamboat
Bill, Jr. – ‘Eight Bells and
all is wrong.’ This silent movie isn’t captivating to start with but once you
get to the cyclone it is rightly iconic.
The
Cameraman – ‘I’m sorry if I’m
a little late.’ Takes a while to get interesting but overall a decent silent film.
1930
Morocco
– “Don’t send her any more flowers in
pots! She threw the last one at me.” Uninteresting and unconvincing romantic
drama since the great romance is based on two brief evenings together.
Murder! – “My art is not satisfied.” A murder mystery
that gives no red herrings, just points us exactly at the solution and includes some unfortunate racist and other inappropriate
attitudes of the time.
1931
Bad Sister – I
was surprised by the happy ending to this drama.
City Lights – ‘Tomorrow
the birds will sing.’ The slapstick routines go on far too long in this silent
movie, and it’s just the story of a man trying to do good but bad keeps
happening to him and then it ends.
Dracula – stagy
direction, stilted line delivery, creaky movement, cheap rubber bats and
spiders on strings and a lead who sounds like a confused old man who doesn’t
understand English… not exactly a scary horror.
Frankenstein –
this horror is so boring, plus the monster is a total jerk.
The Public Enemy – with no particular narrative drive or compelling characters, this gangster
film isn’t a fascinating watch and the shock ending is one part comic, one part
memorably disturbing and one part irritatingly moral⸻unfortunately films about
crime being wicked never got less blunt.
1932
Grand Hotel – “Nothing ever
happens.” Well, I didn’t see that
coming; miserable now.
Pack Up Your Troubles – “It was so dark, I didn’t think you would
hear me.” The Laurel and Hardy humour is better suited to shorts.
The Most Dangerous Game – “Those animals I hunted, now I know how they
felt.” The plot of this horror is too straightforward to be absorbing.
Trouble In Paradise – a compelling opening and ending to this
romcom make up for the muddier middle.
1933
42nd Street
– like the stage show this musical inspired if you remove ALL OF THE PLOT.
Duck Soup – “This
is the fifth trip I’ve made today and I haven’t been anywhere yet.” This is the
first Marx Brothers comedy I have seen and I was expecting something else from
it, as it is, with everyone constantly trying to be the zany one, it is
exhausting and unfunny.
King Kong –
Humans: Look, incredibly rare, unique species unknown anywhere else in the
world… kill the hell out of them; Dinosaurs: Stop killing the hell out of us or
we’ll kill the hell out of you; King Kong: I will kill the hell out of all of
you and I’ll do it in the most malicious ways I possibly can; Me: When will the
killing end?
Lady For A Day – cute adaptation of a Runyon story but this comedy-drama doesn’t know
who the main character is and the abrupt ending spoils it.
Little Women – while
Katharine Hepburn gives a fine performance, the production of this drama is so
creaky that it’s dreadfully dull.
The Invisible Man –
there are no sympathetic characters in this horror but plenty of wooden
performances, watchable for the mind-blowing special effects.
1934
It Happened One Night – there are too many examples of domestic
abuse in this romcom, opening with a father hitting his daughter in the face
yet never being punished for the act, while she falls for a man who constantly
belittles her, and the ending, featuring neither lead and their reunion
happening off screen, is decidedly disappointing.
Of Human Bondage – Leslie Howard is as mesmerising as always in this drama (although he’s
been a lot more awesome) but Bette Davis’s accent derails whatever it is she’s
going for with the character.
The Man Who Knew Too Much – I can see why Hitchcock wanted to remake this
thriller.
The Scarlet
Pimpernel – “Good evening, Monsieur Chauvelin, how nice of you to wait
up for me.” It’s a real shame that the female role has been reduced so much
from the novel but on the other hand the ending of this adventure is undeniably
awesome.
The Thin Man – an utterly loopy comedy
mystery, the talk-your-ear-off everyone’s-a-screwball style you only get in the
30s, with a delightful husband and wife relationship; this one spawned a series
and I’ll certainly watch more.
1935
Mutiny On The
Bounty – boring drama.
The 39 Steps
– “It’s a whole flock of
detectives.” A fun romp of a thriller.
The Bride Of
Frankenstein – this horror is filled with eye-scratchingly irritating
characters and mind-numbingly wooden actors, and the Monster is still a
murderous jerk but Frankenstein is sweet.
The Whole Town’s Talking (Passport To Fame)
– “My name isn’t Jones, it’s Mannion.
I mean it isn’t Jannion, it’s Mones.” Cute dual-role crime comedy if not
terribly memorable.
Top Hat – “You see, every once in a while I suddenly find myself... dancing.” “Oh,
I suppose it’s some kind of an affliction.” The songs in this musical are lame
and the plot is asinine.
1936
After The Thin
Man – this sequel repeats everything the first film does except the charm has
worn off.
Mr. Deeds Goes
To Town – “Budington must feel like an awful stranger.” This comedy-drama is almost
identical in plot to Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, except that Mr. Deeds is a
jerk and the finale is much less engrossing.
My Man Godfrey
– “Shall I wear my tails or come just as I am?” A charming comedy
although Irene’s lack of character development is disappointing.
Rose Marie – this
musical forgets to resolve that the lovers split up because he is essentially
murdering her brother.
Secret Agent –
the plot and dialogue are difficult to follow while the characters are
difficult to like; the ideas are done better in other Hitchcock thrillers.
The Petrified
Forest – Leslie Howard is
mesmerising as ever in this drama but the ending is disappointing and cruel.
1937
Easy Living – “Elephants,
huh?” An enjoyable comedy although the farce loses me towards the end.
It’s Love I’m After – “Why is it no one loves me?” “But I love
you, sir.” “Don’t confuse the issue.” An
entertaining farce.
Lost Horizon – “Did you say we left 10,000 natives down there to be annihilated? No,
no, you wouldn’t say that. They don’t count.” This adventure drama has been
(mostly) restored to its original 132 minute run time but I think they mean 132
HOUR run time; after an exciting ten minutes at the start the film slides into
a slow and boring pace, never gives the characters any depth (due to being
hacked to pieces in an editing suite if rumours of Capra’s initial six hour cut
are true) or explains why anyone would want to stay in this stagnant society
that makes no effort to help the outside world while it happily kidnaps
innocent bystanders in order to get their hands on one guy, who could make a
difference to the world if he’d been left to it.
Return Of The Scarlet Pimpernel – I want to see a sequel to The Scarlet
Pimpernel not starring Leslie Howard said no one ever.
Seventh Heaven – “Chico,
Diane, Heaven.” There’s a startling lack
of plot to this romantic drama.
Snow White And The Seven
Dwarfs – hardly any plot or character to speak of in this
animated musical but the light-hearted bits are fun, the serious bits are
downright terrifying and the animation is stunning.
The Awful Truth – “I told him the truth and strange enough, he believed me.” Considering
that all the blame lies with the husband not trusting his wife, it is an
unbalanced comedy as he continues to torment her and she only gets a tiny bit
of revenge; the later film My Favorite Wife covers a similar plot with the same
stars in a much pleasanter and more satisfying way.
The Prisoner Of Zenda – “I cannot get used to fighting with furniture.”
Ronald Colman is extremely captivating as the hero while Douglas Fairbanks Jr
is delightfully roguish as the villain, and the whole doppelganger/kidnap/siege
plot is fun but the adventure falls down with the romance⸻Princess Flavia being
about as engrossing as a damp handkerchief.
Topper – “All right, I’ll change the tyre but I’ll be darned if I’m going to
waste any ectoplasm doing it.” Another of those 30s comedies that thinks
alcoholic socialites are the height of sophistication and hilarity; this
supernatural comedy has a thin plot and no pleasant characters but the special
effects are impressive.
1938
A Slight Case Of Murder –
a fun farce but surprisingly forgettable.
Blockade – obvious
war propaganda filled with stilted worthy rhetoric that the actors look
uncomfortable delivering.
Bringing Up Baby –
this comedy is more irritating than funny.
Carefree – creepy
film in which an unprofessional psychiatrist subjects a woman to a lot of
mental abuse (it’s supposed to be a romcom).
Mad About Music –
‘Young ladies must not make other young ladies eat photographs.’ Enjoyable but
the ending is too rushed so a let-down.
Pygmalion – an
insult rather than an adaptation.
The Adventures Of Robin Hood
– this swashbuckler has been remade too much to be able to appreciate it for
itself any more, plus Robin isn’t likeable and the romance is dull.
The Divorce Of Lady X – “In my profession I have to be able to see
what’s behind those lovely, deceiving lips.” “Are you a dentist?” This is a
weird romcom, in which a guy falls in love with a woman he’s known for five
minutes and she lies to him constantly during their courtship and then the film
just ends with them both being fine with each other now without them ever
getting to know each other; it’s far too reliant on ye olde battle of the sexes
whiffling.
The Goldwyn Follies – just about mildly entertaining but an
excuse to shove a bunch of not-talented-enough-to-carry-a-whole-movie
entertainers into one musical-soup doesn’t justify making a film and the ending
barely makes sense.
The Lady Vanishes – once it gets going, it’s an engrossing thriller but the first part is
interminable.
Vivacious Lady – “I can’t have my husband engaged to just anybody.” A cute romcom with
some entertaining performances but it goes way too over the top with the 1930s
style sex jokes (so many wolf whistles).
You Can’t Take It With You – “As long as she’s having fun.” The script
could have done with sharpening up but this romcom is intriguing as a
proto-It’s A Wonderful Life.
1939
Bachelor Mother – Ginger
Rogers and David Niven are always going to be captivating leads but I’m sure it
must be possible to prove a baby is not biologically yours even in the thirties⸻having
never given birth would be a starting place; NB the version of this romcom I
saw was pointlessly and incompetently colourised.
Destry Rides Again –
“Get out before I kill you.” “You mean you haven’t been trying?” An enjoyable western
comedy but weird to think this is spoofing western tropes when this is the
oldest western I’ve seen⸻how were there already so many tropes? “I was just
tryin’ to tell ya that I ain’t got any guns. You see, if I would have had a gun
there, why, one of us might have got hurt⸻and it might have been me. I wouldn’t
like that, would I?”
Eternally Yours – ghastly tale of neglect, manipulation and
abuse being portrayed as romance.
Gone With The Wind –
ghastly, overlong love letter to the American South in which we have to suffer
cinema’s most repulsive heroine and her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes (Leslie
Howard just ain’t gonna bother with an American accent) while Rhett Butler goes
about beating and raping her.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips – unbearably tragic romantic drama.
Gulliver’s Travels –
this animated musical is more like Gulliver’s Travel, singular, and seems to be
designed to be as irritating as possible.
Intermezzo – the
story of a total douche; I have no idea what the audience is meant to get out
of this romance; skipping the bit when selfish man and idiot girl fall in love is
disastrous.
Made For Each
Other – not much focus to the plot of this romcom, just a bunch of issues
that newlyweds have to deal with, with a harrowing life-or-death plane flight involving
a character we haven’t seen before randomly thrown in at the end.
Mr Smith Goes To
Washington – the final half hour is enthralling and James Stewart is captivating
as ever but a slow drama about American politics ain’t fascinating fare.
Raffles – “I
hope you weren’t looking at it professionally.”
Er, this crime comedy is not a whole story, you keep waiting for some
clever outwitting to begin and instead the movie just ends.
Stagecoach –
an all right western, less compelling than I expected but enjoyable to see some
tropes being inverted.
The Cat And The Canary
– Bob Hope is on fire, shame about the rest of this horror comedy.
The Wizard Of Oz – “You’ve killed her so completely that we thank you very sweetly.” This musical fantasy is not one of my favourite movies but it has astounding production values.
1940
Fantasia – it
adds nothing but visual tedium to brilliant pieces of music.
Foreign Correspondent – “Pardon
me gentlemen, I represent the Jupiter Life Assurance, could I interest you in a
small policy?” Starts off a little slow but more than makes up for it with
multiple exciting set pieces later on, however not sure why Joel McCrea drops
out of the story for a bit and George Sanders takes over as the hero, very odd
plotting, made me realise I would rather watch Sanders.
Gaslight – “Are
you suggesting this is a knife I have in my hand?” The plot is good but the execution is rather
clunky, especially with the former detective character as the outside hero
ready to swoop in to save the day.
My Favourite Wife (My Favorite Wife) – “I bet you say
that to all your wives.” A funny film; while the characters behave in
irritating ways and cause unnecessary pain to each other, they do get
comeuppances for it so it’s not too annoying.
Pinocchio – while
Snow White didn’t have enough plot to fill a film, this has too much plot to
handle so rushes through without pause for breath and has some unbelievably
dark moments (Pinocchio face down in a puddle, dead, for example), but it’s
certainly watchable.
Pride And Prejudice – “At
this moment it’s difficult to believe you’re so proud.” “At this moment it’s
difficult to believe that you’re so prejudiced.” The most breakneck-speed and schmooified
version of the story you’re likely to come across, it’s a charming film on its
own with a brilliant performance from Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet, but I
can never get over Laurence Olivier’s cuddly performance as the nicest Mr Darcy
you could imagine and the dumb ending where Lady Catherine de Bourgh turns out
to be a good guy – could 1940’s audiences not handle mean characters? “Oh, if
you want to be really refined, you have to be dead.”
Primrose Path – Where do you live in town?” “In a house.” Enjoyable movie but a rushed, unfocused ending lets it down.
Remember The Night – basically a nice movie but the ending feels
like the Hays Code getting in the way rather than a satisfying conclusion to
the story.
Road To Singapore – quite fun buddy film, not sure why it spawned an entire series though.
The Ghost Breakers
– entertaining but the plot doesn’t make any sense.
The Grapes Of Wrath – “I’m
on parole.” Kind of watchable but never very involving, with a surprise more
upbeat ending than the novel.
The Great Dictator – a good, sometimes excellent film but it’s been so overhyped.
The Great McGinty –
“I must have been blind.” Entertaining and interesting but seems to just give
up after a while (usually there is more to a framing device).
The Mark Of Zorro –
incredibly entertaining.
The Philadelphia Story
– despite the wonderful cast it just comes across as ‘women should shut up
and take adultery and abuse from their husbands’.
The Shop Around The Corner – “All I want is your honest opinion.” Brilliant. “Why do you hate me so?” “I don’t hate you.” “Oh, I suppose you love me.” “No, why should I? What have you done to make me love you?” “I don’t want you to love me.” “I don’t!”
1941
49th
Parallel – “You can’t expect me to
capture an armed Nazi without getting hurt a little.” This blatant propaganda movie is actually a
little bit of a slog, despite being well acted, because the only recurring characters
in the film, the main characters, are the villains; meanwhile Laurence
Olivier’s French Canadian accent is unbelievable, but Leslie Howard’s scene is
so cool it kinda makes it all worth it.
Ball Of Fire – “All
you have to do is get a horse to eat the hay and then x-ray the horse.” A
totally unconvincing romance and Gary Cooper plays the dullest hero ever.
Citizen Kane –
unfortunately knowing the famous ending undermines the whole mystery while the
non-linear plot means we never get to know the title character so I didn’t get
much out of it.
Dumbo – “The
magic feather was just a gag! You can fly! Honest, you can!” Really more of a glorified short than a full story,
but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to side with that adorable baby
elephant.
Here Comes Mr. Jordan – “He’s
being murdered, Joe.” A neat idea that has clearly inspired other movies since,
and a fun enough ride but for two things: the totally underwhelming ‘romance’
that is supposed to be a catalyst and is instead almost non-existent, and the
presumably ‘happy’ ending that actually made me shed a tear it was so cruel.
I Wake Up Screaming
– forgettable.
Pimpernel Smith –
“How annoying for you.” This has been
one of my favourite movies since I was a teenager; despite a few cheesy
characters, it’s full of great lines; a delightful battle of wits between the
man saving lives and the man who’s hunting him.
Road To Zanzibar –
starts well but loses its way later into completely random.
Sullivan’s Travels – “I’m gonna find out how it feels to be in
trouble, without friends, without credit, without chequebook, without name…
alone.” “And I’ll go with you.” “How could I be alone if you’re with me?” An
enjoyable film, although it’s a bit heavy handed on the ‘comedy is good’ moral.
Suspicion – while the suspense of whether or not her husband is a murderer is
exciting, there’s no doubt that this is yet another Hollywood movie in which a
weak-willed and impressionable woman is swept off her feet by a domineering and
cruel man and we’re meant to mistake that for romance.
The Devil And Daniel Webster – the interesting if preachy story comes
across as rather wooden; feels like it would have benefitted from the Capra
touch.
The Gay Falcon – “Tonight’s my night for back doors.” Entertaining but generic action/mystery B movie, made accidentally funny because of the main character’s
name, I really just watched this for a rare example of George Sanders getting
to play the goodie.
The Lady Eve – “I thought one of you must have four aces.” Certainly funny, but the
ending is too abrupt to leave me satisfied.
The Maltese Falcon – “Why couldn’t he have stayed alive long
enough to tell us something.” Doesn’t live up to its reputation, Sam Spade is
no Philip Marlowe.
Topper Returns – started to watch this but it recaps the first film by just showing a
lot of the first film, which reminded me how much I didn’t like the first film
so I certainly don’t want to sit through a sequel that doesn’t even have Cary
Grant in it.
1942
Bambi – devoid of
plot and the characters have no more personality than their names; hunters are evil
though.
Casablanca – “If
I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick.” Fairly gripping story, but it’s hard to
believe that Ilsa could cause such strong turmoil or devotion in two men when
she’s as interesting as a sack of wet potatoes.
Holiday Inn – it’d be a lot better if the female lead wasn’t treated like an object.
Keeper Of The Flame – “Buttons or zipper?” Keeps you wondering
what the hell is going on for an hour and a quarter and then ends on a long
speech about how destructive fascism is because it sneaks up on you without you
realising you’re being manipulated, which is sadly as relevant today as it was
in 1942.
Now, Voyager – “Banana trees!” While some of the actions in this drama are dubious,
particularly by today’s standards, it is a far more positive story than I
anticipated so pleasant in its way.
Road To Morocco – “A fine pal you are, letting me give her up and all the time you knew
you weren’t gonna die. That’s what’s killing me; you weren’t even gonna die!”
The most coherent of the Road movies and therefore probably the best, it’s
filled with constant funny repartee, delightfully clever nods at the fourth
wall and the two most-back-stabbiest friends you ever saw (try to ignore the
horrifying scene in which they impersonate a person with a learning disability
and general stereotypical representation of ‘Arabian culture’). “You mean they
missed my song?”
Saboteur – “The baby had the letters, I tell ya!” Filled with familiar Hitchcock
tropes, this fun spy thriller unfortunately gets mired in patriotic rhetoric
every couple of scenes which outside of wartime is a bit much to swallow.
Saludos Amigos – not as trippy or creepy as The Three Caballeros which followed, but it
has no cohesive plot whatsoever, so really a tossup which is more bearable;
this is so short it’s hardly a film at all.
Sherlock Holmes And The
Voice Of Terror – “Good old Watson. The one fixed point in a
changing age.” The premise of Sherlock Holmes inexplicably plopped into WWII
sounded like this wartime thriller would be worth a watch, but it was just a
string of bland B-movie tropes; this is the stupidest Watson you’ve ever seen.
The First Of The Few
(Spitfire) – “It’s not a question of getting my own way; it’s the way
I’ve been going for more than two years. Now it is my way, inevitably. It’s a
question of whether you’re coming with me.”
The framing device is surprisingly poor but the main movie in-between is
a compelling and interesting piece, even with the tragic ending.
The Gold Rush – “I thought you were a chicken.” The re-edit to have this 1925 silent
movie narrated is not a great look.
The Talk Of The Town – “I’ve had that umbrella eleven years.” A
movie with an exciting escaped-criminal-detective-story plot, a cute
will-they-won’t-they romance, a really decent heart-warming friendship between
the three leads and some wonderful natural-sounding dialogue (especially
between Cary Grant and Jean Arthur) makes this a very enjoyable film.
To Be Or Not To Be – “Heil myself.” Fairly funny, but the plot moves along a little too
easily, while there’s always a slight edge behind the humour as you wonder how
much the people making this movie knew of the atrocities the Nazis were doing
in Poland and whether we should really be laughing.
Woman Of The Year – “Shall we pass them around again now?” One of those old timey anti-feminist movies
in which an intelligent, world-travelled, hard-working important woman is shown
to be selfish and ridiculous because she isn’t an obedient little wife (even
though her husband knew exactly what she and her life was like before he chose
to marry her).
1943
Heaven Can Wait – “Do
you think I’m the kind of girl who would take a boy’s last beetle?” Pretty
boring, he should get sent to Hell for wasting everyone’s time with his lame
not-evil story.
Phantom Of The Opera
– almost no connection to the novel and very poorly structured but the
rivalry between Raoul and Anatole is fun.
The Gentle Sex – “A
worm in a corpse is efficient.” Notable only because it was Lesley Howard’s
last film (as narrator and director), this has almost no plot, it’s just an
extended advert encouraging women to sign up for the war effort, but as a piece
of entertainment is devoid of any.
1944
Arsenic And Old Lace
– “This is developing into a very bad habit.” A decent farce that’s
extremely OTT so you have to be in the right mood; Peter Lorre gives the best
performance. “Insanity runs in my family… it practically gallops.”
Double Indemnity – the starts-at-the-end opening is tediously reminiscent of Billy
Wilder’s more famous Sunset Blvd., while Fred MacMurray comes across as a total
creep and the fast-paced dialogue is almost impenetrable while still being
painfully blunt with its innuendos.
Going My Way – it’s kind of aimless and far too gentle.
Laura – “Shall I produce x-ray pictures to prove it?” Quite good, except the
love plot isn’t really believable, and the whodunit is incredibly obvious from
the start.
The Princess And The Pirate – “You haven’t lived very long in this town, huh?” “Does anybody?” Fun if you like Bob Hope movies.
The Three Caballeros – a trippy splicing of cartoon and real
footage in which Donald Duck is aroused by human women; I want out.
1945
Anchors Aweigh –
“I’d quit this piano tuning. Ain’t no future in it.” The plot is trite and not
nearly enough to cover the ridiculously long run time, which is filled with completely
forgettable songs but undeniably stunning moments like the Hollywood Bowl
pianos scene or Gene Kelly hurling himself through the air, and Frank Sinatra
brings some much needed charm to the tale.
Brief Encounter – what
a pushy jerk!
Fallen Angel – “My favourite brand.” “Oughta be, I got it out of your bureau drawer.” Despite being a bit tropey and the extremely rushed ending, I enjoyed this movie.
House Of Dracula –
a reasonable enough excuse to have
Dracula and the Wolf Man meet (although actually they don’t share any scenes)
but there is no reason for Frankenstein’s Monster, and horrible that the
hunchbacked nurse gets killed but the pretty blonde one lives.
Lady On A
Train – fairly entertaining although the comic elements can be frustrating and
it’s very obvious who the villain is.
Road To Utopia
– often touted as one of if not the best Road movie, this actually has a lot
more in common with the messy Zanzibar than the masterful Morocco; the plot is
far too convoluted, the commentary never really feels like it should be there
and the ending is quite disappointing.
1946
A Matter Of Life And
Death (Stairway To Heaven) – a pilot tries to win his life in
Heaven court, but only achieves this when a top surgeon gets killed and
represents him, so how come the surgeon doesn’t deserve to live?
It’s A Wonderful Life
– “He’s making violent love to me, Mother.” Rare example of a classic living
up to its reputation. “We don’t use money in Heaven.” “Oh yeah, that’s right, I
keep forgetting. Comes in pretty handy down here, bub.”
Make Mine Music – “Miracles never really die.” Made
up of ten musical shorts, this film is incredibly dull, apart from the two
final shorts which are watchable, so on the plus side it ends well but on the
down side I can’t see many people making it that far alive.
The Big Sleep - “Somebody’s always giving me guns.” Bogart absolutely shines in this
twisty talky plot, where every line’s a zinger.
1947
Brighton Rock – got to admit, mostly just watched it to see William Hartnell in a
non-Who role, otherwise it’s interesting but there are no sympathetic characters.
Fun And Fancy
Free – the 40s saw a lot of tosh come out of Disney; in this ‘Classic’
Jiminy Cricket is either immortal or a time traveller, appearing here in modern
day Hollywood, listening to an overly-long record about bear domestic abuse and
looking in on a man (who can’t do ventriloquism) who invites a little girl
alone to his house at night for a ‘party’ while Mickey and co re-enact the
skimpiest version of Jack And The Beanstalk I’ve ever seen - all that said,
however, the narration for both stories is well performed.
Miracle
On 34th Street – “I have
great respect for psychiatry and great contempt for meddling amateurs who go
around practising it.” Edmund Gwenn is
so charming he makes the movie work; the supporting cast are rather shallow and
it brings up that annoying concept of if Santa was real, how could people
possibly not know (don’t they wonder where their kids’ presents come from?)
while there’s a lot of eyebrow-raising blurring around ‘the real meaning of
Christmas’ but it’s a nice movie with a sharp wit hidden behind a gentle
exterior.
My
Favorite Brunette – “I’ll personally punch you in the nose so
hard it will look like other people’s noses.” “It might be worth it.” Rather
dull noir parody that failed to keep my attention, but it does have a very
funny ending (if you like the Road movies).
Road
To Rio – the fifth in
the series doesn’t really do anything new and is actually a bit boring.
The Bishop’s Wife – “He knows more about history than the professor.” “He’s been at it
longer.” Like a not-good version of It’s A Wonderful Life, while it starts off
cute, it soon becomes incredibly frustrating as the angel thwarts the bishop’s
attempts to actually pay his wife attention, and ends on an uneasy and
unresolved solution.
The Red House – “She’s sleeping awfully sound.” Atmospheric but rather wooden, and
the abrupt happy ending is a bit silly.
1948
A Foreign Affair –
“Life goes on in those ruins.” Bit of a dud, with the dark material being
played for laughs, one of those old timey abusive relationships passing for
romance and the plot being generated by some very irritating misunderstandings.
Berlin Express –
starts off well, but forgets what it is about (a group of different
nationalities putting aside their differences to help someone) and just focuses
on two of the characters having a forced romance.
Bond Street –
pretty dull, this is four separate stories, only one of which is mildly
interesting.
Call Northside 777 – “I
figure if you pull such a corny gag as this you must want me to go pretty bad
so I’m going… but I want you to know that you didn’t get away with it.” Once
you get past the really clumsy narration at the start, this is all right, but
the film came out before the story it is telling was fully resolved, so it
feels like more could happen.
Key Largo – “Are
you thieves or what? You want money? Is this a robbery?” “That’s right, Pop, we’re gonna steal all
your towels.” Watchable, but not nearly
as tense or thrilling as I thought it would be.
Melody Time – just
as soullessly boring as Fantasia but also slightly creepy.
Mr. Blandings Builds His
Dream House – “On
them second floor lintels between the lally columns, do you want we should
rabbet them or not?” Definitely not enough plot here for an entire movie so I
am surprised how many times this story has been retold.
Rope – more of a
gimmick than a film, and actually, the gimmick that it’s all one long take is a
bit… well… don’t actors do this kind of thing every day; it’s called theatre.
The Bachelor And The
Bobby-Soxer (Bachelor Knight) – “Hey, you
remind me of a man.” “What man?” “Man with the power.” “What power?” “Power of
hoodoo.” “Hoodoo?” “You do.” “Do what?” “Remind me of a man…” This is a weird
film, with the premise involving a fortyish man being made to date a teenager
without ever properly explaining why or how, and the ‘romance’ (between
characters of appropriate age) being forced by the will of a creepy uncle
taints the whole thing until you want to get away from it.
The Paleface –
“What do you want, a happy ending?” The first time I saw this, I thought it was
really funny, but subsequent viewings have failed to raise a laugh and I don’t
like stereotypical Native American stuff. “Either way, he wins.”
1949
Adam’s Rib - “And
after you shot him, how did you feel then?” “…Hungry.” What should be a really
interesting courtroom drama is instead just window dressing for a dumb battle
of the sexes comedy.
A Letter To Three Wives –
“Bad, not badly! You feel badly this way.” An enjoyable movie, although
Husband A needed to be in it more for us to really get invested.
In The Good Old
Summertime – if you haven’t seen The Shop Around The Corner, then this is probably a
perfectly enjoyable movie, but since I have and TSATC is one of my favourite
movies, this is just a cheap replica; swathes of the dialogue is identical but
they cut most of the drama, move around the plot so it doesn’t work as well and
jam in a couple of irrelevant diegetic songs – they could at least have
actually rewritten this as a musical, what we have here is a lazy in-between.
I Was A Male War Bride
– forgettable.
Kind Hearts And Coronets
– “You’re playing with fire.” “At
least it warms me.” Comedy black as an
oil slick, but it’s kind of odd to not actually care who lives or dies by the
end.
Passport To Pimlico –
forgettable.
The Adventures Of
Ichabod And Mr Toad – “When he cuts out, that’s when I cut in.” Has the audacity to start in a library with
The Wind In The Willows, yet what follows has almost zero relation to the novel
at all; Bing Crosby’s narration of Sleepy Hollow does a little better because
it’s easier to be faithful to a short story and because Bing’s always
entertaining; can’t see this being anyone’s favourite Disney movie though.
The Third Man –
“Is that what you say to people after death? ‘Goodness, that’s awkward.’” This
wasn’t that interesting.
1950
All About Eve –
“She loves me like a father, also she’s loaded.” Watchable drama which is a
little harmed by its own fame (I feel like the truth about Eve is supposed to
be a twist, not something I know going in) and I could have done with a public
destruction of the interloper, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have a good
ending.
Annie Get Your Gun – a
lot of fun, Betty Hutton is brilliant, shame about Howard Keel’s one-note
bellowing.
At War With
The Army – beans beans beans beans beans beans MAKE IT STOP PLEASE.
Broken Arrow –the
first film to depict the Native Americans in a positive light; it’s
embarrassing that westerns after this continued to perpetuate myth.
Cinderella
– while Cinderella herself is an interesting lead, her own film is stolen
from her in a bizarre decision to show the story from the point of view of the
supporting cast.
Father Of The Bride – “What
you trying to do, get me in trouble?” With little plot or character and a
dollop of uncomfortable old timey family standards, this isn’t very
interesting.
Harvey – “I
wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I
finally won out over it.” While at the
heart of the film is an interesting idea, it leaves the audience with a rather
heavy, sad feeling, mainly because it’s peopled with really horrible characters
only made more awkward by Elwood blindly only seeing the good in them (and a
rather creepy need to pair young women off with raging a-hole men), and of
course it romanticises alcoholism, and when you hear about Elwood’s life you
can’t help but feel that Harvey is wilfully destroying it.
In A Lonely Place – watchable,
but kind of hard to believe how quickly their love affair becomes serious.
No Way Out –
not what I was expecting (I thought it was a thriller, but it was more a slow
burn drama) and the focus randomly shifts off the main character halfway
through; maddening that Sidney Poitier is not one of the main-billed actors
when he’s at least joint main character.
Rashomon – “I
don’t mind a lie if it’s interesting.” Disappointing; it was slow, the
characters were annoying and the differing accounts were oddly truncated.
Summer Stock -
hard-working farmer engaged to Mr Nice But Dull is seduced by egotistical actor
and gives up her way of life to be a flake; stupid film.
Sunset Blvd.
– not a film I want to watch often, but undeniably well written, well
directed and well acted.
Treasure Island –
fun adventure when I was a kid, not so great now.
Winchester ’73 –
the main character is a gun… the acting is a mixed bag, the plot is a cliché
and James Stewart just isn’t in it enough.
1951
Alice In Wonderland
– with no plot motivation, it’s tedious, and since it all turns out to be a
dream, it’s nightmarishly pointless.
My Favourite Spy – “Don’t
you want to be a hero?” “What for? I’ve been happy all my life as a
coward.” Not particularly interesting,
going through the motions of Bob Hope shtick but with little charm.
No Highway In The Sky
(No Highway) – “It just folded right up and sat down.” An enjoyable movie although
the structure is a little odd, with the exciting portion of the film being in
the first half and the domestic plot seemingly going on off-screen.
Royal Wedding – “I
never had no mother, we was too poor.” The age gap between supposed siblings is
unbelievable, while the fact that they play romantic partners in their shows is
super creepy; the ending is mean and disappointing; only worth watching for the
dancing on the ceiling routine and maybe Keenan Wynn’s twins.
The African Queen – “I
pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution.” I was not prepared for
how twee this is; neither actor is in their element.
The Lemon Drop Kid – “I’m
turning over a new leaf, I’ll never be caught again.” Nothing like the Runyon story, this isn’t
very entertaining.
The Man In The White
Suit – despite having seen this film twice, I find it fairly
forgettable.
The Thing From Another World
– “Close the door!” Takes a while to get going but ultimately it’s pretty cool,
although there are way too many people on the base and they don’t get into
enough peril.
1952
Bend Of The River –
watchable western but James Stewart needs more dialogue.
High Noon –
“Sure I want you to stick, but I’m not buying it, it’s gotta be up to you.” A taut
real-time thriller, that works very well at what it’s doing, but lacks anything
deeper.
Pat And Mike –
“Did you ever see a thing like this before?” Despite some dull golfing scenes
at the start, I think this might be my preferred pairing of Tracy and Hepburn,
where the script never belittles the woman and the romance is so low-key that
it almost doesn’t exist, making it instead a story of self-worth and genuine
companionship.
Road To Bali – “He’s going to sing, folks. Now’s the time to go out and get the
popcorn.” The penultimate of the Road comedies, and last to star the original
trio, there’s even less plot than usual and what jokes there are are mostly
incomprehensible seventy years later.
Singin’ In The Rain –
“Hey, Cos, do something! Call me a cab!” “Okay, you’re a cab.” Great, fun
movie, so witty and energetic.
Son Of Paleface – not as good as the first film, mainly due to
the inclusion of Roy Rogers (and Hope
and especially Russell have less interesting characters to work with this time).
Sudden Fear –
excellent suspense thriller but actually too tense for me – I had to go look up
how it ends before I could continue.
The Prisoner Of Zenda
– “Why don’t you stand your ground and fight?” “‘He who fights and runs away…’
remember?” A pointless film because it’s almost exactly the same as the 1937
version except with a less interesting cast; the story’s faults still stand
out, which is that most of the characters are tedious (with the notable
exception of Rupert of Hentzau), while the romance is creepy, and ultimately I
just feel really sorry for the prisoner of Zenda and kind of wish I was
watching his movie instead; the sword fight is pretty good though.
1953
Angel Face – I found this incredibly boring, but the absolutely shocking ending is
probably what makes it famous.
Calamity Jane
– “I’m glad to say he’s a very good friend, of a friend, of mine.”
Doris Day is brilliant as the title character, giving about 200% to her
exuberant performance, and it’s a fun movie, but the love triangle is toxic –
if this were a cartoon or a romcom, Danny would absolutely be the villain, he
is VILE, yet here he gets a happy ending.
Invaders From Mars –
saw this all the time as a kid, it was both disturbing and hilariously cheap.
Kiss Me Kate – nowhere
near as good as the stage show, at all, in any way.
Peter Pan
– devoid of any of the drama of Barrie’s story.
Roman Holiday – a
watchable movie but you can predict exactly what will happen from the premise.
Shane – “Are
you speaking to me?” “I don’t see nobody else standing there.” Aside from
reminding me that I studied homesteaders vs cattlemen at school, I didn’t find
this to be a particularly fascinating western.
Stalag 17 – “I
suffer from insomnia.” “Did you ever try forty sleeping pills?” The drama side of the film is fine, but the
awful comedy is totally out of place and drags the film to an interminable
length; this would have worked much better as a thriller than whatever the hell
it actually is.
The Band Wagon –
“I’d audition my own grandmother.” “Then why don’t you audition mine? She’d be
just about right for you!” While the plot is interesting, the movie barely
focuses on it and the random montage of songs at the end is annoying because
they don’t fit into the plot of the show they are supposed to be staging.
The Desert Rats – “No
one but a camel could get used to that.” Dull.
The Naked Spur –
“Plain arithmetic, money splits better two ways instead of three.” A terse
Western thriller, the direction is a little OTT at times, but mostly it’s a
small, compelling movie examining how far men will go for greed.
The War Of The Worlds
– forgettable and wooden.
1954
Animal Farm –
forgettable.
Dial M For Murder –
“They talk about flat-footed policemen, may the saints protect us from the
gifted amateur.” It’s watchable, but the story is weakened significantly by
treating the victim as an object throughout.
It Should Happen To You –
“You ever think of getting a parrot?” Has a very odd moral in which a Hollywood
movie tells us ordinary folks that we are wrong to aspire to be anything other
than average, and also like a lot of old movies the romance ends up feeling
quite toxic.
Johnny Guitar – “I’m
sitting here in my own house, minding my own business, playing my own piano. I
don’t think you can make a crime out of that.” Intensely compelling movie.
On The Waterfront –
“When I’m dead and gone, you’ll know what a friend I was.” “Why don’t you drop
dead now so we can test your theory.” The first time I saw this, I thought it
was amazing but I’ve seen it a couple times since and now I just find it kind
of uncomfortable and confusing.
Rear Window – “I’ve
seen it through that window. I’ve seen bickering and family quarrels and
mysterious trips at night and knives and saws and rope. And now, since last
evening, not a sign of the wife.” Brilliantly simple thriller, other films should
take note.
Seven Brides For Seven
Brothers – revolting, sexist, misogynist film that promotes rape (and
there are no good musical numbers either).
The Dam Busters –
watchable if overlong; shame about the dog.
The Far Country –
exciting if clichéd western about law and civilisation and selfishness; James
Stewart is on top form.
The Glenn Miller Story – weird hearing Glenn Miller music described
as ‘something for the kids’; as much as I love James Stewart, this isn’t a
grabber.
White Christmas – “Just spit in his eye.” Fails to resolve the issues and then just ends
like everything is fine.
1955
Guys And Dolls – “Daddy,
I got cider in my ear.” Does a decent homage to Runyon’s charm and humour,
although it’s weird to see all the violence replaced with multi-coloured
prancing
Lady And The
Tramp – “Have you noticed, darling, since we’ve had Lady, we’ve seen
less and less of those disturbing headlines?” Charming film that wins with its
dedication to showing a story through a dog’s perspective.
The Ladykillers –
a bunch of crooks kill each other… fascinating…
The Man From Laramie
– I accidentally sided with the ‘baddie’.
The Trouble With Harry – “Beat it, you little creep… I mean, hurry
home, son.” Weird film.
To Catch A Thief – “Not that pretty; we want to get rid of him.” Shockingly lacking in
thrills for a Hitchcock.
1956
Carousel – the
worst directed/staged film I have ever seen.
Reach For The Sky
– “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on Earth.” “You wouldn’t get a chance; you’d be killed
in the rush.” It’s an interesting story
of course and very convincingly performed, but there’s so much in Bader’s life
that they could have focused on, I’m not sure they found the right balance.
The Man Who Knew Too
Much – “Don’t you realise that Americans dislike having their children
stolen?” James Stewart and Doris Day’s performances with Hitchcock’s direction
makes this damn watchable.
The Rainmaker – "Excuse me, I made a mistake, you’re not a man." Gee, you’d never be able to tell this was based on a play; starts off pretty well but is ultimately just a lot of worthy nonsense.
The Ten Commandments
– “The old windbag.” Somehow takes three and a half hours to tell the exact
same story that The Prince Of Egypt tells in one and a half (although I’d
actually rather watch this version) – it’s all right to start with but once
Moses finds God, it becomes interminable and the pious Bible-reading narration
kills it.
1957
12 Angry Men – “He
don’t even speak good English.” An enrapturing film, proving that a story can
be all talk and still exciting, even if they do seem to forget to go back to
court at the end.
An Affair To Remember – “I
had planned only to live till I was 80. Now I am 82. Well, if I’m not going to
die, I must start saving money for my old age.” An unbalanced film in which I
spent the first half screaming at the screen for something to happen, and the
second half heckling the idiotic female lead for her terrible decisions.
Barnacle Bill –
“Thomas, you’re what is known as a fiddler.” “Yes sir.” “Well, at least you’re
honest.” Harmless bit of fun, slightly undermined because the plot and ending
never live up to the hype established in the framing device.
Funny Face –
“He’s about as interested in your intellect as I am.” Not very interesting.
Night Passage – Anthony
Mann apparently left the project because he didn’t feel the script was ready; I
think he was right; the story is watchable but it’s all too simple; there’s a
beginning here and an end, but no middle.
The Admirable Crichton
(Paradise Lagoon) – watchable but I didn’t like either Crichton
or Mary, so hard to care what happens to them.
The Bridge On The River
Kwai – “With or without a parachute?” A massive downer the first time I
saw it, but I appreciate it a lot more now – there’s a reason it’s a classic.
The Spirit Of St Louis – “It’s earth all right, but what earth,
where?” It seems like a hard sell, setting most of the film with one very
sleepy guy in a cockpit, but somehow they pull it off, and I was practically
cheering with him when he sees Ireland.
The Three Faces Of Eve – creaky, stilted filmmaking, but Joanne Woodward’s portrayal of split personality is convincing.
Witness For the Prosecution – "Like a drowning man clutching at a razor blade." Pretty good movie until the eighteen twists at the end turn it into a ludicrous soap opera.
1958
Bell, Book And Candle
– the fact that this stars James Stewart and Jack Lemmon excited me no end
so I was very disappointed to discover I hated it; it’s about sexual
manipulation and is a fetid piece of poo.
Indiscreet – one
of those films that just doesn’t work now that social mores have changed.
Kings Go Forth – "Another is jumping out of a parachute." "No dear, you jump out of a plane. You hold on to the parachute." Enjoyable if a bit too tropey.
South Pacific –
forgettable.
The Defiant Ones – “Why,
it’s just like runnin’ rabbits.” “These are men.” “Same thing.” “Sure. Men and
rabbits… same thing. It’s not the same thing!”
I like that neither side of the law is demonised, but this also means
that it can never have a truly satisfying ending and it lacks depth; I think I
like the idea better than the execution.
Vertigo –
pretentious style, ridiculous plot, poor dialogue, shoddy structure and crassly
unsubtle music.
1959
Anatomy Of A Murder –
“How can a jury disregard what it’s already heard?” “They can’t.” A brilliant
courtroom drama.
Ben-Hur – kinda
boring, not brain-meltingly boring or anything, I would describe it more as
‘meh’ but FOUR HOURS of ‘meh’ is more than I can bear; everything interesting
happens off screen; also, it’s distractingly homoerotic.
House On Haunted Hill – “Make
a good headline, ‘Playboy kills wife with champagne cork.’” Right, but why has
no one drained the acid from the giant vat in the basement?
Journey To The Center Of
The Earth – funny, intentionally and unintentionally (iguanas do not
pass for dinosaurs) if forgettable.
North By Northwest –
“I’m sorry, old man, too bad, keep trying.” The premise is so dumb that it
takes a while to get on board, but mostly it’s an exciting, enjoyable film,
excepting the romance which is dull and the terrible ending.
Operation Petticoat –
Cary Grant is great and Tony Curtis is unbearable, but the film is ultimately
sexist.
Sleeping
Beauty - “You know, sometimes I don’t think she’s really very happy.” An
oddly made film in which the title character does almost nothing and the hero
is completely mute for the entire second half of the film, but it’s still the most
exciting of the old Disney fairy tale films, which all make deliberate choices
to tell the stories from non-main-character POVs.
Some Like It Hot –
Jack Lemmon is great but I don’t like Tony Curtis; the characters only exist on
a comic level and lack any substance or depth.
1960
Carry On Constable –
a tame but nice comedy, before the series went awful.
Inherit The Wind – “What
is this? Be kind to bigots week?” One of those compelling talky old movies to
start with, but there was so much showboating, I couldn’t actually follow what was
happening clearly, and it didn’t make sense until I read about the original
case it was based on.
Ocean’s Eleven – MONEY;
COFFIN; MONEY; COFFIN; what ELSE was going to happen; too many characters to
follow (obviously) and it’s dull.
Psycho – “Did he kill
my sister?” “Yes …and no!” Having recently read the novel for the first time, I
have to say that the film just isn’t anywhere near as good.
Swiss Family Robinson –
“What if we put up a distress flag?” “Don’t you think we look distressed
enough? Anyone who sees the ship stuck on the rocks might possibly guess it’s
in trouble.” The cruel treatment of the animals (both from a plot and
production point of view) made this unwatchable.
The Apartment –
“I said I had no family, I didn’t say I had an empty apartment.” It’s just one
of the best films ever made. “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.”
The Magnificent Seven
– with seven leads there isn’t enough screen time to go around and come the
big shootout finale it’s obvious which of the seven are going to cop it.
The Time Machine –
“A million years of sensitive men dying for their dreams, for what?!” A
diverting movie although the lead comes across as bipolar.
1961
A Raisin In The Sun –
none of the characters are likeable.
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
– soooooooooooooo boooooooooooring.
One Hundred And One Dalmatians – it’s all right as a cartoon but as an
adaptation it’s a travesty, not least because it deletes three of the strong
female leads, rewrites another as a male character and completely dumps the
personality of the remaining one.
The Absent-Minded Professor – “Oh shut up.” Surprising how quickly it
gives up on the premise of the main character being absent-minded, and annoying
how he never does anything to win back his lost love but just gets her back
anyway.
The Guns Of Navarone
– “I cannot stand pain.” Watchable adventure war movie, but it’s too long.
The Hustler – one
of those slow-paced ‘despondent youth’ films with a jazz soundtrack and
characters acting on indecipherable motives (i.e. not my kind of thing).
The Misfits – “Horse
killers!” Four childish alcoholics beat up some horses, I don’t know what I was
supposed to get out of this.
Two Rode Together –
forgettable.
West Side Story – “Everyone
there will have moved here!” Safe to say it isn’t my kind of musical.
Whistle Down The Wind
– turns out, he isn't Jesus.
1962
Carry On Cruising –
utterly naff.
Dr No – I was
surprised by how boring, unpleasant and occasionally unintentionally amusing
this was.
Flower Drum Song –
the songs are utterly forgettable and the plot comes down to three women all
fancying the same man and the only likeable one gets the only miserable ending.
Gypsy – the story
of a mother who destroys her daughter… thanks for that.
How The West Was Won – “I’d hate to be the cause of your death.” Due to the epic, generational nature of the story, you never really get to know or care about the characters and due to the Cinerama filming technique that doesn’t translate well to a TV, or presumably any flat screen, almost every shot feels like a long shot, while people and objects moving from one edge of the screen to the other undertake bizarre optical illusions that are quite distracting; it would probably be interesting to watch in its intended format though.
In Search Of The Castaways
– everyone in this is so happy and completely unaffected by the ridiculous and
dangerous events occurring that it is impossible to care what is happening.
Lawrence Of Arabia –
“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” There’s no need for
it to be so long – it’s just slow.
Mr Hobbs Takes A
Vacation – a gently amusing movie that passes the time, but it has no
particular plot or drive.
Summer Holiday –
forgettable, mindless fluff.
That Touch Of Mink –
Cary Grant plays the handsome cad, Doris Day the simpering virgin and that’s
the entire plot.
The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance – didn’t get it.
The Music Man – “Don’t
believe I caught your name.” “Don’t believe I dropped it.” I don’t entirely
follow the plot but it is enjoyable nonetheless, mostly thanks to Robert
Preston’s performance.
To Kill A Mockingbird – empty ‘obviously-an-adaptation’ film that
leaves you aching to read the book instead.
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? - “Why should that upset you? Isn’t that how I
was conceived?” Creepy thriller with clear Hitchcock influence, though could
have been improved if Joan Crawford’s character had been less passive.
1963
Charade – “I
already know an awful lot of people, so until one of them dies I couldn't
possibly meet anyone else.” “Well, if anyone goes on the critical list, let me
know.” Exciting and refreshingly funny, even if some of the twists could have
played out for a bit longer while others were pretty apparent from the get go.
Dr Strangelove, Or How I
Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb – I just don’t enjoy satire.
From Russia With Love
– this is pretty dumb, the bad guy could easily kill Bond and just doesn’t,
plus the fact that I actually want him to is not a good sign, and the woman’s
changing allegiance is practically off-screen and I had no idea what was going
on for a lot of it.
Irma La Douce – “And
then there was the RAF and the BBC. Ah! Dunkirk! Ha-ha!” Despite having the
same creative team as The Apartment, this is nothing like it in tone; while the
film is at times hilarious (Lemmon’s English impression) the domestic abuse
plot and muddled ending really sour it.
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad
World – forgettable.
Jason And The Argonauts
– it’s not about anything, nothing happens, it’s horribly made, the acting
is abysmal, the characters don’t matter and it doesn’t conclude, but other than
that…
Lilies Of The Field –
watchable, Poitier is always a captivating lead though I don’t think this is
one I’d watch again.
Move Over, Darling – “Like
Irene Dunne done.” An almost exact duplicate of My Favorite Wife without any of
the charm.
The Birds – there
are some effectively chilling moments in this but mixed in with some other very
odd choices, it’s all a bit weird really.
The Great Escape –
watchable but I don’t think we ever grasp the scale of the events and of
course, being based on a true story, it’s deeply depressing.
The Haunting –
“Whose hand was I holding?” I don’t really have much of an opinion on this
movie, I guess I feel like there’s not quite enough to it and it’s hard to buy
the ‘evil house’ idea when so little evil has actually happened.
The Nutty Professor – “You
might as well like yourself. Just think
about all the time you’re going to have to spend with you.” Lacks focus and depth, but Jerry Lewis is
very good.
The Pink Panther –
meandering and endless, thank goodness for David Niven.
The Sword In The Stone
– entertaining, but there’s no structure to the plot, no real aim or crisis
or threat or anything.
This Sporting Life
– bleak and dull, not my kind of thing at all.
Zulu – have you
studied 1870s African colonialism wars; if not, Zulu has no time for you!
1964
A Hard Day’s Night – “If
he says that again, I’ll strike him.” No plot to speak of, so really only of
interest if you’re a big Beatles fan.
Bedtime Story –
when I heard that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was based on a movie starring David
Niven and Marlon Brando, that sounded like the greatest movie ever made and I
wondered why I had never heard of it; well Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is
practically word-for-word the same script except that they made up a new
ending, so get ready to be let down when you get to the end of this one.
Carry On Cleo –
some of it is just embarrassing, but the stuff with Kenneth Connor as the
bodyguard is quite entertaining.
Cheyenne Autumn –
forgettable, sprawling piece with lots of characters, not my kind of thing.
Father Goose –
“Mr Eckland, where are your tea things?” “My what?” “Your tea things.” “Last
time I looked they were next to the finger bowls.” Starts off well, gets dull
after the kids show up and nosedives once it attempts a ‘romance’.
Mary
Poppins – “I beg your pardon, are you ill?” Very enjoyable.
1965
Doctor Who And The
Daleks – WHAT DID THEY DO?
How To Murder Your Wife
– seems to be satirising misogyny but manages this by being completely
sexist.
Shenandoah –
“Where do you think you’re going?” “Wherever you go, Papa.” “From what these
preachers tell me, where I’m going, you wouldn’t like it there at all.” I think
the point of this film is that war is inherently bad, but considering the
setting is the American Civil War, it doesn’t really deal with slavery with any
clear opinion.
The Flight Of The
Phoenix – “They’ll find us all right… trouble is, we’ll all be dead.” A
compelling disaster movie.
The Great Race –
“Maaaaaaaaax!” A lot of fun but it would be better without the random Prisoner
of Zenda parody that monopolises a third of the movie for no reason.
The Sound Of Music –
“You flatter me, Captain.” “Oh how clumsy of me, I meant to accuse you.” This
film is way too long, especially for something that never focuses on the
interesting parts of its own plot, and most of the songs are surprisingly
forgettable.
Those Magnificent Men In
Their Flying Machines – funny but the ending sucks.
1966
Alfie - my life is a little worse for having seen it.
Batman (Batman: The Movie) – “Some days you
just can’t get rid of a bomb.” Having just watched the TV show for the first
time, I enjoyed this more than I used to.
Daleks – Invasion Earth
2150 AD – better than the first one but still rubbish.
Fantastic Voyage – shockingly slow and dull for what should be a really cool premise.
How To Steal A Million
– “You don’t think I’d steal something that didn’t belong to me, do you?” A
cute, understated heist movie that feels nicely different to the rest of the
genre.
Lt Robin Crusoe, USN
– stupid, very stupid, but the ending was funny.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
(Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo) – “When you have to shoot,
shoot. Don’t talk.” Enjoyable western; I was surprised how little ‘the bad’ has
to do with the plot or the other two characters, makes the final shootout feel
less important, but I was pleasantly surprised that ‘the ugly’ is basically the
main character, because he’s clearly the best character by miles.
The Rare Breed –
a stupid film really and yet James Stewart still manages to do amazing work
with his dialogue.
1967
Bedazzled – I
just didn’t like the characters.
Casino Royale –
insanity; makes no sense thanks to Peter Sellers quitting halfway through
production but David Niven is awesome as always.
Cool Hand Luke –
it’s an ALLEGORY.
Doctor Dolittle –
ENDLESS; one nice pro-vegan song, otherwise quite horrible.
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – “It’s not that I don’t want to know you,
Hilary – although I don’t – it’s just that I’m afraid we’re not really the sort
of people that you can afford to be associated with.” Very well written but
while this was compelling the first time I saw it, knowing what Spencer Tracy
is going to say at the end makes the rest of the film just feel like each
character setting up what he needs to react to, also everyone gets so caught up
in the race issue that no one addresses the actual stupidity of the couple
wanting to immediately marry after having only known each other for ten days in
a holiday setting. “You think of yourself as a coloured man. I think of myself as a man.”
In The Heat Of The Night
– “Whom?” Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger give great performances.
Planet Of The Apes –
preachy satire.
The Dirty Dozen –
next time don’t take a psychopath with you.
The Graduate –
didn’t get it.
The Jungle Book –
not much of a plot but some good tunes, however Mowgli is infuriating and
impossible to like; wish it stuck to the character relationships from the
source material.
The Producers –
despite being told this film was the funniest movie ever made before I saw it
first, I just find it passable, vaguely amusing, but there’s not much plot and
it comes across as irritatingly sexist and possibly homophobic, probably
because the supporting characters aren’t really characters, just gags on legs.
(Weirdly, the stage show added a lot of depth.)
Thoroughly Modern Millie
– “I never read Tom Sawyer. Was he... sexy?” “He was only twelve!” “So? If
ya got it, ya got it.” A lot of fun… if you ignore the racism and sexism.
To Sir, With Love –
“I’ve seen garbage collectors who are cleaner.” I enjoyed it while I was
watching it, but have almost completely forgotten it now it’s over.
You Only Live Twice
- while you might derive some entertainment from the silly 1960s Thunderbirds
style set pieces, this film is so revoltingly sexist and racist that it’s total
garbage.
1968
2001: A Space Odyssey
– I really think that the pace and sound in this film are seriously
misjudged, it feels more like an art installation than a movie and at two and a
half hours, with less than an hour’s worth of plot (and maybe ten minutes of
dialogue), I kind of hate it for boring me so painfully.
Bandolero! –
forgettable other than the fact that the ‘heroes’ die at the end.
Bullitt – Robert
Vaughn: here’s a guy, keep him alive for the weekend so he can testify against
the mafia on Monday; Steve McQueen: Whoops, I shot him dead; Me: Yeah, another
great case, Bullitt.
Carry On Up The Khyber
– forgettable but I recall it was one of the more bearable Carry Ons.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – “Start swimming!” “I don’t swim!” “Then start drowning!” So joyous and exuberant, I don’t even care it’s 18 weeks long; the whole child-catcher thing is utterly misjudged however.
Firecreek –
forgettable.
Funny Girl –
Barbra Streisand gives a brilliant performance as Fanny Brice, an interesting,
intelligent, witty person who also happens to be female, such a rare treat in
movies, so it’s a shame that the plot a) summarises a lot, skipping on too
fast, and b) focuses way too much on her relationship with a total creep; the
film is far more interesting when it’s about her career.
Hannibal Brooks –
(one of those films I saw all the time when I was a kid) fairly nasty story
actually; the ending certainly isn’t satisfactory.
Oliver! – “These
sausages are mouldy!” “Shut up and drink your gin!” This is an exuberant
musical but I am so familiar with the story now that I couldn’t concentrate at
all.
Once Upon A Time in the
West – disappointingly dull, devoid of the fun of his earlier films.
Sweet Charity –
DOWNBEAT ENDING ALERT.
The Love Bug – “Rotten
sportsmanship if you ask me.” I’m not that into this film, I guess I just don’t
like Jim and don’t see why Herbie wants to hang out with him.
The Odd Couple – strangely
forgettable, something about it doesn’t quite work.
The Scalphunters –
“I have been trained in the habit of eating each and every individual day.” The
trouble with this is that while Ossie Davis’s escaped slave character is
compelling and interesting, for some reason he’s forced to play the double act
with Burt Lancaster’s trapper, who, like every other character in the movie, is
despicable, so the film never really works.
The Thomas Crown Affair –
“Go.” Ridiculously over-directed, a hero that’s impossible to sympathise with
and a slow, dull story; this is practically unwatchable.
Yellow Submarine –
strictly for modern art lovers and maybe a few die-hard Beatles fans, if you
keep your eyes shut and just listen to the music.
1969
Butch Cassidy And The
Sundance Kid – brilliant dialogue.
Hello, Dolly! –
“90% of the people in this world are fools and the rest of us are in great
danger of contamination.” Enjoyable musical although there aren’t many great
songs and the plot is about as lightweight as it can get.
Paint Your Wagon – “I
stake this claim for me and my new partner over there whatever the hell his
name is forever and ever amen.” An eccentrically fun movie, only let down by
the dull songs that don’t fit the irreverent script (I think the songs are from
the stage show, however the plot and characters have been completely changed
for the film, so weird they forgot to write new songs too).
Support Your Local
Sheriff! – “That’s about all I’m gonna do the rest of my life is go around
rememberin’ your name.” Pleasingly witty, but it doesn’t do much with the final
act.
The Computer Wore Tennis
Shoes – “We live in hope, Dexter.” Because the film never focuses on the main
character, it’s kind of boring.
The Italian Job –
too famous to really appreciate, watchable once but I don’t find anything
interesting on further rewatches.
True Grit –
“She reminds me of me.” Its greatest strength is an interesting lead in a
practical little girl, although the actual plot is less interesting.
Where Eagles Dare –
it didn’t hold my attention.
1970
Catch-22 – I
enjoyed the extremely black humour but disliked the non-linear plot; easier to
get into than the book anyway.
Kelly’s Heroes –
“It’s still up… no it ain’t.” This is a fun caper, but pretty tasteless
considering it’s a war movie.
The Aristocats – very
bland, while the premise is just annoying (obviously don’t dispose of the cats
until after the woman dies or she’ll just get another one).
The Private Life Of
Sherlock Holmes – “You’ve saddled me with this improbable
costume which the public now expects me to wear.” “That is not my doing. Blame
it on the illustrator.” A very witty film that won me over very quickly, it’s
just such a shame that the copious deleted scenes have all been partially
destroyed because I think it would have been an even better film had they been
kept in.
The Railway Children
– not exactly plot driven.
1971
And Now For Something
Completely Different – bunch of Monty Python sketches, so gonna go with
hit and miss.
A New Leaf – “Did
you hurt yourself?” “No, kneeling on glass is my favourite pastime. It keeps me
from slouching.” Walter Matthau is clearly too old for the role but it’s
watchable, except I don’t like that the woman-object basically needs a carer
and that’s her happy ending, being stuck with a guy who was trying to murder
her, because she’s too helpless to do better.
Bedknobs And Broomsticks
– the remastered 25th Anniversary version is about seven hours
long and has the worst dubbing I’ve seen this side of a spoof; possible
drinking game – every time the words are out of sync with the actor’s mouth
take a sip, every time their voice morphs into the wrong accent down a shot.
Dad’s Army
– retelling the origins of Walmington-On-Sea’s LDV three years after the TV
show already told us is a little odd, but it’s still Dad’s Army, so it’s a good
watch and it has a pretty kick-ass ending.
Duel – how is
this a whole film?
Escape From The Planet
Of The Apes – forgettable apart from the horrible ending.
Fiddler On The Roof – very
enjoyable, intelligent and exuberant musical, but what a sad ending.
Tales Of Beatrix Potter
– ballet is boring.
The French Connection – “Never
trust anyone.” So boring (also devoid of anything to like).
Willy Wonka And The
Chocolate Factory – teaches us that being bad and doing what you are
explicitly told not to is fine, so long as you don’t get caught.
1972
Cabaret – wooden
acting, flat characters, lack of plot, erratic editing, pointless lacklustre
songs and a subtext that’s both brutally in your face and yet barely
touched on.
Carry On Abroad –
awful; I’m embarrassed I watched the whole thing.
Pulp – funny but
the inclusion of bull fighting makes it a dud.
Silent Running – really
unpleasant, I was not expecting the main character to be quite so murdery.
The Godfather – “Who’s
being naïve, Kay?” This is okay but I find it a little difficult to follow and
the time jump among other things keeps the characters at arm’s length from the
audience so I can’t find anything to connect with.
The Hot Rock – aside
from the fact that they cast four identical white men as the leads, this was an
enjoyable enough heist comedy.
The Poseidon Adventure
– “By the way, happy New Year.” A very
watchable disaster-thriller, but I really could have done with more survivors,
thanks.
1973
Charlotte’s Web –
the songs add nothing.
Paper Moon – “I want my two hundred dollars.” One of the best movies ever made, the characterisation and humour are perfect.
Robin Hood – fairly bland with no character depth, but at
times it’s fun, moving and highly nostalgic.
Serpico – never
quite engaged my attention, like a lot of biopics, this was pretty forgettable.
The Sting – “Christ,
they’ll probably miss you and hit me.” Although it can never live up to the
first viewing once you know the various twists, this is still a really witty,
engrossing and entertaining movie; I just wish all subsequent con artist and
heist movies would stop ripping it off. “Luther said I could learn something
from you. I already know how to drink.”
Westworld –
AARGH, painful to watch as it’s purposely about flat, nasty characters, and why
is the control room hermetically sealed anyway?
1974
All Creatures Great And
Small – not exactly gripping as it’s set over a very long time period,
but Anthony Hopkins is quite funny.
Blazing Saddles – “They’re staying in droves.” The mixture of total randomness and occasional sexism and racism (regardless of whether it was originally intended ironically) just makes watching this a horrible experience.
Herbie Rides Again – "Right for the jugular vein, baby!" Cute Disney movie if you can get past the fact that Jim has abandoned Herbie and also the domestic-violencey-love-story (I definitely feel like I have seen this film enough though).
Swallows and Amazons – completely fails as a movie; this is a film
devoid of tension, peril or any plot whatsoever.
The Conversation – it’s
just so boring.
The Front Page – based
on the same source material as His Girl Friday, so it didn’t work for me.
The Godfather, Part II
– "He’s has been dying from the same heart attack for the last twenty years." Pretty boring, just repeats the same point from the first film.
The Return Of The Pink
Panther – Christopher Plummer is no David Niven.
Young Frankenstein – "Put the candle back." Utter rubbish, not funny, revoltingly sexist.
1975
Dog Day Afternoon –
“Is there any special country you want to go to?” “Wyoming.” Entertaining and
engrossing until the incredibly abrupt ending.
Escape To Witch Mountain – “Be a good bear and wait in that cave.” Entertaining kids’ science fiction thriller, although it gets a bit too Disney-twee as it goes along.
Jaws – “It’s only an island if you look at it from the water.” The first half is really exciting but once they get on the boat it got pretty dull; I think I just really didn’t like Quint.
Monty Python And The
Holy Grail – “I got better.” The individual scenes are funny, but a whole film of it gets a bit tiring.
The Rocky Horror Picture
Show – this is either one of those satires that accidentally end up
being the thing they’re trying to mock or it really is as dumb as it looks.
Three Days Of The Condor – “It’s winter.” A promising Hitchcockesque plot is ruined by the decade the movie was made in, the plot is difficult to follow and doesn’t lean in to what should be an interesting gimmick and the ‘romance’ is basically a rape, so that pretty much wrote off the rest of the movie.
Tubby The Tuba –
incredibly cheap animation but you try to get ‘oom pah pah’ out of your head.
1976
All The President’s Men
– very, very dull; I did not follow any of it.
Bugsy Malone –
might have been okay if they hadn’t dubbed the kids with adults, which is just
creepy.
Futureworld –
forgettable.
Logan’s Run – I
always liked his friend… so it wasn’t a happy tale.
Marathon Man – “It isn’t safe.” Totally devoid of all the humour, life and joy from the prose that made the novel so good.
Murder By Death –
far more annoying than any of the stories it is trying to mock.
Network – “I’m
as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more!” I really don’t enjoy
satire; I’d heard this was extremely funny but I didn’t get the joke.
Rocky – no idea
how this spawned a franchise.
Silent Movie – ‘You bad boy.’ Some of it is mildly amusing, some of it is offensive, some of it is just not funny, much like any other Mel Brooks movie.
Taxi Driver – I
can’t fathom it, none of the scenes go anywhere, the lead’s extremely boring
and the film is so ponderous I was barely aware there was a narrative.
The Shootist –
forgettable.
1977
A Bridge Too
Far – “I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to occupy your
house.” A sprawling mess filled with so many characters that you never have any
idea who anyone is or what they are doing; for some reason I kept watching
hoping that it would get good but turns out it’s just three hours of confusion
heading for a big downer anti-climax (which you know going in anyway, so it’s
just a boring misery-fest with the occasional random witty line).
Candleshoe –
“Get up out of bed every morning with your dukes up, you know. Got ’em up,
first punch is yours.” Cutesy sort of Famous Five type story, made more
interesting by having Jodie Foster and David Niven in the cast.
Close
Encounters Of The Third Kind – the
surprisingly dull story of a jerk who abandons his family because of his
obsession with aliens.
Herbie Goes To Monte
Carlo – “I think they steal each other.” They really didn’t need to keep
making Herbie films.
High Anxiety – “That
kid gets no tip.” Not as awful as I remembered but still pretty lame.
Jabberwocky –
visually a lot of effort has gone in here and the humour is extremely sharp,
but the plot… oh the plot; there isn’t one.
Pete’s Dragon – “I don’t want to cure anybody here. They all deserve to have whatever they have.” All over the place.
Smokey And The Bandit –
“Let’s haul ass.” It’s watchable, but the stakes are so pointless that it’s
hard to get invested.
Star Wars (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) – “Boring conversation anyway.” A fun bit of fluff, though we never really get to know the characters.
The Incredible Hulk –
one of the saddest stories I’ve ever seen, made me cry a lot and I felt sad for
days afterwards.
The Many
Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh – even more episodic than the books it’s
based on, this cuts most of the punch lines and endings to the stories, so is a
bit pointless really.
The Rescuers
– the kidnapped orphan Penny is a great character with a heart-breaking
plot, but the Rescuers themselves are rather bland and the sexist overtones
that Miss Bianca needs a man to look after her are never addressed.
1978
Damien – Omen II
– the story of how Damien kills a whole load of people… fascinating…
Force 10 From Navarone
– exciting enough but the characters are hardly interesting, the traitor
turns out to be the guy they knew was the traitor at the start and as a sequel
it’s utterly baffling.
Grease – “How
could it break?” “I bought it when I was in the seventh grade.” The songs are
obviously entertaining but it’s not an interesting story.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand –
“All perfectly normal.” Watchable farce; look out for a few lines that got
recycled into Back To The Future.
La Cage Aux Folles – entertaining but shallow.
National Lampoon's
Animal House – “She was going to make a pot for me.” Utter
garbage.
Superman (Superman:
The Movie) – “My father said to me…” “Get out.” Entertaining but
frustrating that the ending doesn’t make sense.
The First Great Train
Robbery (The Great Train Robbery) – “Mind the light.” Exciting in the way that
heist movies naturally are, but I didn’t care about the characters in the
slightest.
The Lord Of The Rings
– the animation is poor and… well… it’s just poorly made all round; for
example, evil wizard’s name changes between Sarroman and Arrowman; also Strider
has a menacingly short skirt.
The Rutles – All You
Need Is Cash – not remotely funny.
1979
Alien – “You have my sympathies.” Surprisingly basic slasher movie.
Animalympics –
cheap and not that interesting.
Being There – I
completely missed that this was a satire…
Escape From Alcatraz –
“You still reading that Bible?” “Oh yeah, it’s opening up all kinds of new
doors.” Does what you’d expect from a prison escape movie but doesn’t add much else
to the enjoyment.
Kramer Vs Kramer –
“My wife used to always say to me ‘why can’t a woman have the same ambitions as
a man?’ I think you’re right and maybe I’ve learned that much. But by the same
token, I’d like to know what law is it that says that a woman is a better
parent simply by virtue of her sex.” Well-made and compelling, but not
particularly satisfying; it suffers from only being from the father’s
perspective instead of split between the two parents and Dustin Hoffman is
absolutely terrifying, presumably unintentionally.
Monty Python’s Life Of
Brian – they did funny last time so this time they’re going to try to
make a point.
Porridge (Doing
Time) – “A wooded glade crawlin’ with bleedin’ cops.” As
entertaining as any episode of the show.
Rocky II – better
than the first film in that there’s some drama but boxing still isn’t
interesting.
Star Trek: The Motion
Picture – not awful but not enough like Trek.
The Black Stallion – really
does not need to be this long.
The Bugs Bunny/Road
Runner Movie – excuse to watch Looney Tunes cartoons (pointlessly strung
together to make a ‘narrative’).
The Jerk – not
something I find very funny.
The Muppet Movie –
PLUS: witty dialogue, genius mix of deadpan and cartoon humour, impressive
puppetry, Steve Martin cameo, MINUS: dull plot, lame songs, pants ending, all
the other cameos.
Time After Time – “You still maintain this is all poppycock?” “That wasn’t exactly the
word I had in mind.” Pretty much what you’d expect from a 70s B-movie.
Unidentified Flying Oddball (The Spaceman And King Arthur) – the story of a man who is unfazed by
everything.
1980
Airplane! (Flying
High) – I’m not a big fan of spoofs anyway but the last time I
watched this, I didn’t laugh.
Caddyshack – it
wasn’t funny.
Flash Gordon –
Flash – a-ah; there’s no time for sense, we must get through this plot at
superhuman speeds; an insane film but a complete load of fun.
Herbie Goes Bananas –
probably the worst of the Herbie movies, this has way too many characters so no
one achieves anything and none of them even know Herbie which is really sad.
Hopscotch –
pointless.
Nine To Five – “You’re
a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.” Starts off well but the plot
is nutballs and too OTT to care about.
Private Benjamin – “Can’t
you hear?” “Can’t you move?” Nice movie about self-affirmation.
Raging Bull – I
didn’t like it, at all; I would rather stare at the wall.
Superman II
– right, let’s all walk to the North Pole, apparently it’s easy, just head
north; hey, look, Superman’s giant ice fortress, open for anyone to enter, who
knew?
The Blues Brothers
– “What light?” The sheer OTT exuberance of this film somehow works and it’s a
lot of fun.
The Elephant Man – “Pray to God he’s an idiot.” I feel this was given to the wrong director; I found reading the Wikipedia article about Joseph Merrick more interesting than watching the actual film.
The Empire Strikes Back (Star
Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back) – this really feels
like an (very good) episode of TV rather than a film.
The Shining – I
know it’s nothing like the book, but it’s not even scary, it’s just empty.
1981
Chariots Of Fire – disappointingly
very dull; the famous scene is the opening scene which makes me wonder if anyone
has ever actually sat all the way through this.
Escape From New York
– an entertaining one-watch kind of movie, a fun ride but no depth to come
back to.
Gallipoli – I
only remember the ending but it has stuck with me for most of my life.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
– iconic and a lot of fun, even if the plot is just pass the bomb.
Stripes – two
lazy bums join the army on a whim and find out that it’s really strict…
fascinating…
The Fox And The Hound
– it’s like Zootopia if you took away the moral and the happy ending.
The Great Muppet Caper
– lame, apart from the brilliant Kermit-and-Fozzy-are-identical-twins joke.
Time Bandits – looks
pretty cool but the episodic nature of the plot, the fact that you never really
get to know the characters and the nihilistic ending leave me cold.
1982
48 Hrs. –
“Jack, tell me a story.” “F*** you.” “Oh, that’s one of my favourites.” Unless
you happen to enjoy racist slurs and loads of people getting murdered, this is
one to skip.
Airplane II: The Sequel –
“This thing seems to have no other function whatsoever, sir.” A handful of
chuckles to be found in what is otherwise just some lame jokes directly taken
from the first film and the bizarre idea that showing boobs as often as
possible is the same as wit.
Annie – Albert
Finney goes for Oliver Warbucks via Frankenstein’s monster.
Blade Runner – I
find this movie pretty boring, probably because Deckard is so dull; since it is
far more interested in the ‘villains’ I don’t know why it didn’t just focus the
story on them properly (also the romance looks very rapey).
Dead Men Don’t Wear
Plaid – impressive on a first watch, but this doesn’t live up to
subsequent viewings and since it opens with a joke about sexual assault that
pretty much sours the mood.
ET: The
Extra-Terrestrial – a story that focuses on emotion over plot, this is
extremely evocative and but not so satisfying.
Grease 2 – uh, it
wasn’t completely awful.
Rocky III – Eye
of the Tiger, Eye of the Tiger, Eye of the Tiger; easily the best of the Rocky
films, the Rocky/Apollo plot really feels earned but whoa is it homoerotic.
Star Trek II: The Wrath
Of Khan – a perfectly enjoyable movie but it feels more like a really
good episode of TV than a film (also David does nothing for me).
The Dark Crystal –
boring and horrible in equal measures, watching this could’ve killed me; pretty
sure this film was designed, then made, skipping the bit where normally there’s
a script; guaranteed to give children nightmares due to the endless stream of
freaky monsters and nasty deaths.
The King Of Comedy – “You
got a blank card there.” Painful but funny.
The Secret Of NIMH - right
from the opening scene with MAGIC it’s clear this isn’t going to be very true
to the source, also it looks pretty grotty.
The Thing –
characterisation, suspense and script logic are lost to lots of impressive
special effects and graphic horror.
Tootsie –
complete lame rubbish.
Tron – this is
pretty cool to start with but the visuals get extremely dull and fatiguing
after a little while and the ending is weirdly abrupt.
Victor/Victoria –
while this is cute and the relationship between Victoria and Toddy is sweet,
King is so toxic that he spoils the movie and I always wonder how much better
this might have been had Victor been a trans man.
1983
Blue Thunder – “One
civilian dead for every ten terrorists. That’s an acceptable ratio.” “Unless
you’re one of the civilians!” The heroes are so toxic that it spoiled what
could have been a fun dumb action movie.
Educating Rita – “There
must be better songs to sing than this.” While it never quite shakes off its
play origins, this is a watchable film that seems like it’s going down an oddly
unpleasant moral path but makes a u-turn at the end and actually feels quite
sweet.
Flashdance – this
is not a movie, it’s just an hour and a half music video; nothing to enjoy.
Monty Python’s The
Meaning Of Life – last time they replaced being funny with making a
point, this time they’re going to replace being funny with being gross.
National Lampoon’s Vacation – practically unwatchable, possibly ‘of its time’ but totally devoid of humour.
Psycho II – “Well
I don’t kill people any more, remember.” Aside from the gore which I shut my
eyes through, I actually enjoyed this more than the first one.
Return Of The
Jedi – a fun edition to the series but fairly low on plot.
Superman III
– “If there’s anything I hate, it’s greed.” Really not very good, with a
messy plot and random bad slapstick for no reason.
The Evil Dead –
possibly a form of torture having to sit through it.
The Man With Two Brains – “What are those assholes doing on the porch?” “Those aren’t assholes; it’s pronounced ‘azaleas’.” Oddly every time I watch this film I come out with the opposite opinion; this time I liked it. “Were you out on the lake today kissing your brain?”
To Be Or Not To Be –
“This is bad too.” It’s not better than the original but it’s still enjoyable.
Trading Places –
didn’t do it for me.
WarGames – a slow
start, a simple ending but the middle is good; Matthew Broderick was in his
twenties when he made this but he looks about nine.
Yentl – an okay
movie, Yentl’s story is fairly compelling, but the songs could be cut, all they
do is express Yentl’s emotions in her head and drown out the dialogue, while I
can’t see what she likes about Avigdor, and Hadass doesn’t get nearly enough
focus.
1984
2010 (2010:
The Year We Make Contact) – fairly dull.
Amadeus – fairly
enjoyable despite demonising both Salieri and Mozart for no reason but it’s
overlong for such a vague story, I couldn’t empathise with Salieri (or work out
why F. Murray Abraham got an Oscar) and there’s… just… so… much… opera.
A Nightmare On Elm
Street – so much screaming.
Beverly Hills Cop –
“In Beverly Hills, we just take whichever car is closest.” Gets better as it
goes.
Birdy – the
premise and acting are a lot better than the tacky presentation (the music
being the worst part); I’ve always loved the ending but it does feel like it has
walked in from a totally different film.
Caravan of Courage: An
Ewok Adventure – utter rubbish of course, but made worse when
you find out that the main character and the parents he sets out to save in
this get killed off at the start of the sequel which makes this story totally
worthless in retrospect.
Dune – truly
disgusting.
Footloose – “I
thought only pansies wore neckties.” “See that? I thought only assholes used
the word ‘pansy’.” A bit too rushed, but it’s enjoyable, nice that the
characters have layers, and has some fun dance numbers. “Has anyone ever died
doing this?” “Just once.”
Ghostbusters –
“No human being would stack books like this.” The mix of wit and atmosphere is
sublime. “What about the twinkie?”
Gremlins – “They’re
watching Snow White. And they love it.” It’s creepy, it’s cute, it’s
atmospheric, it’s funny, I don’t know how they balanced it but it works so
well. “Yum. Yum.”
Indiana Jones And The
Temple Of Doom – “Wake up, lady.” Ghastly racist and sexist film, total
nosedive.
Romancing The Stone –
absolutely ghastly and dull as hell, it’s just an endlessly repetitive plot,
poorly edited with completely flat characters, plus one utterly gross love
scene.
Splash – “Show
some dignity for Christ’s sake!” Naff and irritating, and a ‘romance’ no one
could possibly care about.
Starman –
damn aliens coming to our planet and impregnating our women (having first
emotionally manipulated them); a tediously predictable tepid science
fiction love story with about as much brain as a dead ant and not once do they
play the song ‘Starman’.
Star Trek III: The
Search For Spock – “The word is no, therefore I am going anyway.”
Watchable but doesn’t really feel like a full movie.
The Karate Kid –
“You got a name?” “Ali with an I. Hey, what’s your name?” “Daniel with an L.”
Enjoyable film.
The Muppets Take
Manhattan – the most coherent Muppet film so far but the show they put
on at the end is lame.
The NeverEnding Story
– an intriguing premise but it’s nowhere near as good as the book and it’s
so dark in places that it screwed me up when I was a kid.
The Terminator – feels
very much like a B-movie, weird that it is so popular and famous.
This Is Spinal Tap –
an okay spoof, but not great.
Top Secret! –
lowbrow spoof, not particularly interesting.
1985
A Room With A View –
forgettable, I watched this on a coach and was the only person who stayed awake
(other than the driver) and at the end realised sleep would have been more
entertaining.
Back To The Future –
“Let’s see if you bastards can do 90.” The best film ever made. “Sorry about
your barn.”
Brazil – “I’m a
bit of a stickler for paperwork.” It looks so good, I could eat it, but the
characters and plot are almost non-existent.
Clue – it’s
weird, occasionally I can see what is supposed to be funny but it just ISN’T,
and then at the end it gets all frenetic and farcical like it has crashed into
a different film, and the multiple endings, while a neat idea, mean that
ultimately none of it matters in the slightest.
Cocoon – horrible story about a sex pest and some cruelly selfish old people.
Explorers – “I
watched four episodes of Lassie before I figured out why the little hairy kid
never spoke.” Weirdly dull film that
makes huge leaps of logic to start with, with three kid leads you couldn’t
really give a hoot about, and then absolutely loses its nut when they get to
space.
Family Ties Vacation – American
sitcom meets ‘British-land’, sheesh.
Red Sonja – forgettable.
Return To Oz –
“If his brain’s ran down, how can he talk?” “It happens to people all the time,
Jack.” Visually amazing movie, unfortunately annoys me because it is not a very
accurate adaptation of the novel.
Rocky IV – so Paulie
has a robot bride (it’s also just one long montage) (and the plot is
redundant).
Santa Claus –
nonsensical rubbish but if you’re stuffed on Christmas dinner and surrounded by
wrapping paper, you’re hardly going to be at your most discerning, so who really
cares?
Silverado – not
fascinating.
Teen Wolf – utter
garbage.
The Black Cauldron –
poor animation, awful voice acting and badly realised characters.
The Breakfast Club –
great when I was a teenager, insultingly clichéd now I’m not.
The Goonies – “What
about the loot?” “What about our lives?” Never understood why this irritating
film is so beloved.
The Journey Of Natty
Gann – “I ain’t going out there. I don’t give a damn what you do.” Extremely
episodic.
The Purple Rose Of Cairo
– with this premise, you could do anything, but Woody Allen doesn’t, he just
has Cecelia endlessly say this isn’t like real life because real life sucks and
then that’s the ending.
Weird Science – total garbage.
Witness – whoever
was in charge of the awful and completely out of place score should be fired.
Young Sherlock Holmes
– “My name isn’t James, it’s John.” I guess maybe a kid could find it
entertaining but it bears no resemblance whatsoever to Sherlock Holmes, they
fail to save a single person and the narration is dire.
1986
Aliens – “She
doesn’t have bad dreams because she’s just a piece of plastic.” Increasing the
amount of aliens decreases their intrigue and threat; having heard this film
hyped up all my life, it didn’t live up to expectations.
An American Tail – “There are no cats in America.” The plot is poorly constructed, the animation ugly and the hero irritating because he is too young to have any agency and just screams a lot.
Big Trouble In Little
China – one of those insane nonsense logic films, but not a successful
one.
Clockwise –
“It’s not the despair, Laura, I can take
the despair; it’s the hope I can’t stand.”
I like the rapport between
headmaster and student, but some of the incidents are irritating rather than
funny, the ending has practically no conclusion and frankly I wanted him to
come out on top, so I’m kinda disappointed.
Crocodile Dundee –
sexist.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
– while there’s really no reason to like Ferris, the film is so
light-hearted, it’s hard not to enjoy.
Flight Of The
Navigator – all premise,
absolutely no plot.
Highlander –
there is one awesome scene in this, the WWII ‘it’s a kind of magic’ bit, shame
about the rest of the film.
Labyrinth – “It’s
so stimulating being your hat.” Fantastic film.
Little Shop Of Horrors
– “Excuse me, I couldn’t help noticing that strange and interesting plant in
the window.” I just love the look and sound of this film (could do without the
dated toxic attitudes towards Audrey though).
Manhunter – boring
and very 80s.
Peggy Sue Got Married
– majorly disappointing.
Ruthless People – I
didn’t watch this film but wanted to include it to explain: I put the film on
but didn’t even get through the opening credits, which contains an animated
sequence of horrific animal abuse, I assumed this was therefore the kind of
movie I was about to see so turned it off; apparently there isn’t even a scene
in the film like this so what the hell is it doing there?
Short Circuit –
terrible film, cute robot.
Something Wild –
very 80s.
Stand By Me
– “It should’ve been me.” Brilliant
performances from the child leads. “Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman’s a
real guy. There’s no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.”
Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home – “Everybody remember where we parked.” Not sure how only two
whales are going to solve the problem, but a fun movie.
The Adventures
Of The Great Mouse Detective (Basil
The Great Mouse Detective) (The
Great Mouse Detective) – “Whatever.”
Entertaining but because it is plot-driven it has no depth.
The Golden
Child – I don’t think I can convey quite how bad this film is without
you watching it, but DON’T do that, whatever you do.
The Karate Kid Part II - “Hey can you break a log like that?” “Don’t
know. Never been attacked by tree.” The baddie plot is ridiculous and I can’t
believe the audience at the end don’t call the police, but otherwise this is an
enjoyable addition to the story.
Three Amigos! –
“So I just wait here then?” Fun movie. “Sew like the wind.”
Top Gun
– possible drinking games: 1. Take a sip for every homoerotic inference
(dangerous as you’d be under the table within five minutes); 2. Take a sip for
every time the characters say the title of the film (Top Gun; Top Gun; Top Gun,
we get it already); 3. Spot Nathan from Heroes - there he goes!
Transformers - The Movie
– my brain melted.
1987
*batteries not
included – “Bobby!” “Hey, lady, my name’s not Bobby!” “Well excuse me.
Robert.” Apart from some cute robot
moments, there’s nothing to recommend about this film, it’s naff and dull and
the ‘heroes’ range from flat to downright dislikeable; Carlos’s arc is a little
interesting but it doesn’t go anywhere.
Adventures In
Babysitting – “Take back what you said about
Thor!” Fun 80s kids adventure movie, except I saw the heavily edited Disney+
version with all the bad words dubbed out, which often makes scenes illogical,
and since this did appear to be a kids movie, I have no idea why there was so
much bad language in it in the first place.
Beverly Hills Cop II –
“How the f*** can you steal a house?” If you liked the first one, it’s nice to
see the characters so happy to see each other, but there’s not much to it and
it’s painfully masculine.
Broadcast News –
forgettable, although I think Albert Brooks was okay.
Dirty Dancing – forgettable,
it was all right, if you like watching a lot of grinding.
Dragnet – not
particularly funny and a boring plot.
Empire Of the Sun –
“White light: I thought it was Mrs Victor’s soul going up to heaven.” Sort of
rambling and vague – you never really get to know the characters and the music
is completely out of place.
Evil Dead II – well,
it’s better than the first one.
Harry And The Hendersons
– while it’s hard not to like John Lithgow whatever he’s doing, this film is
surprisingly dull and has rather a confused moral of don’t kill animals, unless
they’re fish.
Innerspace – “Tuck
says thank you.” Entertaining lightweight movie, but I don’t like the romantic
couple.
Lethal Weapon – so
boring.
Light Of Day –
forgettable while I was actually watching it.
Masters Of The Universe
– look, it’s Tom Paris from Star Trek Voyager!
Moonstruck – the
quirkiness was very appealing but surely we are not really supposed to care
about the romance?
Overboard – “Eat
your checkers.” While the movie itself isn’t particularly bad, the premise is
so horrific that there’s no rescuing this.
Planes, Trains and
Automobiles – not funny, painfully 80s and tediously repetitive.
Raising Arizona –
I find Coen brothers films cold and distant.
Roxanne – Steve
Martin’s good but it’s just not that nice.
Spaceballs - I
actually used to get it confused with Star Wars when I was a kid and that’s
when you should watch it, never watch it as a grown up.
Superman IV: The Quest
For Peace – sadly this would have been no worse than any of the other films if they
had been allowed to finish it.
The Brave Little Toaster
– “To the showers.” What the hell
was that?
The Living Daylights – hard to believe the incompetency of some of the characters, Bond remains
unpleasant and the female lead has as much personality as a sack of potatoes
(or lamp).
The Lost Boys –
it’s just so 80s…
The Monster Squad – “Told
ya, only one way to kill a werewolf.” Way too many characters and a holey
script leave this in a complete mess, despite the cool monster effects.
The Princess Bride –
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Probably the most quotable movie ever made, as a child I always felt this was
somehow lacking something, like there was an even better version out there,
which as an adult I discovered was because it is an abridged version of a novel
(ironic, since the novel is jokingly presented as an abridgement itself).
The Secret Of My Success
– so 80s it makes me puke.
The Untouchables –
if you like cheese, then tuck in, because this is one of the cheesiest films
I’ve seen.
Three Men And A Baby
– the drug subplot is stupid and Ted Danson’s character doesn’t need to be
in it.
Withnail And
I – interminable.
1988
A Fish Called Wanda –
Wanda and Archie don’t work, Ken and Otto do.
Akira – still
mentally scarred from seeing this as a kid.
Beetle Juice – “I’m
gonna get her.” It’s a classic. “I’m not your coach. He survived.”
Big – no plot
beyond its premise and several creepy themes.
Biloxi Blues – amusing and watchable but not enough really happens to make it truly interesting.
Checking Out –
repulsive.
Coming To America –
“Only dogs are to obey. If you truly love your wife, you will value her
opinion.” While there is some mileage in the fish out of water stuff, it mostly
seems to be sex jokes and Eddie Murphy doing silly voices, which isn’t my cup
of tea.
Die Hard – “We’re
gonna need some more FBI guys.” Watchable action movie; practically every line
in this is a zinger, so it’s easy to see why it is such a fan favourite. “Does
it sound like I’m ordering a pizza?!”
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – “Know your limitations. You are a moron.” A lot of fun.
Earth Girls Are Easy
– one of the worst films I’ve ever seen; there’s no character or plot
development in the entire 100 minutes and the whole thing is
stomach-wrenchingly eighties—and if that doesn’t make you vomit, then the
sporadic ‘songs’ will.
Hairspray –
pretty awful most of the time, but I liked Corny and Penny.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas – sentimental pap.
Mac And Me –
watch that alien try to kill that disabled kid.
Midnight Run –
Charles Grodin and Robert De Niro are both excellent.
My Neighbor Totoro - sweet
film apart from the terrifying monsters, far too light on plot.
My Stepmother Is An
Alien – dire, poor, ghastly, confusing, limp, unexplained, baffling,
unconvincing and contradictory; the highlight is the few seconds Seth Green is
in it, apparently about 13, but so small you could fit him in a shoebox.
Oliver & Company
– the finale is so ridiculous that it’s too dumb to enjoy.
Rain Man –
forgettable and I didn’t really get it.
Scrooged – “It’s
great, you get two chances to rough them up.” I like this more because I loved
it as a kid rather than actually liking it now.
Short Circuit 2 –
I can’t believe I’ve seen this.
The Accidental Tourist
– forgettable and dull.
The Adventures Of Baron
Munchausen – “Am I dead?” “No.” “Blast.” The shaggy-dog nature of the
story gets a bit much after a while.
The Land Before Time
– for toddlers only (I’ve also seen one of the eight million sequels but no
idea which).
The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad!
– “Why?!” While individual jokes are amusing, a whole film of spoof humour just
bores me.
Twins – it’s
funny and Arnold Schwarzenegger is very good, but the plot is weak and the
‘romance’ and sentimentality are ghastly.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
– “This is the last time I work with someone with a speech impediment.” While
I could do with a little more character depth and I wish I wasn’t so distracted
by the special effects, this blending of noir and cartoon remains a piece of
genius. “You coulda taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?!” “No, not at
any time. Only when it was funny.”
Willow –
forgettable; the costumes and puppetry are amazing (or amazingly horrible) but
the plot is thin, the characters underdeveloped, the bad guys baffling, it’s
all buried in clichéd fantasy drivel, nothing and no one is explained, terrible
names fly all over the place and all the evil Queen and big finale stuff is
just embarrassing.
Without A Clue – “You
idiot!” Mostly very fun, but the shift of main character focus from Watson to
Holmes towards the end spoils it a little and it loses a lot due to the
inclusion of a transphobic trope.
Working Girl –
forgettable, apart from the horrendous 80s hair.
1989
All Dogs Go To Heaven
– feeble plot, terrible music and bad animation.
Back To The Future Part
II – “You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong.” The most fun
you could have with a sequel to the perfect film.
Batman – “I made you, you made me first.” Better than I remember, but it can’t
seem to decide who the main character is.
Bill & Ted’s
Excellent Adventure – “Whoa, three aces!” Fun bit of fluff.
Casualties Of War –
gruelling.
Chances Are – absolutely ghastly film where at the end the guy gets together with his
daughter; gross.
Danny, The Champion Of
The World – forgettable.
Family Business – devoid
of likeable characters.
Felix The Cat: The Movie
– the worst experience of my life; I may have suffered permanent brain
damage.
Field Of Dreams –
“You lied to me.” “Well, you were kidnapping me at the time, you big jerk.”
Meandering, weird and strangely dull.
Ghostbusters II –
“I don’t blame them. Because one time, I turned into a dog and they helped me.
Thank you.” Has a lot of promise, much of which is squandered by trying to
rigidly follow the structure of the first movie, however I loved it as a kid so
I still like it.
Glory – well made
and well performed but seems more interested in making a historical point about
‘America’s forgotten heroes’ than making a watchable narrative or giving the
story a resolution.
Heathers – “What
are you trying to do, kill me?” Doesn’t do it for me; I know it’s black comedy
but some of this is really inappropriate, and satire always leaves me feeling
cold; one of those ‘becomes the thing it is mocking’, ie glorifying suicide.
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
– gets a bit tedious after a while.
Indiana Jones And The
Last Crusade – “No ticket.” There are genuinely funny and exciting
moments in this, but the plot and characters are poor.
K-9 –
forgettable, but it’s the one where the dog doesn’t die.
Licence To Kill – “We
must be related.” Something of a slog.
Little Monsters – naff,
boring and unpleasant.
Look Who’s Talking –
Baby Mikey wants James to be his dad; James wants to be Mikey’s dad; an hour
and a half later, big surprise, this is what happens (hate these films).
Parenthood – well
made comedy drama, suffering usual ensemble cast lack of focus.
Say Anything… – “Is
everything nice, but not too nice?” Rather dull, and it’s particularly
difficult to care about two bland teenagers’ ‘true love’.
See No Evil, Hear No
Evil – oh dear.
Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier – “I miss my old chair.” The character stuff is great but the
plot makes no sense; a film that starts with a lot of promise and gradually
slides down the toilet.
Steel Magnolias –
“Ouiser, you look like hammered shit.” “Don’t talk to me like that!” “Sorry,
you look like regular shit.” Kinda dull.
The ’Burbs – “You
wanna not steal that from Walter’s house, please?” A guilty pleasure. “I’ve
never seen that. I’ve never seen anybody
drive their garbage down to the street and bang the hell out of it with a
stick.”
The Dream Team – “This
is God’s way of telling us we’re going to die.” An entertaining film.
The Karate Kid Part III – "I’m afraid! I’m afraid of him, all right?" Definitely the weakest of the first three movies but I just like seeing the characters again.
The Little Mermaid – “It don't hurt, coz
you’re dead.” The pinnacle of Disney animated movies.
The Witches – not
great, too gross for a kids’ film and why do we see the kid naked at the end?
Three
Fugitives – Nick Nolte is very good but this is just an awkward story where you can’t
help thinking the little girl probably would be better off being cared for by
someone other than her father.
Turner & Hooch – the one where the dog dies.
Uncle Buck – “We’re gonna really have to
start brushing our teeth.” Teenage girl gives her uncle the unrelenting stink
eye for an hour and half until she gets sexually assaulted off screen and then
they live happily ever after or something.
When Harry Met Sally…
– Harry’s a pig who treats women like dirt; Sally’s irritatingly pious;
Harry says, right at the start, men and women can’t be friends because sex gets
in the way, Sally disputes this; ninety minutes later, turns out she’s wrong;
how’s that an interesting story?
1990
Arachnophobia – “If we find the spider who did this, you can arrest him.” Despite being a
creature feature, this has a really solid script and it’s smart and witty.
Back To The Future Part
III – “Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?” Lots of fun but
clearly the weakest of the trilogy, while Doc’s behaviour throughout is
infuriating.
Captain America –
Captain America steals people’s cars by pretending to be sick, gets the love of
his life killed and then dates her daughter and Red Skull doesn’t have a red
skull and cuts off his own hand for no logical reason.
Cry-Baby – “Electricity
makes me insane!” What the hell was
that?
Darkman – sort of
like The Punisher meets The Shadow (probably), this is awful and yet Face/Off
and Mission: Impossible rip it off.
Days Of Thunder – utter poo.
Dick Tracy – would
work better if the lead wasn’t so wooden.
Die Hard 2 (Die Harder)
(Die Hard 2: Die Harder) – “Honey, it’s the 90s, remember?” Occasionally
frustrating but perfectly watchable action movie.
Duck Tales: The Movie –
Treasure Of The Lost Lamp – forgettable.
Edward Scissorhands –
“Oh yeah, he’ll be fine.” The ending is both a massive downer and totally
nonsensical, so I don’t enjoy this.
Ghost – the ghost
stuff is all really cool but the romance is gaggingly awful; also, the two men
who led to Sam’s death go to Hell, even though one of them didn’t kill him or
want him to be killed, and yet Sam goes to Heaven despite hunting down and
killing them; bit of a mixed message there.
GoodFellas – what
a bunch of dicks.
Gremlins 2: The New
Batch – “Please remove it from the CLAMP parking garage, your car is old
and dirty.” Different in tone from the first film, but so loopy it is still
loads of fun.
Home Alone – “I
made my family disappear!” Solidly structured, entertaining movie.
Kindergarten Cop –
forgettable, it’s all right for what it is.
Look Who’s Talking Too – the parents scream
abuse at each other until toddler Mikey is so disturbed that he rips the head
off of a toy penguin; this disturbed nature goes completely unnoticed by the
adults and is never resolved; happy sequel (hate these films).
Miller’s Crossing –
not my kinda film.
Misery – “When
you’re in this car, you’re not my wife, you’re my deputy.” A decent thriller.
My Blue Heaven – “Have
a nice day.” “F*** you.” The characters in this crime ‘comedy’ are shallow and either
bland or annoying so there’s nothing to care about.
Nuns On The Run –
meh.
Pretty Woman –
“I’m assuming you’re a… relative?” “Yes.” “I thought so. Then you must be his…”
“Niece?” Richard Gere’s character is charmless and devoid of personality and
the ‘romance’ never overcomes the fact that it’s about a guy paying for a
prostitute.
Quick Change – “What kind of clown are you?” “The crying on the inside kind, I guess.” Very
funny.
Spaced
Invaders – forgettable.
Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles – awful.
The Flash
– he’s not funny, so how is he the Flash?
The Godfather Part III
– I’m sick of all this ‘he’s doomed, DOOMED’ stuff.
The Grifters –
nasty.
The Hunt For Red October
– “I have to be careful what I shoot at?” Fairly dull.
The Rescuers Down Under – Disney
are clearly proud to have entered their modern age and are showing off, but the
story itself is forgettable and I can’t believe we don’t see that room of caged
animals get free.
Three Men And A Little
Lady – racist or xenophobic.
Tremors – “I
vote for outer space.” Finds a decent balance of making an entertaining story
despite all the horrible deaths.
Truly Madly Deeply –
very dull.
1991
Beauty And The Beast
– a lame villain and lamer romance make for a dull film – I think Disney
must have spent all their money and effort on that 3D chandelier.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus
Journey – much more fun than the first film.
Cape Fear – hilariously awful, when this
isn’t laugh-out-loud funny it’s so bad, it’s extremely irritating; so well done
Martin Scorsese for making the cinematic equivalent of an amusingly shaped skin
rash.
Curly Sue – seems
to be heavily influenced by Paper Moon, very mawkish, but okay for lazy rainy
afternoon fare.
Doc Hollywood
– well, the word ‘bland’ springs to mind; will Doctor Stone stay in the
small town of Grady – does anyone care?
Drop Dead Fred –
loved it when I was a kid, but even then I didn’t like the metaphorical ending.
Father Of The Bride –
why is everyone so mean to George?
Hook – witty,
with detailed sets, clever characterisations and smart references, this is an
exhilarating adventure film, ruined by every scene that includes the Lost Boys,
which drags it down into bog-standard children’s film.
Hot Shots! – yet
again, I’m not a big fan of spoof humour, but it does have Cary Elwes in it.
King Ralph – ugh,
really?
L.A. Story – “Oh
you’re taking a course in conversation?” “Yes.” While the premise isn’t bad,
the characters are so flat that I didn’t care what happened to them.
Little Man Tate –
enjoyable drama, perhaps too serious.
My Girl – bees?
Robin Hood: Prince Of
Thieves – naff, so much more naff than I remembered; also, this year’s
Worst Father Award goes to Robin and Will’s dad; you gave up your younger son
to appease your older son; no wonder Will is miffed.
Rocketeer – a
tedious ‘superhero’ film devoid of superheroics, with heroes so boring they
could send you into a coma, pottering around with ghastly small town values to
saccharin small town music and how many people are hiding in those bushes?
Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country – flawed but entertaining, shame all the baddies
stand out like neon.
Soapdish – “He
doesn’t have a head!” Transphobic (this seemed like a fun bit of harmless fluff
with a good cast, until the finale randomly hurled surprise bigotry at the
audience that left me feeling shocked and deeply disappointed with everyone
involved).
Suburban Commando –
it’s a film starring Hulk Hogan, what were you expecting?
Terminator 2:
Judgement Day – “Trust me.”
Really exciting to start with and some undeniably cool moments, but it’s
definitely too long (both versions) and the narration is dire.
The Addams Family –
worth every bizarre second for the amazing, frenetic performance of Raul Julia
as Gomez Addams.
The Fisher King – um, I dunno, guess it didn’t work for me.
The Hard Way –
there’s no character development or detective work, two elements essential in
buddy cop movies; it’s just a clichéd cop thriller minus the thrills.
Thelma & Louise –
it’s all very slow and depressing for far too long then towards the end of the
film it all goes rather over the top and is a lot more fun, but as amusing and
exciting as this road trip part of the film is, it doesn’t fit in with the very
ponderous first half.
The Naked Gun 2½: The
Smell Of Fear – there are a few laughs here and there; one of those just
not my kinda thing deals.
The Silence Of The Lambs
– a workable hunt-the-villain thriller, but the characters range from
underdeveloped (Clarice) to silly (Lecter).
True Identity –
probably rubbish but I haven’t seen it since I was a kid and wasn’t entirely
sure I hadn’t dreamed it.
What About Bob? –
I sided with the wrong one.
1992
A Few Good Men – too
much like a play, every scene is set so the characters come in and say a bunch
of very clever but entirely unbelievable bits of dialogue and then leave; I
never believed any of these characters could be real people.
Aladdin – entertaining
but the pace is far too quick.
A League Of
Their Own – “Well then, this would be more, wouldn’t it.” Way too broad and
unfocused, it feels almost entirely made of montages, it’s at its best when it
focuses on the relationship between the two sisters, but too often it feels
like there’s no real plot at all.
Batman Returns
- “Oh hi, Vick - come on in.” I dunno about you, but I actually like
Batman to be in my Batman movies (also fewer plot holes would be nice).
Beethoven – “I really don’t like our dog.” Surprisingly charming family film actually.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
– terrible, don’t make Dracula sympathetic.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
– oh boy is this bad.
Carry On Columbus –
because we really needed a new Carry On film.
Death Becomes
Her – an intriguing dark comedy spoiled by a lack of consistent main
character and the fact that none of them are sympathetic.
FernGully: The Last
Rainforest – one of those especially awful, cheap, clichéd cartoons that
steals a little of your soul.
Forever Young –
forgettable.
Glengarry Glen Ross – so
boring it was unwatchable.
Home Alone 2: Lost In
New York – “You can’t mess with kids on Christmas.” Stretches painfully
to recreate the same plot as the first film, but still entertaining.
Honeymoon In Vegas – it’s kinda fun.
Mad Dog And Glory –
grotty.
My Cousin Vinny –
always entertaining and satisfying, a good comfort movie.
Newsies – “How
bout a crooked politician?” “Hey, stupid, that ain’t news no more!” Very Disney
(and formulaic), but watchable for what it is.
Out On A Limb –
oh dear.
Scent Of A Woman – not a very interesting story.
Sister Act –
a fun piece of fluff.
Sneakers –
‘COOTYS RAT SEMEN’ Fairly bland stuff.
Strictly Ballroom –
on one hand a droning, clichéd plot with crude direction, on the other sharp,
satirical humour with well-defined characters.
The Mighty Ducks
– “Does that sound stupid to anyone else?” So formulaic I’m not sure it ever
stopped being a montage.
The Muppet Christmas
Carol – “No cheeses for us meeses.” A classic.
The Player –
satire bothers me.
Tom And Jerry: The Movie
– well I saw it when I was a kid so it was all right, seem to recall it was
the same plot as the Rescuers.
Toys – LL Cool J is the highlight.
Wayne’s World – sorry
Garth, it sucks.
1993
Ace Ventura: Pet
Detective – ghastly, homophobic.
Addams Family Values
– Gomez still rocks but he has less to do in this one.
Army Of Darkness (Evil
Dead 3) – forgettable.
Batman: Mask Of The
Phantasm – the pace is so slow it’s been declared dead.
Beethoven’s 2nd
– “Are we thousandaires?” Harmless sequel, although they forget to resolve the plot about their business.
Cliffhanger – "It costs a fortune to heat this place." Enjoyable enough for a brainless action movie.
Coneheads – not
good, but not completely awful.
Cool Runnings –
“You know what my grandfather says?” “What?” “Get back to work!” Run of the
mill underdog sports movie.
Dave – a nice,
watchable film, but rather run of the mill.
Demolition Man –
forgettable.
For Love Or Money –
a bland The Apartment rip-off with hints of personality mostly drowned by poor
casting (not Michael J Fox of course, he’s always great).
Free Willy – they
do.
Groundhog Day
– enjoyable.
Heart And Souls –
sweet ghost story.
Hocus Pocus – no
matter how hard I try, this just isn’t Eerie, Indiana.
Homeward Bound: The
Incredible Journey – the ending gets me every time, shame the plot is
driven by stupidity.
Hot Shots! Part Deux
– I don’t particularly like spoofs anyway but this is a bad one.
Indecent Proposal – a
poorly made film ruins what could potentially be an interesting character
study, but the whole thing can never work because somehow the makers don’t seem
to understand that Robert Redford’s character is a toxic stalker, not a
romantic hero.
Jurassic Park –
“We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.” Despite all the non-sequiturs, it’s so
exciting and the special effects are so convincing, that you somehow don’t care.
Last Action Hero –
cool premise.
Les Visiteurs – I
don’t know what sense of humour it’s going for, but it isn’t mine.
Life With Mikey (Give Me
A Break) – better to leave it in the ‘watch-once’ category.
Matinee –
“Insecticide, where?” A fun, enjoyable movie but there were too many characters
so the plot could have been sharper.
Mrs Doubtfire –
don’t watch this when your parents are going through a divorce.
Much Ado About Nothing
– the Beatrice/Benedick bits are fun.
National Lampoon’s
Loaded Weapon 1 – another run-of-the-mill spoof, unbelievably short,
probably funnier back when Lethal Weapon was a thing people could remember.
Philadelphia –
“With all due respect, your honour, we don’t live in this courtroom, do we?”
While I appreciate at the time this film was fairly ground-breaking in its
portrayal of AIDS, and that’s great, by today’s standards, having the lead be a
raging bigot in order to appeal to the ‘average Joe’ in the audience is
sickening, and because the film keeps skipping so much time, it feels more like
a summary of events rather than a story.
Robin Hood: Men In
Tights – “Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English
accent.” Unfortunately naff.
RoboCop 3 –
terrible, cheap, lazy, stupid, so sometimes hilarious.
Schindler’s List –
heavy-handed attempt at history, this shows events rather than people, horrific
yes, but not involving, more a museum than a story, it should focus more on
individuals and less on set pieces.
Sister Act 2: Back In
The Habit – WHAT DID THEY DO?
Sleepless In Seattle
– with the moral of leave your fiancé for some guy you’ve never met.
So I Married An Axe
Murderer – watchable, forgettable.
Sommersby – well
there’s nothing to enjoy.
Splitting Heirs –
not very funny, fairly derivative and irritating that every woman in it wants
to sleep with Eric Idle.
Super Mario Bros. – “What
if the impact of that meteor created a parallel dimension…” Despite this film’s
horrendous reputation, turns out it was actually fine, no better or worse than
the many other convoluted B-movie-esque action SF movies of the 80s/90s.
The Fugitive – “He’s
dead.” “That oughta make him easy to catch.” Entertaining thriller that I watch
every ten years or so when I have forgotten the twists.
The Nightmare Before
Christmas (Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas) – “What’s
this?” Overhyped to death, but still entertaining.
The Night We Never Met
– none of the characters are likeable, so I don’t care how their love lives
turn out.
The Secret Garden – strangely cold; Mary
finds a locked garden that is constantly filled with angelic choir music as the
film desperately tries to hammer home how awesome flowers are but since I don’t
find flowers very awesome, the film certainly lacks something quite major, like
a plot; probably better than the book though.
Tombstone – no
humour, lots of violence and a lack of character, in other words: booooooooooooooooooooooring.
Wayne’s World 2 –
funny sketches are not enough to make a film but at least Mike Myers is more
bearable than in the first film.
We’re Back! A
Dinosaur’s Story – utterly random weird stuff unsuitable for adults.
What’s Eating
Gilbert Grape – the most boring film ever made; I thought it would kill
me with tedium; I am so glad it’s over.
Where The
Rivers Flow North – forgettable, other than a feeling like being dunked
in the freezing, churning, never ceasing river for a hundred minutes.
1994
Airheads –
not great, would be a lot funnier if the characters weren’t so ‘serious’ about
their music.
An Awfully Big Adventure
– incredibly depressing and/or creepy.
Andre – this was
huge when it came out, which is when I last saw it, wonder why no one mentions
it any more?
Baby’s Day Out –
Home Alone if instead of a kid outwitting people you just had a completely
unaware baby (so a stupid idea).
Black Beauty –
don’t let horses make films.
Chung King Express –
two stories and I’ve only seen one, but it was quite good.
Don’t Drink
The Water – the timescale is too long and the characters aren’t
interesting enough to hold the attention, while the camera work is irritating
and distracting.
Dumb And Dumber –
I know they’re supposed to be stupid and I know they’re supposed to be
irritating, but at no point did I find that funny.
Ed Wood –
“Really? Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one will be better.” A delightful tale of optimism and friendship
and possibly the only good biopic I’ve seen.
Forrest Gump –
certainly watchable.
Four Weddings And A
Funeral – ultimately disappointing as I can’t find anything to like
about Carrie.
Greedy – most of
the characters are funny, but the structure is a mess and the plot mostly
idiotic.
Little Women –
that woman looks nothing like a grown up Kirsten Dunst.
Loch Ness –
tacky, plus terrible Scottish accent alert.
Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein – to create life, take one corpse, buckets of umbilical
fluid and some electric eels… this is a stupid film with waaaaaaay too much
gore and the ending makes no sense.
Maverick – “I’d have let you fall down for free!” While entertaining in places, the plot is rambling, the female character poorly defined and just how many twists can a film need?
Miracle On 34th Street
– “Nuts. I should have got his autograph.” Insipid, overly sentimental garbage
that completely misses all the nuance and logic of the original.
Muriel’s Wedding –
incredibly depressing and yet not much happens plot-wise, it ends with Muriel
and her friend escaping their hometown, a situation they had already reached an
hour ago.
My Father The Hero – how
the hell did this ever get made?
Naked Gun 33 1/3: The
Final Insult – another spoof, this one lacks a middle.
Renaissance Man -
“Are they saying ‘kill’?” Dull by-the-book movie that focuses way too much on
Hamlet.
Shallow Grave –
the world’s three most dislikeable people fight over money, who cares.
Speed – what do
you mean Jeff Daniels’s character dies?
Stargate –
very little plot that stretches on
and on for over two hours.
Star Trek: Generations
– WHAT DID THEY DO?
The Adventures
Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert – “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it
again. No more f***ing ABBA.” Captivating film.
The Chase – oh
dear Lord.
The Flintstones –
the film isn’t so good, but the performances are excellent.
The Hudsucker Proxy –
lovely fairy tale.
The Jungle Book –
if the Jungle Book was Tarzan and The Mummy… and stupid.
The Lion King – lighten
up, eh.
The Mask – did I
mention I don’t like Jim Carrey?
The Next Karate Kid – rubbish
film, by far the worst of the franchise, missing everything that worked about
the first film (aside from Mr. Miyagi).
The Pagemaster –
have they even read a book?
The Return Of Jafar –
“Would it kill you to do something nice for him?” “Possibly.” I enjoyed this as
a kid, but as an adult it’s just cheap and annoying.
The Road To Wellville
– creepy.
The Santa Clause – “Do
I gotta stay?” Awful.
The Shadow – an
enjoyable and tongue in cheek superhero movie, from before films were so
oversaturated with superheroes.
The Shawshank Redemption
– it’s okay but the ending rambles on far too long.
The Swan Princess – “You
should write a book: How To Offend Women In Five Syllables Or Less.” Passable children’s fare; how does Odette not
have a mother, even when she was born?
Thumbelina – “I’m
not your toots.” Ghastly film: the songs are poor, the animation ugly, our hero
Thumbelina is vain and fickle and the plot unstructured.
True Lies –
probably the most fun I’ve had watching an action film.
When A Man Loves A Woman
– “Mommy died.” Fairly compelling but so unfocused that it’s rather weak.
1995
Ace Ventura: When Nature
Calls – it can’t be as bad as the first one.
Apollo 13 – the
fact that even after an explosion that sees oxygen levels plummeting, the
characters still chat about whether they’ll be getting to the moon somewhat
detracts from the whole life or death drama; and while the claustrophobic
scenes of the astronauts can be nerve-racking, we always cut immediately to the
safety of Houston, killing the suspense.
Babe – utterly untaxing, but pleasant.
Batman Forever
– like 60s Batman but much worse.
Casper – not
good.
Clueless –
“You think the death of Sammy Davis left an opening in the Rat Pack?” A cute
movie, surprisingly sweet (apart from the ending) but the plot does better when
it does its own thing rather than when it tries to replicate scenes straight
out of Emma (when it just ends up with redundant plot threads).
Copycat – unpleasant.
Desperado –
detested this.
Die Hard With A
Vengeance – a fun action film; hoorah!
Dolores Claiborne – less
compelling than I thought it would be.
Dracula: Dead And Loving
It – an okay spoof.
Dr Jekyll And Ms Hyde
– diabolically awful.
Far From Home: The
Adventures Of Yellow Dog – this whole movie feels like a montage, I
never connected with the characters and that kid sure does murder a lot of
animals.
Fargo – boring
and unpleasant.
Father Of The Bride Part
2 – the moral of the film is that we must never ever change or grow; no
one faces any trials (or plot) of any (relevant) kind and yet, despite it all,
this is better than the first one.
French Kiss –
Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan are fun, but enough of the scenery worship.
From Dusk Till Dawn –
turns out I’m not a teenager any more.
Get Shorty –
slick and funny but none of the plot strands go anywhere (can we say NOVEL
ADAPTATION?).
GoldenEye –
unbelievable, unendurable and stodgy; Alec, just SHOOT James already.
Heat – such a
massive cliché, this shows us a cop and a villain and suggests they are similar,
yeah, groundbreaking; what this comes down to is a bunch of ugly violent people
mumbling incomprehensibly for almost three hours; have a nap instead, it’d be
more interesting, and more original.
Jumanji – “Run!
It’s a stampede!” A classic of family adventure movies, with a great
mixture of fun, eeriness, pathos and thrills. “Well, a little rain never hurt
anybody.” “Yeah, but a lot can kill ya.”
Nick Of Time –
thrilling enough on a first watch, but not particularly well made and more
tedious and embarrassing on each repeat viewing.
Nine Months –
Hugh Grant’s characters always seem to be paired with repulsive women I don’t
want him to end up with in these things.
Nixon –
forgettable.
Pocahontas – barely
scratches the surface of either plot or character.
Sabrina – I
certainly don’t want her to end up with Linus.
Sense And Sensibility
– good, but suffers severely from Austen’s ‘tell don’t show’ style and
seriously, couldn’t someone kiss?
Se7en – didn’t do
it for me (and that doesn’t look like a v).
The American President – a relationship I
don’t care about, politics I don’t understand, no, this is not the film for me.
The Brady Bunch Movie
– neither spoof nor homage, this falls flat between the two.
The Quick And The Dead – “How do you spell that?” “Correctly.” Watchable but the interesting backstory is wasted on very little plot about a repetitive shoot-out contest.
The Usual Suspects –
would probably be better if it had just been the story with the twist, rather
than the flashback, then it would have been subtle and more convincing, as it
is, at times I found it tediously obvious and sniggeringly silly.
The Wind In The Willows – awful;
badly made and very, very boring.
Tommy Boy – why
did I watch this?
To Wong Foo Thanks For
Everything, Julie Newmar – “I think that’s healthy.” Surprisingly
formulaic with no character depth, which disappointed me.
Toy Story – “You
Are A TOY” Despite the dated computer
animation, this is a very good film, emotional, magical, thrilling and funny.
Trainspotting –
stylish and witty it might be, but pretension, vapidity and gratuitousness let
it down.
Tremors II: Aftershocks
– “Actually, I’m not the original
guy.” There isn’t much of a plot and it
looks quite cheap, but there are laughs to be had.
Twelve Monkeys –
that twist sure is frustrating, forgettable.
Waterworld –
dull.
While You Were Sleeping
– “My God, he’s got amnesia.” Self-indulgently sentimental, but sometimes
that’s exactly what you need.
1996
Aladdin And The King Of
Thieves – naff final instalment in the Aladdin franchise which I have
seen twice and remember not at all.
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream – one of those stage shows they record on film and probably lose
what worked about it live; this does nothing with the material.
A Time To Kill – fairly
gripping courtroom drama but uncomfortable that this is a story about Black
people told from the perspective of white people and where women are just there
to get victimised in order to inspire the menfolk to action.
A Very Brady Sequel –
who really cares, should have been wittier.
Bogus – “If I
live here, I’ll die.” Undeserving of its poor reputation, this is too busy but
basically fine.
Brassed Off - “Tonight’s origami class.” Watchable, if not memorable.
Broken Arrow –
“Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?” I was hoping this
would be dumb fun the way certain 90s action movies were and it did not
disappoint.
Dear God –
lightweight Christmas fluff, this is corny and pointless but Greg Kinnear
convinces as a con artist and he is entertaining.
Down Periscope –
bit naff, but watchable.
Emma – so
unbelievably fast-paced that it doesn’t entirely make sense; some novels are
not meant to be films.
Fly Away Home –
very slow but once the adorable baby geese turn up, it’s all worth it.
Happy Gilmore – forgettable.
Homeward Bound II: Lost
In San Francisco – a lot worse than the first one with nauseating
additions to the cast, but Michael J Fox is still an entertaining voice actor.
Independence Day – cheesy, very clichéd and
soppy with the word ‘American’ being said far too often and devoid of female
role models, somehow it’s watchable, even enjoyable, maybe it’s because of the
utter ‘them versus us’ mentality or skilful casting of likeable actors; dumb
yet fun.
Jack – sad.
James And The Giant
Peach – lame.
Jane Eyre – who
casts William ‘boring’ Hurt as Mr Rochester?
Jerry Maguire – “You said f*ck.” Oddly feels like a novel adaptation because it’s so rushed.
Jingle All The Way – “Put
that cookie down. NOW.” The ‘hero’ is so dislikeable and his dilemma so avoidable
that it undermines the whole story.
Larger Than Life –
probably naff, but I enjoyed it when I was a teen.
Lost Highway –
wha?
Mars Attacks! –
yet another spoof.
Matilda – good
but doesn’t quite capture the magic of the book.
Michael –
forgettable.
Mission: Impossible –
boring espionage stuff, strung together with an awkward structure, a badly
written script, no character development, plot holes from blatant deleted
scenes and villains and twists obvious from Uranus.
Multiplicity –
kinda fun.
Muppet Treasure Island –
fun but sailing quite far from the source material.
Primal Fear –
Edward Norton is brilliant, shame about the rest.
Scream – I don’t
like violent films even if they’re satirical.
Sgt Bilko – sided
with the antagonist again (because he’s completely in the right).
Sleepers – I like
the start anyway.
Star Trek: First Contact
– “You’re all astronauts on... some kind of star trek.” Doubtless the best
TNG movie, but this is such a dull crew I really don’t want to keep revisiting
them.
Surviving Picasso –
this film taught me that Picasso was a right git.
That Thing You Do! –
kind of enjoyable, but never really goes anywhere and how many times can you
play the same song.
The Adventures Of
Pinocchio – watchable but not great.
The Birdcage –
“Sweetie, you’re wasting your gum.” Always entertaining.
The Cable Guy – “I
don’t know what the big fuss is about. I saw that movie nine times. It rules!”
I find myself wanting to like this film a lot more than I do, just because
other people don’t like it so much, but honestly while the premise is really
interesting, it may have been a lot more compelling with a different cast.
The English Patient –
didn’t get it.
The First Wives Club – “I told him to drop dead.” A
convoluted farce that has too many threads and some dire narration.
The Frighteners –
fun and creepy.
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame
– while admirable that Disney have a disfigured lead, many plot elements are
not suitable for the audience (the villain’s lust for the heroine, for example)
and the ‘comedy’ is out of place and hammered in.
The Nutty Professor –
forgettable.
The Phantom – the
Phantom’s superpower seems to be boring the audience to death, the plot is
pointlessly dull and nothing that happens makes any sense.
The Rock – what once I enjoyed as cheesy
fun I now see only as irritating cliché, it is entertaining if there’s nothing
better to do but there’s always something better to do.
The Wind In
The Willows – Steve Coogan and Eric Idle are good (the others aren’t),
it’s a lot of fun, the make-up is excellent and the actors appear to be having
a whale of a time; but the dog food plot is just stupid and the ending is the
big let down.
Twister – one of
the stupidest films ever made.
1997
Air Bud – okay
Sunday afternoon kid’s film.
Air Force One – watchable
nonsense, with a disappointing finale.
A Life Less Ordinary
– I despised this.
Anastasia – “So
you think you’re gonna miss it?” “Miss what? Your talking?” I loved this movie
when I was a teenager, but coming to it again a couple of decades later, I was
disappointed that it is just a lot of 90s battle of the sexes nonsense.
As Good As It Gets –
are we seriously supposed to want Melvin and Carol together?
Austin Powers:
International Man Of Mystery – forgettable, I never really got the
Austin Powers craze.
Batman & Robin –
who cares by this point; it can’t be worse than the previous one.
Bean – anorexic
film, edited within millimetres of life.
Boogie Nights –
too many characters.
Breast Men –
another depressing biopic.
Casper: A Spirited
Beginning – the amount of incompetence that has gone into this film is
actually impressive, it’s a g-g-g-god awful film (and THIS year’s Worst Father
Award goes to…).
Con Air – “I’m
gonna show you God does exist.”
Hilarious, from the absurdly cheesy dialogue, to the endless stream of
impossible explosions, to the patriotic strains of an electric guitar
underscoring all the most embarrassing moments, this is a hysterical example of
‘Dumb OTT American Action Flick From The 90s’.
“Don’t. Treat. Women.
Like. That!”
Contact –
forgettable.
Face/Off – the
dumbest film ever made.
FairyTale: A True Story
– not fascinating.
Fierce Creatures –
fun, except for the boring Willa.
Flubber – this
didn’t really do it for me, even when I was a kid.
Gattaca – a good premise, wasted; nothing
happens, nothing is gained, nothing changes, by the end, Vincent has made no
one’s life better and hasn’t learnt anything, also, what happens to Jerome is
horrifying.
George Of The Jungle
– forgettable pants.
Godzilla – atmospheric and funny.
Good Will Hunting –
it’s just kind of ‘meh’ really.
Grosse Pointe Blank –
hit men get on my nerves.
Hercules – the
montage nature of the story means we never really get to know Hercules, while
the actual plot is trite, dull and has little to do with the mythology on which
it’s based.
I Know What You Did Last
Summer – stupid slasher.
In & Out – this
used to be one of my favourite films but now I find its portrayal of
homosexuality is skin deep and frankly a bit offensive; but the ‘Exploring Your
Masculinity’ tape and the Oscar-winning film ‘To Serve and Protect’ are still
funny.
Jungle 2 Jungle –
kind of okay once, then very naff.
LA Confidential – while
the dialogue is entertaining, the ham-fisted plot is full of clichés, the story
holds no surprises, the characters are one dimensional, their arcs appear to
have been written with a sledgehammer and the ending is an irritating cop-out.
Lawn Dogs – weird
and po-faced.
Liar Liar – who
else wants to punch Jim Carrey?
Life Is Beautiful (La Vita È Bella) – makes you feel worse the more you think
about it.
Martha – Meet Frank, Daniel And Laurence –
predictable, stupid and DULL; and the moral is you should dump your lifelong
friends for a woman you just met; the only fun I could have with this film was
imagining how I would re-cut it as a horror film (I do fancy Tom Hollander
though).
Men In Black –
fun but there’s no depth to it.
Mousehunt – “I
forgot to put holes in the box.” Amusing and surprisingly warm-hearted.
Mrs Brown - oh
who cares.
My Best Friend’s Wedding
– an egotist fights an idiot for a pig; while the film is harmless, there’s
no way I want either woman to get stuck with that jerk for the rest of her life
and it’s startlingly clear that the marriage ain’t gonna last; Rupert Everett
easily walks away with the movie.
Scream 2 – why
did they kill off Randy?
Space Jam – Looney Tunes are funny, sport is boring, whose stupid idea was this?
Spice World: The Movie
– not as bad as I was expecting but no way I would watch it again.
Subway Stories: Tales
From The Underground – these short stories are evocative in their own
ways but there’s no narrative drive so overall it’s unsatisfying; if only there
had been some kind of arc or recurring character, just to draw it all together.
The Big Lebowski –
I just don’t get it.
The Edge –
Anthony Hopkins is good, but it’s a gruesome, stupid film with clumsy
‘moralising’.
The Fifth Element –
Gary Oldman and Ian Holm carry it and remind us what the rest is probably
supposed to be like.
The Full Monty – entertaining
for a one-watch, so you don’t notice how it never really scratches the surface
of the characters or how the plot is incredibly brief yet heavy-handed.
The Lost World: Jurassic
Park – who knew Jurassic ‘excuse for dinosaurs to eat people’ Park could
get even dumber.
The Magic Sword: Quest
For Camelot – awful.
The Man In The Iron Mask
– baaaaaaaaaaaad acting.
The Man Who Knew Too
Little – very fun, just don’t stop to think about the ending.
The Saint – “Friends.
Countrymen. Russians!” A dull plot and dislikeable leads make this action thriller
a dud.
’Til There Was You –
really did not want them to end up together, although mostly just didn’t care.
Titanic –
insulting.
Trial And Error –
a harmlessly lame comedy that will pass an afternoon, but not challenge or move
you in any way.
Twin Town – was
bored.
Volcano – the
sense of gleeful edge-of-seat anticipation carried me right through to the end,
but I made the mistake of watching it again and realised it’s just a bunch of
unconnected scenes in which people die a lot.
Wilde – so
boring.
1998
A Bug’s Life – funny
but I just don’t care a jot about the ants.
All The Little Animals
– Christian Bale is amazing, shame about the clichéd plot and general
terribleness of the film.
American History X –
good and yet somehow failed to keep my attention.
Babe: Pig In The City
– worth watching for just why anyone thought this gothic film should be
about Babe, but not really suitable for children.
Blade – yet
another lame trendy vampire story, with some politics thrown in too, the story
doesn’t go anywhere and it was a boring ride to this nowhere.
Blast From The Past –
terrible.
Blues Brothers 2000 –
it’s a pointless remake of the original.
Casper Meets Wendy – better than the second
film and for that, I am willing to forgive a lot.
City Of Angels –
don’t cycle around blind corners on mountains with your eyes shut.
Croupier –
completely forgettable.
Dark City –
didn’t do it for me.
Deep Rising – utter pants; the tagline
'Full Scream Ahead' is the best thing about this catastrophe of a monster
movie.
Doctor Dolittle –
forgettable.
Elizabeth –
insanely gruesome.
Enemy Of The State – full of baffling
techno-blah and ludicrous action plot stuff, but it’s funny and exciting when
it’s meant to be, so kind of enjoyable.
Ever After: A Cinderella
Story – watchable if there’s nothing else to do.
Hideous Kinky –
okay but forgettable.
I Still Know What You
Did Last Summer – another dumb slasher.
Jack Frost –
can’t believe this made me cry.
Le Diner De Cons
– never was so much humour conveyed
through just a look.
Lethal Weapon 4 –
stupid, forgettable.
Lock, Stock And Two
Smoking Barrels – better the second time, once I knew who the hell
everyone was.
Meet Joe Black – “Give it to me again but the short version this time.” How is it so long and yet nothing happens?
Mulan – lovely
tale of female empowerment, if lacking in rewatch value.
Out Of Sight –
okay but forgettable.
Paperback Hero – forgettable
other than a topless Hugh Jackman.
Patch Adams – “I
wanna help them with their troubles.” “That’s what I do.” “But you suck at it.”
Schmaltzy and repetitive.
Perfect Blue –
screwed up.
Pleasantville –
excellent film, until it goes all heavy-handed on the metaphors.
Practical Magic –
a very confused film, clearly a novel adaptation, it just doesn’t work.
Rushmore – didn’t engage.
Shakespeare In Love –
if they both died, I wouldn’t care.
Simon Birch – one
of those ‘watchable because I have nothing better to do’ films.
Six Days, Seven Nights
– garbage.
Sleepy Hollow –
this might be one to miss if it wasn’t for Johnny Depp’s hilarious performance.
Sliding Doors – “Really bad sign.” There are no likeable and few interesting characters in this film so it’s hard to care what happens, it focuses too much on characters we’re presumably not meant to like and not enough on the ones we are, plus the writing comes across like the screenwriter has never actually met a real woman and what kind of rom-com ends with a double miscarriage?
Small Soldiers –
apart from the occasionally very funny bit and the creepy and scary action
sequences this is just tame kids’ fare.
Snake Eyes –
twist!
Sphere – hated
it, baffling and yet dumb.
Star Trek: Insurrection
– still don’t care about these characters (this would be fine as an episode,
by why is it a film?)
Stepmom –
stepmom is actually not a very important character at all, the title and the
trailer are total misnomers, presumably because some exec at some point went,
‘whoa whoa whoa, no one is going to go see the cancer movie; pretend it’s about
divorce instead’; it’s an utterly bipolar plot and the moral is cancer makes
everyone friends; well that’s nice.
The Con – naff and unconvincing.
The Faculty – probably
the most fun you’ll have watching a teen flick so a real shame it’s so
overbearingly pro-drugs.
The Lion King 2: Simba’s
Pride – the story of how Simba grew up to be a terrible king, so thanks
for that.
The Mask Of Zorro –
pants.
The Negotiator – “Can’t a guy hold his partner’s hand?” Entertaining one-watch thriller.
The Opposite Of Sex –
very slick black comedy.
The Pentagon Wars –
watchable.
The Prince Of Egypt - looks
amazing, but isn’t emotionally involving unless you count the horror of
watching Moses not want to be an Egyptian any more because of Hebrew babies
being killed, and then watching the Hebrews celebrating Egyptian babies being
killed.
The Truman Show –
good but cold.
The Waterboy – didn’t
make me laugh.
The Wedding Singer – they get together;
that’s all there is to this tedious ‘rom-com’ that forgets both romance and
comedy, so now I’ve saved you the pain of having to sit through it.
The X-Files – a
big confusing mess of weird nothing.
Urban Legend –
everyone on this campus happens to own the exact same coat.
What Dreams May Come
– a big stupid lot of sad, poorly done.
You’ve Got Mail – charming (though the ending is a little flat).
1999
10 Things I Hate About You – nothing
particularly good about it but nothing particularly bad about it either; it’s a
nothing-film; it’s a teen flick.
Alice In Wonderland – while giving this
story a plot and theme draws it together and creates an arc we can follow, it
thwarts the point of the book, for now instead of everyone being rude to Alice,
they help her; cast are great though.
American Beauty –
didn’t get it, besides when it was new teenagers kept going on about plastic
bags, which drove me MAD.
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream – the all-star cast do NOTHING with the material.
Analyze This
– funny but forgettable.
An Ideal Husband –
if only Oscar Wilde could come back to life so I could punch him in the face.
Animal Farm – the
patronising narration by Jessie the dog suggests this is a children’s film but
it’s not suitable for children; it is a gruelling, cruel and depressing horror
story; a poor adaptation with wasted visuals that will leave you at best
irritated and patronised, at worst shattered and hollow inside.
Anna And The King – brilliant
performances from Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat.
Annie – completely
lacking in any tension or interest (Kathy Bates is good though).
Austin Powers: The Spy
Who Shagged Me – I think I laughed twice.
Being John Malkovich
– creeped the hell out of me.
Big Daddy – worth
a laugh, but I didn’t like the characters or plot.
Bowfinger – “We’re
trying to make a movie here, not a film!” A clever and funny satire on the
movie business.
Cradle Will Rock –
“Please join us, we were just creating an insurmountable tension for our
working relationship.” Overstuffed with
so many characters and subplots that the meaning gets lost, but when it
actually focuses on the title musical it’s very enjoyable.
Dogma – loathed
this.
Drop Dead Gorgeous –
“I’ll be right behind you in the hearse!”
A funny film.
East Is East – “It’s
not fair coz I love curry an’ all.” This is pretty good, but I don’t like the
ending where they just continue living with their abuser.
Edtv – not awful,
but Ed really isn’t a character worth watching.
Election – a very
sharp black comedy, if too black sometimes.
Fantasia 2000 – I
didn’t even like the first one.
Fight Club –
absolutely tedious and making a point so stale that the birds wouldn’t touch
it (the twist is blatant from the start).
Galaxy Quest –
“Let’s get out of here before one of those things kills Guy.” Lots of witty
lines and memorable performances by Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Sam
Rockwell.
Girl. Interrupted –
pretentious, forgettable.
Happy, Texas –
it’d work better if Jeremy Northam was gay.
Inspector Gadget –
pants with a couple of funny bits.
Isn’t She Great –
no.
Lake Placid – way
too short, Brendan Gleeson plays the only likeable person in it (there’s a
problem with the characters when I spend the entire finale worrying about that
poor cow (good news, it survives) and not the humans) and for some reason the
croc appears to be bulimic, so how did it grow so big?
Love’s Labour’s Lost
– not great.
Magnolia – I
studied this at college and have seen it a million times so have no actual
thoughts on it any more.
Man On The Moon –
made me sad.
Mansfield Park –
clearly trying to make period drama appealing to the teen audience
(embarrassing).
Maybe Baby – not
very good.
Mickey Blue Eyes –
fluff.
Mission: Impossible 2
– at the time it was the worst film I’d ever seen at the cinema; I haven’t
bothered watching it since.
Molly – bit
naff, but watchable (although it’s a rip of Flowers For Algernon, right?).
Muppets From Space –
killed the Muppets for me.
My Favourite Martian
– pants.
Mystery Men – not
that good which is a shame because it’s a funny idea.
Never Been Kissed –
yes she has, she’s just never had a good kiss (teen flick).
Notting Hill –
dump her!
Office Space – “I’ll
set the building on fire.” Little character or plot, fairly dull.
Pushing Tin –
hardly interesting.
Runaway Bride
– completely forgettable.
Scream 3 – they
really should have stopped making these.
She’s All That –
I cannot BELIEVE I liked this when I was a teen.
Soccer Dog: The Movie
– watchable Sunday afternoon kids’ fare, but the POV doesn’t quite work.
South Park: Bigger,
Longer & Uncut – I’m not really a South Park fan.
Star Wars Episode I: The
Phantom Menace – bored me.
Stuart Little – lovely
fairy tale.
Tarzan – Tarzan
is actually a really likeable lead, but the comedy sidekicks need killing.
The Bachelor – a
lot of fun, even if his ‘fear of commitment’ isn’t remotely believable.
The Green Mile –
just did not care.
The Haunting –
awful film with unbelievable misunderstanding of what is scary, exacerbated by
rubbish cgi.
The Iron Giant [1999] – “What
kind of sick person would name a kid Hogarth?”
This movie doesn’t quite work for me, probably because Hogarth is an
irritating, bland child who spends his time shouting, playing dumb games and
rarely having any actual emotions; there’s little depth to these characters,
while the Iron Giant’s journey is fairly compelling, beyond him there’re no
interesting or likeable characters, and no one at all to identify with.
The Matrix – a
big pile of nonsense full of bad dialogue, bad acting, flat characters,
accidentally amusing fight scenes and even a character returning from the dead
due to a kiss (gah!).
The Mummy –
stupid.
The Ninth Gate –
horrid.
The Sixth Sense –
Haley Joel Osment is amazing but the Bruce Willis stuff just gets in the way,
as does the unrealistic dialogue and the pretentious camerawork.
The Talented Mr Ripley
– the ending is unnecessary.
The Virgin Suicides –
goes nowhere.
The World Is Not Enough
– this was a bad year for the cinema.
Three Kings – studied this at college so
little thoughts left; it’s violent, exciting, funny and moving, but it’s too
slick for its own good and there’s no escaping that this is SATIRE.
Toy Story 2 – good, but not nearly as good
as the first film, it rather lazily reverses the roles of the leads despite it
not making sense, the plot is too disjointed and doesn’t swell together neatly
or inevitably in the end and it gains nothing from adding new characters and
massive action sequences.
Virtual Sexuality –
some of it is all right (for teens) some of it is just lame.
Wild Wild West –
mostly forgettable.
2000
28 Days – didn’t
enjoy.
Almost Famous –
“There it is. Your sister used the F-word.” “I think she said ‘feck’.” “What’s
the difference?” “The letter U.” If this had been 90 minutes it would be
entertaining, but at a leisurely, overinflated two and a half hours, it
struggles to hold the attention.
Bedazzled – a
string of one-joke scenes, they do raise a laugh but not worth watching.
Best In Show - mild.
Billy Elliot – “She
must’ve been a very special woman, your mother.” “No she was just me mam.” Compelling and heart-warming, with lots of fun
T-Rex songs.
Bootmen – felt
like a soap.
Born Romantic –
some good moments but it’s undermined by its ensemble nature, the male leads
are fairly well developed but the females are nothing more than a slag, a snob
and a kook, and only one pairing looks like it will last, also, enough salsa
already!
Bring It On –
forgettable, apart from the moral: when they cheat, they win; when they don’t
cheat, they lose; so what does that teach us?
Cast Away –
didn’t do it for me.
Charlie’s Angels –
naff.
Chicken Run – enjoyable.
Coyote Ugly – you
really have to be the right age to enjoy this film, and I haven’t been that age
in over a decade.
Dinosaur – not
particularly good.
Dracula 2001 (Dracula
2000) – don't flick leeches into your eye.
Dr. Seuss’ How The
Grinch Stole Christmas (How The Grinch Stole Christmas) (The Grinch) – “Maybe
you need a time out.” This was boring and painful; I guess you have to really
like Jim Carrey to sit through two hours of him under layers of latex alone in
a cave screaming at the camera.
Erin Brockovich – “What makes you think you can just walk in there and find what we need?” “They’re called boobs, Ed.” It starts off well but never really seems to escalate.
Frequency – such a cool plot.
Gladiator – far
too grisly and very boring.
Gone In Sixty Seconds
– stupid film.
High Fidelity – it
certainly has something.
Hollow Man – I
haven’t watched all of this but wanted to note that I saw the finale of this
film, from the point at which he hunts down and murders all of his colleagues,
and I was surprised just what a silly slasher movie it is.
Little Nicky –
dumb but funny occasionally.
Memento – look,
it’s backwards, that makes it clever (felt very patronised watching this).
Me, Myself & Irene
– dumb.
Miss
Congeniality – fluff that tries and forgets to make some kind of
point about feminism.
Nurse Betty – odd
mix of genres, very good in places, unsettling in others.
O Brother, Where Art
Thou? – failed to interest or amuse me.
Pitch Black – “Looks
clear.” Looks so cheap it gave me a headache.
Relative Values –
“We just say ‘riding’ in England. The horse-back’s
taken for granted.” Unfortunately neither
deep nor hilarious.
Save The Last Dance –
didn’t grab me then, forgettable now.
Scary Movie –
rubbish, although the finale made me chuckle.
Sexy Beast –
“No, you are going to have to turn this opportunity yes!” Although I have tried
to watch this twice, somehow I still don’t feel like I’ve actually seen it (I
think the first time I might have turned it off when it got too violent, and
the second time I was multi-tasking and don’t feel I paid enough attention to
really form an opinion, even though I did see the whole thing).
Shadow Of The Vampire
– horrible.
Snatch – so
stylish I want to punch it in the face; it was fun but not involving.
The Beach – “What
about Molière?” “Who?” Since the main character is insufferable and multiple
plot points/character choices don’t make sense, this miserable film is a total
dud.
The Dish – I
thought it was going to be a comedy so was pretty bored by the drama that
followed (why do advertisers push dramas as comedies so often?).
The Emperor’s New Groove
– funny but no guts.
The Family Man –
okay for a one-watch.
The Flintstones In Viva
Rock Vegas – lame, forgettable.
The Little Mermaid II:
Return To The Sea – WHAT DID THEY DO?
The Next Best Thing –
another ‘not a comedy as advertised’, really quite nasty.
The Road To El Dorado
– “I blame you.” Love it.
The Whole Nine Yards
– I think I found this entertaining when it was new, but it is very of its
time and the casual murders and unbelievably fast loves make it fairly
uninteresting and it doesn’t know when to quit.
Titan A.E. – despite a clichéd plot, this is still too weird for me with creepy visuals
that freak me out.
Unbreakable –
what if superheroes were boring?
What Lies Beneath –
one massive cliché; with a red herring plot that’s more interesting than the
real one, endless no-not-really explanations, an avenge-me ghost, memory loss
and a just-can’t-be-killed killer, you’d think this was a spoof, but of course
it’s all dreadfully po-faced.
Where The Heart Is –
clearly a novel adaptation; a melodrama with cheesy music, stuffed with multiple
births, deaths and marriages, and kidnappers, paedophiles, tornadoes and
crippling train accidents hiding behind every number 5; but it’s still
affecting.
Wild About Harry –
bit naff.
X-Men – “It’s
me.” “Prove it.” “You’re a dick.” Watching
this reminds me of those days when a superhero movie was something mysterious
and exciting; and although the three X-Men are rather flat and side-lined and
it could do with a proper sense of humour, all the Wolverine/Rogue scenes are
brilliant and this film is fresh, exciting, cool, emotional and full of
potential.
2001
A Beautiful Mind –
excellent one-watch film.
AI: Artificial
Intelligence – not sure what I was meant to like about this.
A Knight’s Tale –
one of those ‘if they both died, I wouldn’t care’ films.
Amélie – lovely
(apart from the surprise dirty bits).
American Pie 2 –
I survived watching this.
Animal Attraction
(Someone Like You) – it’s just rubbish.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
– pretty good in places, shame about the baffling crystal plot; tries to be
far too big for an animated kids’ movie.
Bridget Jones’s Diary
– “Happy birthday dear wossname.” This has not aged well.
Christmas Carol: The
Movie – I liked it when I saw it at the cinema, but in retrospect it’s
probably rubbish (at least it tries to do something different with the tired
source material).
Conspiracy –
forgettable.
Donnie Darko – oh
get lost.
Eight Legged Freaks –
gets better as it goes.
Enigma – so
boring.
Evolution – not
that good.
From Hell – this
is a terrible story, missing everything that makes murder mysteries interesting
and including everything that makes them dumb and contrived, one of the worst
films I’ve ever seen.
Get Over It – a
lot of innovative techniques and ideas, but ultimately you still need to be a
teenager to enjoy.
Gosford Park –
with about a million different character connections and motivations to get
straight, it could do with coming with a reference guide, but it’s still
enjoyable, clever, witty and populated with an excellent cast (notably Clive
Owen).
Hannibal – utter
awful rubbish, but what do you expect from the source material.
Harry Potter And The
Philosopher’s Stone – it’s watchable but I don’t get the point of Ron
and Hermione, they could easily be cut and Ron looks like he’s got wind
throughout the film while Hermione can’t speak without gyrating her head like
she’s about to throw up.
I Am Sam – one of
those emotionally manipulative dramas (Dakota Fanning is terrifyingly grown up
and it’s difficult to imagine that she really is a child and not some alien
overlord come down to our pitiful planet to make us her slaves).
I Saw Mommy Kissing
Santa Claus – fluff for kids.
Jeepers Creepers –
good for about three minutes, then it’s tripe.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy
Genius – forgettable.
Jurassic Park III –
exciting and fun rather than scary, which is where I like my monster movies.
Just Visiting –
not very good.
Legally Blonde – about
two thirds in, this pointless and insulting tirade of obvious lameness gives up
on plot and character and just starts ranting ‘Women GOOD; Men BAD’ and sees
Elle winning a court case because it rests on knowledge of hairdos and shoes
rather than because she’s learnt anything about law.
Monsters, Inc – a
plot so obvious I guessed the entire thing from the trailer.
Not Another Teen Movie
– maybe as many as two laughs in the entire film, if I’m generous.
Ocean’s Eleven –
smug; the characters are all so laid back and Smug that they never worry so
there’s no tension so it’s all extremely boring; only it’s so damn SMUG that
it’s also grating; it boils down to a heist that’s boring, heroes that can’t be
liked, a villain that can’t be hated and a romantic interest with no interest.
Far more irritating than the original.
One Hour Photo –
the camera ponders on huge empty sets to painfully slow ‘is your skin crawling
yet’ music while Robin Williams stares into space, and first time viewers wet
themselves by the threat suggested by its very absence, and the rest of us
smack our heads into the wall knowing NOTHING is going to happen for another
forty minutes.
Orange County –
okay for a one-watch teen flick, I guess, certainly not worth watching again.
Osmosis Jones –
at times funny and sweet but never that good.
Rat Race – “I
make a joke to help you forget how screwed you are.” As a teenager I enjoyed
this zany chase comedy but twenty years on, while I do still appreciate some of
the zaniness, the characters are just annoying and the ending is cringe-worthy.
‘YOU – SHOULD – HAVE – BOUGHT – A – SQUIRREL’
Serendipity –
really didn’t like it at all.
Shrek – it’s not
funny and the moral is screwed up.
The Cat’s Meow –
all problems can be solved by Charleston, Charleston, Charleston…
The Lord Of The Rings:
The Fellowship Of The Ring – the fellowship take an hour and a half to
form and then at the end, having not yet reached where they are supposed to be
going, they disband so I wonder what was the point of them and this film in the
first place (also the best character is killed).
The Majestic –
it’s an uncomfortable experience, watching two plots, one where people think
Peter is Luke but we know he’s not, and one where people think Peter is a
communist, but we know he’s not, waiting for these two disparate strands to
collide.
The Man Who Wasn’t There
– just could not engage with this.
The Mummy Returns –
so dumb, also a bore, so much worse than the first film and that wasn’t very
good.
The Others – the
servant plot makes no sense, the ending isn’t great and it doesn’t live up to
repeat viewings, but it’s tense and moody (and occasionally startlingly
frightening), creepy and extremely atmospheric, all quietness and darkness,
tinted with the feeling that something is very wrong here and that’s where it’s
good.
The Parole Officer –
a gentle comedy that’s occasionally very funny but spoils itself by going too
far with pathetic grossness and is less funny with every re-watch.
The Princess Diaries
– forgettable.
The Royal Tenenbaums
– ever get the feeling Wes Anderson would have been happier as a novelist?
The Score – the
first time the heist was tense and the twist was cool, but that’s lost
completely with repeat viewings (Edward Norton’s good though).
Tremors 3: Back To Perfection
– a witty script, loads of references and it all ties up, there are problems
here but it’s also a lot of fun.
Vanilla Sky –
pseudo-clever stuff, with a twist that makes the whole film pointless followed
by a lame ending—McCabe’s existentialism was the only interesting bit;
forgotten all of it now.
What Women Want –
really fun and inventive, but that ‘romance’ kills it (Hunt is a black hole to
Gibson’s charisma).
Wit – cancer is
sad.
2002
28 Days Later… – occasionally ludicrous,
often pretentious and constantly boring, a party of tedium and depression.
About A Boy – very
entertaining although the romance always feels a bit arbitrarily crammed in.
Adaptation. –
very funny, very clever.
A Guy Thing –
ghastly.
Analyze That –
terrible unneeded sequel.
Bad Company –
inoffensive action film complete with plot holes, tacky editing and flat leads,
but I liked Agent Seale.
Blade II –
couldn’t stand it, forgettable.
Blood Work –
ghastly, stupid action flick.
Bowling For Columbine –
effective.
Bubba Ho-tep –
would work a lot better as a short film.
Catch Me If You Can –
excellent, compelling film; its wit and charm carry you through.
Chicago –
impressive dance numbers, a miscast Renée Zellweger, a slightly more coherent plot
than the stage show but cuts lots of important character stuff and missing some
of the better songs; it looks good but as with the show, it’s hard to care
about any of it.
Confessions Of A
Dangerous Mind – not good, not helped by the direction.
Death To Smoochy –
the Randolph versus Sheldon stuff works (when it’s not desperate) but the rest
is just boring and unnecessary.
Dragonfly – why
do ghosts never just explain what they’re trying to say in understandable ways?
Full Frontal –
what was that?
Harry Potter And The
Chamber Of Secrets – despite Harry saving them all from Voldemort in the
last film, they now believe that he is a raging murderer; these people are
idiots.
Hey Arnold! The Movie
– naff with random references, but Helga does finally tell Arnold how she
feels.
Hope Springs –
paint-by-numbers romance, Colin Firth is very good but that’s not enough to
save a dull script.
Ice Age –
a compelling and funny story with
interesting characters.
Interstate 60 – one of those
films that makes my life a little bit worse for having seen it.
It’s A Very Merry Muppet
Christmas Movie – giving Kermit the George Bailey treatment is a fun
idea but what’s with the sexual references?
K-19: The Widowmaker
– okay for what it is I guess.
Kate & Leopold –
forgettable and the ending is dumb.
Lilo & Stitch – “I
like you better as a sister than a mom.” “Yeah?” “And you like me better as a
sister than a rabbit, right?” The emotional notes in this film are actually so
affecting that it’s almost draining to watch (while the zany comedy alien stuff
would be pretty lame if you had time to notice them over your own blubbing).
Men In Black 2 –
bit naff but kinda fun.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
– the moral is: embrace your heritage even if it takes every piece of
happiness and individuality from you, and make sure it controls the lives of
your husband and children too.
Nicholas Nickleby –
once Phlegm or whatever he was called died it went downhill (also, Mr Nickleby,
that’s not an English accent).
Panic Room – one
of the best examples of the suspense thriller, taut and terrifying,
exhilarating and entertaining, viewing after viewing.
Red Dragon –
forgettable, never amounts to much because it tries too hard to evoke The
Silence Of The Lambs, rather than being a film in its own right.
Road To Perdition –
the opening narration spoils what’s going to happen.
Scooby-Doo – “I’m
a man of substance. Dorky chicks like
you turn me on too.” Some of it is
brilliant but some of it is awful, shame really.
Shanghai Knights –
this just could not catch my attention.
Signs – I can’t
believe they left their dog outside.
Spider-Man –
there’s not much to the characters and the ‘comic-book dialogue’ is poor and
hokey, but the film is funny.
Star Trek: Nemesis –
the fourth and final Next Generation film again basically only stars Picard and
Data, making you wonder why the other cast members bother turning up and I
still don’t care about any of them.
Stuart Little 2 –
a complete waste of space.
The Bourne Identity –
“How could I forget about you? You’re
the only person I know.” Watchable for
an action film but having the audience know what it takes Bourne the whole film
to find out is dull.
The Hot Chick –
surprisingly watchable.
The Hours – oh
it’s just so boring and pretentious.
The Lord Of The Rings:
The Two Towers – way too many main characters, so whenever the film cuts
back to a group it’s very ‘oh yeah, them’ and they still haven’t succeeded in
what they set off to do about six hours of film ago.
The Pianist – laboriously
horrific and almost entirely lacking in heroism.
The Sweetest Thing –
to enjoy, disengage brain (one of those ‘chicks can do gross-out humour’
films).
The Time Machine –
utterly unbearably awful.
Tomorrow La Scala! –
enjoyable comic drama.
Treasure Planet –
lame.
Two Weeks Notice –
entertaining mostly thanks to Hugh Grant.
Welcome To Collinwood – perfectly enjoyable
but it’s no classic; perhaps more one to rent than own.
xXx –
forgettable.
2003
American Splendor –
I can’t believe I’ve sat through this twice, ugh.
A Mighty Wind – “Is
this the real furniture or is this the rehearsal furniture?” A very calm kind
of comedy.
Big Fish – a
bunch of half-baked snippets of tales that probably didn’t happen do not make
an interesting story.
Brother Bear – really
quite poor – children should not be raised by the person who murdered their
mother.
Bruce Almighty –
endless and humourless.
Cheaper By The Dozen
– what starts as a fun family film melts into a distressing and depressing
trudge towards the finish line, in which we learn that big problems solve small
problems and good people have to give up their dreams for selfish people.
Daredevil – an
utterly pants film on every level; there isn’t a good moment here.
Dead End – stupid
but thinks it is clever, which just makes it more stupid.
Dickie Roberts: Former
Child Star – better than I expected, okay for a watch once.
Down With Love – successful
attempt to homage 60s rom-coms… but there’s no other level to it.
Elf – “He’s on
the naughty list.” “NOOOOO!” A lot of fun, but the ending is disappointingly
rushed.
Eternal Sunshine Of The
Spotless Mind – I’d say interesting rather than enjoyable; it’s very
Kaufman.
Finding Nemo –
very emotional, very affecting, but the ending is rather trite and the funny
touches, while very funny, aren’t enough to counterbalance the emotional
heaviness.
Garden State –
coma-inducing.
Girl With A Pearl
Earring – art (boring).
Good Bye Lenin!
– this was an interesting and watchable film, but I wouldn’t have called it a
comedy.
Gothika –
hilariously awful, I spent the time counting the ceiling tiles in the cinema.
Holes – “I
used to go to Laney Park all the time!” “Oh really?” “Yeah.” “I used to sleep
in the tunnel next to the swinging bridge.”
Enjoyable movie, with surprisingly dark undertones.
Hulk – pretty
sure I slipped into a coma.
I Capture The Castle – surprisingly
good novel adaptation but it messes up the twist by deliberately making it
blatant from the start and the ending just doesn’t capture the brilliance of
the book.
Identity –
stupid, with a double twist (one painfully obvious and one utterly ridiculous).
InterMission –
the wobbling, zooming camera gave me a headache.
Intolerable Cruelty –
so slick it’s boring.
I Witness –
gritty and sad, so not for me.
Johnny English –
the plot is embarrassing but overall the film is funny.
Le Divorce –
unbearably awful.
Lost In Translation –
NOTHING HAPPENS.
Love Actually –
“Apparently he is going to kill Aurelia.” A bunch of undercooked stories that
feel more creepy, misogynistic or toxic with each passing year.
Master And Commander:
The Far Side Of The World – excellent cinematic experience, but I do
want them all to die (bar the doctor and the kid).
Matchstick Men –
twist ruins it.
Mona Lisa Smile –
okay, quite rushed, obviously a novel adaptation, forgettable.
Peter Pan –
Jeremy Sumpter is excellent as Peter.
Pirates Of The
Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl – dumb but watchable (once), if
you can put up with the two dullest leads ever.
Runaway Jury –
quite enjoyable courtroom thriller.
Sinbad: Legend Of The
Seven Seas (Sinbad) – boring movie; I was annoyed that Sinbad has
been whitewashed and the ‘romance’ is just toxic masculinity on the rampage.
Stuck On You – kind
of lowbrow humour, but the film is sweet and poignant, manages to have a moral
without being schmaltzy and it can be funny and moving at the same time.
Terminator 3: Rise Of
The Machines – there was no need for a third Terminator film and this
pathetic sequel offers nothing to excuse its existence.
The Italian Job –
predictable and straightforward, this is at least a harmless way to spend an
evening if you can’t be bothered to get up off the settee.
The League Of
Extraordinary Gentlemen – what a league of rubbish.
The Lord Of The Rings:
The Return Of The King – the whole film, and it’s a very, very long
film, is one battle, Sam is the only good character (Faramir might be if he had
any screen time) and it should all end about twenty minutes sooner than it
does; overall, emotionally gruelling.
The School Of Rock –
fluff.
Thoughtcrimes – rushes through the plot,
throwing characters that are never explained about willy-nilly and repeatedly
dumping potential male leads (I did like Brendan though); it’s just dull dreck.
What A Girl Wants – so poor you’d think it was a school play,
never was a film so squarely aimed at the tweenage audience, although somehow
Colin Firth still gives a great performance.
Willard – had to
stop watching it due to cat-peril.
X2 – a major let
down after the first one, it’s like an early draft that meandered about and
never got anywhere but for some reason actually made it to the screen; sure
glad they didn’t waste the whole sequel opportunity…
2004
13 Going On 30 –
funny but very sad, Jennifer Garner is a hoot but the quick happy ending isn’t
enough to outweigh the melancholy preceding it.
50 First Dates –
bittersweet syrup.
Along Came Polly – a big heap of rubbish, I
know that romantic comedies are formulaic but that’s not an excuse to not try;
the plot is painfully, sledgehammer obvious, the comedy clichéd and old and
there’s no conflict.
Anchorman: The Legend Of
Ron Burgundy – seems to have confused wit with randomness.
Because Of Winn-Dixie
– disappointing, forgettable.
Bridget Jones: The Edge
Of Reason – pathetic retread of the first, except now stupid, irritating
and puerile.
Churchill: The Hollywood
Years – funny in places but overall a let down.
Connie And
Carla – oh no, it’s so hard being a woman pretending to be a man who
dresses as a woman because you can’t go out with the boys you fancy.
De-Lovely – it’s
boring, pretentious, depressing and explains NOTHING.
Dodgeball: A True
Underdog Story – obvious and crude.
Ella Enchanted –
dire (nothing like the book).
Finding Neverland –
dreamlike, fails to explain anything.
Five Children And It –
very disappointing, forgettable.
Garfield –
featuring none of the things that Garfield is.
Harry Potter And The
Prisoner Of Azkaban – he’s called Remus Lupin but it’s supposed to be a
secret that he’s a werewolf, hilarious!
Hellboy – the
plot and writing is terrible, although Hellboy himself is kind of amusing.
Home On The Range – extremely
poor.
Howl’s Moving Castle – what
the hell is this - not only does it bear little resemblance to the book but
it’s incredibly dull.
I ♥ Huckabees – I
do not.
I, Robot –
painfully obvious, which is a shame because it looked like it would be fun.
Lemony Snicket’s A
Series Of Unfortunate Events – good, not as good as it thinks it is, but
good.
Looney Tunes: Back In
Action – lame, but there are a lot of great cartoon jokes and references
and Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, Tasmanian Devil, Marvin
The Martian, Wile E Coyote, Sylvester, Granny, Tweety, Beaky Buzzard, Foghorn
Leghorn, Michigan J Frog, Pepe Le Pew, Porky Pig, Ralph and Sam…
Mean Girls – watchable, if a little preachy, and somehow suggesting that only girls
are capable of cruelty.
Napoleon Dynamite –
didn’t laugh, forgettable.
National Treasure –
incredibly anti-British and logic free.
Ocean’s Twelve – despite a satisfying
start, somehow Twelve is actually worse than Eleven, which I honestly didn’t
think was possible, it’s a confusing mess, has a limitless list of backtracking
double bluffs that make the whole film pointless and it’s dreary and lifeless.
Racing Stripes –
pathetic, forgettable.
Raising Helen –
clichéd and patronising, it irritated me because I didn’t like Helen.
Scooby-Doo 2:
Monsters Unleashed – funny in
places, mainly lame but only in so far as what are you expecting of a live
action Scooby Doo film?
Secret Window –
terrible twist.
Shaun Of The Dead –
did not do it for me, think I was expecting something different from the
advertising, it seems to stop being funny halfway through.
Shrek 2 – it
would be a nicer moral if they didn’t both have to be ogres, or are only people
who look the same allowed to become a couple?
Sky Captain And The
World Of Tomorrow – dull, pointless gimmick (nothing is really there,
including extras) and the most irritating female lead ever, but Sky Captain
does punch her, which I’d wanted to do for the entire film, and the very ending
is really funny.
Son Of The Mask –
unsurprisingly, it isn’t very good, but the dog vs baby stuff is nicely ACME.
Spider-Man 2 – if
you can ignore that Doc Ock’s plan makes no sense, the cheesy dialogue and that
Harry has had his personality removed then this is a witty and exciting film
(the bit where Peter saves that toddler from the burning building is awesome).
Stage Beauty –
it’s amusing and interesting and there are good performances (if you ignore the
wobbly accents) but I’m not entirely sure what point it’s trying to make and I
didn’t really enjoy it the last time I saw it.
Starsky & Hutch –
abysmal, forgettable.
Team America World
Police – becomes what it is trying to mock, dull and puerile.
The Butterfly Effect – while
the onslaught of horrific events does get silly, I found the premise
interesting enough to hold my attention.
The Incredibles –
advertised so much before its release that it was completely ruined and in
repeat viewings the film fails to grab me on any level.
The Ladykillers –
didn’t make me laugh, wished it would just END.
The Life Aquatic With
Steve Zissou – mostly boring.
The Lion King 1½ (The
Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata) – “Well enough of that.” By far the best Disney
sequel, this assumes an in depth knowledge of the first film and then goes
about popping its pomposity. “Shall we run for our lives?” “Oh yes, let’s.”
The Phantom Of The Opera
– rubbish.
The Polar
Express - “Why can’t I hear anything?” Entertaining spectacle but the
moral of ‘belief’ makes little sense when he is given confirmed proof.
The SpongeBob
SquarePants Movie – okay if you like the cartoon and are nine.
The Stepford Wives –
the music is amazing, the dark humour hits the spot, the choreography and
direction keep it creepy and threatening but it lacks detail, character
development and run time.
The Terminal –
enjoyable.
Thunderbirds –
WHAT DID THEY DO?
Tremors 4: The
Legend Begins – funny, littered with references, Michael Gross gets to
play a very different Gummer and the Graboids are a welcome return to form; but
it’s an unnecessary prequel, it’s too serious and needs better characters;
still, more westerns should have giant underground monsters in them.
Troy – boring and
poorly acted.
Wimbledon – harmless
fluff but no lasting joy.
2005
A Cock And Bull Story
– too short.
Batman Begins – the best of the trilogy by a long way.
Capote – not
sure what the point of it is.
Casanova –
ugh, how to win the affections of a woman by undermining and manipulating her
at every turn; if you’ve seen a farce before you’ll guess every turn of the
plot a mile off.
Charlie And The
Chocolate Factory – pointless; Charlie’s characterisation is dumped
after half an hour, the Oompa Loompas are incredibly disturbing, the visuals
are underwhelming and too computerised, the sub-plot about Willy Wonka’s father
is awkward and unnecessary and Johnny Depp’s performance is bizarre and
misjudged.
Cheaper By The Dozen 2
– a moral at complete odds with the first film, too many characters, a
repetitive plot, a schmaltzy unsatisfying ending plus some offensive anti-gay
and disabled jokes, yet this is superior to the first film because it isn’t
gruelling.
Chicken Little – naff
film with weak jokes, embarrassing attempts to be cool and far too heavy-handed
with the emotional plot.
Constantine –
confusing, dull and clichéd, but bearable.
Elektra – pants.
Fantastic Four –
the story of four egotists who forget there were FIVE people on that space
mission and the evil baddy who randomly goes all Norman Osborn for no reason
(possibly because his surname is Von Doom and he just felt it was going that
way) and whose grand master evil plan is to cure a guy of his disability.
Fun With Dick And Jane
– the story of rich people who mug people so they can afford a Jacuzzi (it’s
also poorly constructed).
Good Night, And Good Luck. – very dull.
Harry Potter And The
Goblet Of Fire – dull and grim and the plot is even more horrendously
obvious than in the last one.
Herbie: Fully Loaded
– misses the point of Herbie on many levels, most notably that Herbie is
supposed to help those who need help, not someone who is capable of winning on
their own and at no point does the villain sabotage Herbie, so at no point does
he cheat, so he’s a fairer player than the hero.
Just Like Heaven – with surprisingly interesting characterisation, this would be very
enjoyable if it wasn’t for that one nagging fact that it’s suggesting that an
amazing successful hard-working intelligent doctor who constantly saves lives
is somehow a failure because she hasn’t got a man or babies.
Keeping Mum –
enjoyable.
King Kong – so
lengthy that Kong feels like a subplot and why is Ann in love with the ape,
that’s gross; Kyle Chandler and Colin Hanks are the only highlights.
Kinky Boots – typical clichéd
‘heart-warming’ Brit-flick, but Charlie and Lola are magnificent, shame the
film lacks focus (the brief opening scene with a young Simon aka Lola dancing
in women’s shoes on a pier is amazing).
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang –
brilliantly witty (bit sexist though).
Kronk’s New Groove
– “A time I like to think of as… earlier that same day.” This is POOR; they
couldn’t even think of enough plot to fill the whole thing, it’s like a couple
episodes of a crummy cartoon show stuck together.
Lilo & Stitch 2
(Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch) – “Stitch good.” Utterly lame
movie with questionable ending, a great disappointment following the excellent
first film.
March Of The Penguins
– the story of how being a penguin SUCKS.
Monster-In-Law –
okay fluff until the lame ending.
Nanny McPhee –
the ending is rushed, the moral is a bit shifty and the children are a bunch of
ungrateful brats, but Colin Firth is a hoot.
Pride And
Prejudice – so heavily abridged and rushed that nothing has time to land and I don’t
really like how the central romance is handled.
Proof –
the interesting part of the plot doesn’t rear its head until two thirds of the
way through.
Robots –
“You can bunk with me. We’ll ignore the gossip.” A lot of interesting visual ideas, shame the plot and characters aren’t half so innovative.
Serenity – I was
so bored; this is a Star Wars rip off without the charm; there’s overly serious
rambling, tediously choreographed action sequences, an utterly predictable plot
and it’s smug.
Sky High – “You know how my mum can
communicate with animals? Apparently
they don’t like being eaten.” Very funny
film, if a bit teen-centric at times.
Thank You For Smoking
– “Please don’t ruin my childhood.”
Darkly funny, but there’s no character growth or narrative journey, so
what’s the point?
The 40 Year Old Virgin
– pants.
The Brothers Grimm –
awful, not funny, terrible pointless cgi but Heath Ledger is good.
The Chronicles Of
Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe – very dull and I'm sure
Peter is abusive to Edmond.
The Family Stone –
billed as a comedy, this is actually a drama and it’s ghastly; the Stones are
evil and the plot is a cliché (including my least favourite romantic film
cliché ‘loosen up an uptight female by getting her drunk rather than relying on
character development’) so why should I care.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide
To The Galaxy – the music and special effects are amazing, but the plot
and characters are terrible.
The Illusionist – the tagline is ‘Nothing
Is What It Seems’ which is hilarious because this is the most predictable film
ever.
The Producers –
often fails to use the scale a film can handle, settling instead for stagy
shots, which is irritating; losing King Of Broadway completely mucks up both
the structure of the story and the character development; but it is still very
funny with some amazing songs and Nathan Lane is awesome, so I still love it.
The Science Of Sleep – lots of boring,
confusing and trippy dream sequences with irritating camera work and the fact
that Stephane neither gets better nor learns to live with his delusions is
distressing and left me with an uncomfortable and depressed feeling inside.
Tim Burton’s Corpse
Bride – Victor completely changes his priorities halfway through, the
film becomes boring, irritating, nonsensical, the ending is pathetic and the
songs just aren’t songs.
Valiant – the
plot is so straightforward it may as well not exist and the animation is bland.
V For Vendetta –
I enjoyed it up until that gutting twist, at which point it degenerates into
the patronisingly obvious yet unconvincingly unbelievable.
Walk The Line –
a poorly constructed story that did nothing for me, other than make me
dislike and slightly fear Cash.
Wallace & Gromit in
The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit – Gromit
is still a triumph, but Wallace is too stupid (and now insane) to spend a
feature length amount of time with, plus I don’t recall actually laughing.
Zathura – “I like Mom’s better.” “Well, so did she and now it’s hers.” I really enjoyed this the first time I saw
it, but second time round with no surprises to look forward to, I just couldn’t
escape how excruciatingly annoying the kids are.
2006
A Good Year –
bland.
Alien Autopsy – unfortunately
since PJ and Duncan were a big part of my tweenage years, I spent most of the
film contemplating this rather than paying attention, but that may be because
it never quite engages.
A Prairie Home Companion
– what the hell is this?
Bah, Humduck! A Looney
Tunes Christmas (Looney Tunes: Bah Humduck) – very disappointing, feels like
it was made by someone who had no grasp of how Looney Tunes works.
Black Sheep – disgusting
and not funny (example, at one point we see a sheep bite off a guy’s penis),
it’s irrelevant that the monsters are sheep and it’s boring; the title isn’t a
pun, it’s a description – this really is a disgrace.
Bridge To Terabithia
– boring yet horrific.
Cars – why do
cars exist if there are no humans?
Charlotte’s
Web – while retaining the lifestyle-changing heartbreak of the book, this
is coated in diabolically bad dialogue and pathetic jokes – just, y’know, read
the book instead.
Children Of Men – if you’ve seen one
post-apocalyptic drama, you’ve seen them all.
Click – it isn’t
funny, the final third is too depressing and Adam Sandler just seems to be
bored.
Confetti – the
scenes that made the final cut and the scenes left on the deleted section of
the DVD are of equal or random quality, since it was all improvised anyway, so
if you watch it all, there is definitely a good film in there, but if you just
watch the film you’ll be left somewhat disappointed.
Eight Below – two of the dogs die.
Failure To Launch –
very bad, the characters are completely flat and it forgets to actually put any
romance in between the set-up and the finale.
Flushed Away –
doesn’t have time to set up the characters or plot in enough detail, making it
feel empty and the laughs are very hit and miss.
Happily N’Ever After
– terrible, has misunderstood the point of Cinderella and its internal logic
is non-existent and what is that apostrophe doing?
Happy Feet –
comes across as six short stories stuck together rather than a coherent plot,
short on character development, the music is terrible (and disturbingly
sexualised for a kids’ film) and the ending happens so easily, it might as well
not have bothered with any of the struggle.
High School Musical –
oh no, Gabriella and Troy are too talented, what tribulation.
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
– comic genius.
Inside Man – slow
paced, entirely unconvincing, no thrills, no tension, no emotional involvement.
Little Miss Sunshine
– quite a nice film, but it’s difficult to like any of the characters (other
than Olive).
Meet The
Robinsons – funny, smart and
sweet.
Mission: Impossible
III (MI:III) – “Throw the switch on and off. Don’t forget the off.” Starting at the end makes 90% of the film
redundant, plus it just feels like an endless list of the good guys failing,
but other than that and the bad writing, poor direction and
scary-Tom-Cruise-doesn’t-know-how-to-smile acting, it’s fine.
Miss Potter –
there’s no focus, not on how Beatrix wrote her stories, not on her relationship
with Mr Warne and not on her life in the country; it just feels like they
didn’t know where it was going when they wrote it and didn’t bother redrafting
when they got to the end.
Monster House –
wonderfully nostalgic, funny and creepy, this is thoroughly enjoyable (they
should make more films like this and Super 8).
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
– as much plot as the title, it is funny but it’s also sexist (towards men),
which kind of kills it.
Night At The Museum –
making the magical mundane.
Over The Hedge –
much more enjoyable than it looks, but it doesn’t really linger in the memory
once it has finished.
Pan’s Labyrinth –
I very much wish I had not seen this film; twenty minutes in a man has his face
and skull bashed in with a bottle on screen; this is the first of many
ridiculously graphic moments that make this sadistically unpleasant film utterly
gruelling to sit through as the pace trickles along; it’s also heavy-handed,
simplistic and dull.
Penelope – the
major reason why this utterly pants film doesn’t work is that pig-faced
Penelope isn’t ugly, also her romantic interest is incredibly bland, there are
too many characters and it’s a boring, convoluted mess; the only thing going
for this vapid and hideously misjudged ‘story’ is the comedy, but even that is
sporadic and too black.
Pirates Of The
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – I still want my money back; none of the
(weak) characters are likeable any more, the plot is insipid, there’s no ending
and the makers seem to have forgotten what pirates are; the first film was at
least fun the first time round, this doesn’t even have that.
Sixty Six – so
downbeat that the happy ending hasn’t a chance of making it up to the viewer (plus
over-identifying with the kid leaves me crying throughout).
Starter For 10 –
ghastly, he’s just loathsome and it’s pointless.
Stranger Than Fiction
– there’s something wrong with a film when the best character is a
wristwatch.
Superman II: The Richard
Donner Cut – “Superman, thank God!” This is SO MUCH BETTER!
Superman Returns –
the plot is crummy, the style is jejune and slow and most of the characters and
actors are poor.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby –
carrying the sufficient warning label ‘from the people who brought us Anchorman
and The 40 Year Old Virgin’, this is as slow and unfunny as I expected.
The Ant Bully –
nothing special but a nice moral.
The Fall – “It
says all that on that little locket?” An
enjoyable interweaving of reality and storytelling, with a compelling
relationship between man and child, well played by Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru,
but somehow I wish the ending had been more developed.
The Holiday –
“Now a picture has to make a killing the first weekend or it’s dead. This is
supposed to be conducive to great work?” For a film obsessed with movies, it is
surprisingly uninspired; we’re not actually supposed to be rooting for these
couples, are we?
The Host – I
dislike that he fails, means I don’t really get it.
The Pink Panther –
not funny, therefore a bore.
The Prestige –
utter awfulness, this is so bad I immediately went out and read the book as I
was sure no book could possibly be this bad (turns out the film repeatedly does
the OPPOSITE of what happens in the novel).
The Pursuit Of Happyness
– a soul-destroying slog about a jerk.
The Wild –
ghastly unfunny hyperactive rubbish (the only thing I enjoyed was the joke that
the koala’s nemesis is a toy version of himself).
X-Men - The Last Stand
– “What have I done?” Rogue, Cyclops,
where are you, come back!
2007
1408 – afterwards
I found out I was watching the Director’s Cut; so this is the film how the
director wanted it to be; someone out there is proud of this boring and stupid
film; that’s really sad.
4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer – flat
characters, wooden actors, atrocious dialogue, unexplained plot developments
and the Fantastic 4 are the worst superheroes ever, selfish, slow, not
particularly skilled and they don’t learn from their mistakes, but there’s
plenty to laugh at (that’s AT, not with).
Alvin And The Chipmunks
– bafflingly the chipmunks aren’t the main characters and if you’re going to
make an Alvin and the Chipmunks film, get a lead who can actually shout ALVIN!
And When Did
You Last See Your Father? – I’m just not sure why a non-linear memoir
about bereavement sounded like a book that needed to be adapted into a film; the
film is exactly as expected, sad, slow, dreary, inconclusive, mildly
pretentious and bereft of likeable characters.
Bee Movie – the
first half hour is good, the rest isn’t.
Beowulf –
extremely unpleasant, upsetting, gruesome, gratuitous, boring, terrible,
upsettingly terrible, with hardly any plot or character, nobody seems to have
bothered writing a script, I can’t believe Robert Zemeckis made it.
Cinderella III: A Twist
In Time – “Remember me?” Kind of funny watching Disney hurriedly invent a
personality for Prince Charming, since he was barely in the first movie (they
go for a Prince Philip crossed with Prince Eric), but if they had to make
another story in the rather dull Cinderella universe, this is decent fare.
Disturbia –
utterly ridiculous, this is sort of Rear Window for teenagers, except I was
perfectly capable of enjoying Rear Window when I was a teenager.
Enchanted – major
let down, but the (underused) cartoon-in-real-world stuff is funny.
Evan Almighty –
blatantly an old script that has been poorly changed to be a Bruce sequel,
doesn’t really make sense (why does he need animals from all over the world if
the flood is localised, also ‘acts of random kindness’ doesn’t mean the same
thing as ‘random acts of kindness’) and hugely not funny.
Fred Claus – when
you become a saint, you, your family and spouse live forever… how much of your
family; who counts as family; does this mean you can’t have children, because
you’ll end up populating the world; don’t saints only become so after death, so
do they get resurrected; can you die; what if a car hit you?
Ghost Rider –
doesn’t try for a second to make any sense or go anywhere plot-related, at
least it’s so predictable that it can be ignored and so isn’t the worst
superhero film.
Gone Baby Gone –
I loathed this.
Hairspray – fun,
entertaining and witty, but it lacks memorable songs, the direction and
choreography are unimaginative, there are too many underused characters, it has
a weak plot, the moral is heavy-handed and the happy ending comes about
remarkably easy; the whole film is a series of easily deflated situations.
Harry Potter And The
Order Of The Phoenix – as the plot speeds along, explained only in the
lazy device of spinning newspapers, it crashes into the finale, where we learn
the good guys will fight Voldemort, but it won’t be in this film; so much like
the previous two, this is a non-entity, simply setting stuff up for further
sequels.
High School Musical 2
– Sharpay, after having her hard work and dreams destroyed in the first film
by the boring Gabriella, again loses everything to the boring Gabriella.
Hot Fuzz – I
enjoy it up until the finale.
I Am Legend – the
dog-peril was too much for me and I cannot believe the dumb reshot ending which
means the whole film makes no sense.
Inkheart –
doesn’t do justice to the novel.
Juno – so
straightforward it’s pointless.
Magicians – it’s
okay, but I wish Robert Webb was in it more; Darren Boyd is the highlight.
Mr Bean’s Holiday –
a really nice film, except for the movie premiere finale which stretches
disbelief too far.
Mr Magorium’s Wonder
Emporium – nice fairy tale but it’s so magical that the characters don’t
feel real.
National Treasure: Book
Of Secrets – it’s still anti-British, the baddie makes no sense and
what’s with all the breaking in and stealing; just say, “Hello, I’m that world
famous treasure hunter that everyone loves because I found the most important
historical discovery ever, could I please look at your antique because there’s
a really important clue hidden in it.”
Next – for dumb
action fare, it’s watchable (even though the special effects are quite terrible
and the characters are utterly flat) because the gimmick is cool.
Ocean’s Thirteen –
unbearable; the problem is I hate these smug gits and want them to fail; if
only Benedict had stuck to his guns and had them killed when they stole from
him in the first film, I wouldn’t have to sit through this irritating and
uninteresting smug-fest.
Ratatouille – speeds through every tedious
film cliché, making them all worse since they don’t go anywhere, the characters
are all dull and it has a boring ending (if you want to watch a film that
contains a rodent and gourmet cooking, watch MouseHunt, instead).
Run Fatboy Run –
it’s not funny, the lead is detestable and no matter how many ‘emotional’
scenes are rammed in, it has been five years since Dennis left his pregnant
fiancée at the alter, FIVE YEARS of seeing her every day, how is it only NOW
that he wants to do anything about it?
Shrek The Third –
who cares, why did they keep making these?
Son Of Rambow
– funny and sweet with two excellent child leads, but personally I’d have
cut the weird French kid plot so the film could focus where it belongs, on the
relationship between Lee Carter and Will and their home lives.
Spider-Man 3 –
WHAT DID THEY DO?
Stardust – a
boring, patronising, clichéd mess that’s offensively misogynistic (all the
women are either malicious, promiscuous or subordinate to men and when Captain
Shakespeare, who we know to be proficient at swordplay, puts on a dress, he
instantly becomes weak and ineffectual).
St Trinian’s – a
school of minors involved in organised crime, voyeurism, alcoholism, theft,
drug abuse, drug dealing, drug smuggling, bullying, violence, murder, sex and
solicitation, this is horrific subject matter and the camera spends most of the
film looking up the skirts of schoolgirls; Colin Firth’s character shouldn’t
just shut this place down, he should carpet-bomb it back to hell.
Sunshine – following in the footsteps of
every science fiction drama ever made, this does nothing new, nothing
unexpected, bores the life out of you and yet still manages to have a ludicrous
unstoppable killer plot from cheapo slasher films, ooh, the worst of both
worlds, thanks.
Surf’s Up –
‘surfing penguins’ is not enough of an idea on which to base an entire film.
The Dark Is Rising (The
Seeker) – this wouldn’t be half bad, if anyone had taken the time to
explain any of what is going on, but alas they did not and instead it’s an
ill-explained, horribly clichéd mess.
The Golden Compass –
in an unexplained parallel world, one really irritating girl is destined to
do absolutely nothing; I could not sit straight-faced through a film where
people endlessly mention dust and get very serious and angry about it; and
there’s no ending, so it’s confusing right up until it just stops being on.
The Nines –
self-indulgent tosh.
Then She Found Me –
clearly a novel adaptation so kind of an unfocused mess.
The Simpsons Movie –
stays pretty much on ‘meh’ level, these aren’t really the Simpsons, just
caricatures of themselves and all the elements in it have been done before, and
better.
TMNT – harmless, forgettable.
Transformers –propaganda
for the American army.
Waitress – all
the men in this are repulsive and I’m not quite sure what we are supposed to
get out of it, yeah it’s nice that the main character achieves her independence but did I really have to watch an hour of her
having an affair with a doctor who deserves to lose his licence (and wife)?
Wild Hogs –
homophobic (among many other flaws).
Zodiac – the
gratuitous brutality at the start sickened me.
2008
27 Dresses –
“Don’t you have any needs?” “No, I’m
Jesus.” What’s this, non-mediocre
dialogue, quick, shove every single rom-com cliché ever devised into the last
act so the audience don’t start using their brains. “What colour is this, vomit?”
Angus, Thongs And
Perfect Snogging – really irritating.
Baby Mama – it’s
some bad writing that can make a plot I’ve never seen before this clichéd.
Bedtime Stories – irritating and unfunny; remind me not to bother with Adam Sandler
movies.
Be Kind Rewind – too boring.
Bolt – although
it majorly rips off both Toy Story and Toy Story 2, this still manages to tug
the heart strings and is enjoyable.
Cloverfield
– watchable monster movie.
Definitely, Maybe –
interesting structural idea and as rom-coms go it is diverting and not as
clichéd, but I don’t want him to end up with any of them (particularly the
emotionally manipulative one).
Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears A
Who! – I like the Whoville stuff, but not the Horton stuff and the moral
is very confused.
Easy Virtue –
it’s overly keen on the modern touches which can distract from the drama; when
it’s funny, it’s good but when it’s serious it’s outstanding; Colin Firth is
smouldering, acerbic and brilliant.
Four Christmases –
it doesn’t work (and what the hell is a jump-jump?).
Frost/Nixon – it’s all right; didn’t really do much for me.
Get Smart – the
female lead is so clichéd I can’t believe she made it into a film this century
and I actively prayed for her death when I could muster the energy that this
boring and tediously obvious film had dragged from me, because it’s not funny.
Ghost Town – gentle and effective if soppy
and rushed towards the end.
Hancock – there
are a few laughs in the premise, then it’s kind of schmaltzy as Hancock meets
the world’s nicest guy and learns to be responsible for his actions, but that
only takes forty minutes at which point a completely new, boring, confusing
plot starts that changes the entire film and makes it really serious.
Hellboy II: The Golden
Army – one of the most painful viewing experiences ever, I tried to turn
it off, but had been paralysed by boredom and had to lie there waiting for the
film to die.
Hotel For Dogs –
so stupid it needs to be put down.
Igor – “And bring
me back a toy.” A huge mess, there are
so many ideas here that contradict each other, potential sadly wasted.
In Bruges – very
simple and obvious, I was bored by the first hour but started to enjoy the
final forty minutes.
Indiana Jones And The
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull – glad to have Marion back, but other than
that, this can get lost.
Iron Man – gets
better the more I watch it, helped greatly by Robert Downey Jr generally oozing
charisma.
Journey To The
Center Of The Earth – “You try that without wings.” Really quite
poor, it’s very bland and every five seconds they unsubtly jab any random thing
at the screen – woooo 3D!
Kung Fu Panda
– do you really enjoy cartoon animals doing kung fu, like reeeeeeeeally
enjoy, coz that’s all this is?
Mad Money – bland
American remake of bland English TV drama.
Mamma Mia! –
paternity test!
Miss Pettigrew Lives For
A Day – “They don't remember the last one.” “No. They don't.” Total fluff, but
sometimes it is nice to just watch a feel-good movie.
My Name Is Bruce –
I didn’t hate it as much as The Housemate and he’s the Bruce fan.
Nim’s Island –
the three plots never satisfactorily come together but the lizard is a hoot.
Phoebe In Wonderland – “Jump.” Seems only to exist to introduce
Tourette’s to the audience.
Recount –
compelling but we all know the ending.
Role Models
– bizarre mix; the Danny/Augie side of the plot is watchable enough, but
what is Wheeler and the crude teen misogynist ‘comedy’ he brings with him doing
here?
Slumdog
Millionaire – a lot heavier than I was expecting, but fairly
compelling.
Sunshine Cleaning – interesting
film but it could go much deeper.
Synecdoche, New York
– blood and poo in the first five minutes – do you even want the audience to
stick around?
The Accidental Husband – he’s not the
accidental husband, he’s the malicious deliberate husband.
The Bank Job – badly written, not very
interesting and nasty to boot.
The Brothers Bloom –
bit pretentious, stupid ending.
The Bucket List – Carter
and Edward go around jumping out of planes and trekking the Earth because one
of them is luckily a billionaire, and learn that family will forgive anything
if you’re dying and that cancer can be ignored until the moment you drop dead.
The Chronicles Of
Narnia: Prince Caspian – everyone from the first film is dead, great
sequel idea; and the battle is horrific.
The Dark
Knight – I can’t believe the Joker’s convoluted
forward-thinking-to-impossible-levels plans work and he survives them by luck,
such as when he isn’t crushed to death by that lorry, or he isn’t blown up or
shredded in that exploding police station, or he doesn’t have his brains blown
out by Harvey.
The Incredible Hulk – tells a good story; Edward
Norton’s MY Bruce Banner.
The Spiderwick
Chronicles – does absolutely nothing new or interesting and is
manipulative and dull.
The Tale Of Despereaux –
who is the main character?
The Women – all
female cast doesn’t work if all they talk about is men.
The X-Files: I Want To
Believe – but the X-File part is the twist so why did they get Mulder in
to start with, also, as with the TV show, they fail to save anyone other than
themselves.
Tropic Thunder –
funny but not hilarious, not particularly clever, doesn’t tell us anything we
haven’t seen before in movie parodies and doesn’t go anywhere; the mock
trailers at the start are much funnier than the rest of the film.
Twilight – I’ve
lost part of my life watching this nonsense, I’m still sick about it; watching
this dreary teen schlock is like drowning in bad soup, it’s all awful, but it
gets everywhere and you can’t get away, you just sink.
WALL-E –
entertaining and emotionally charged, it has slapstick, adventure, sacrifice
and love, and yes, it is just that little bit awing at times.
Yes Man – utter
rubbish.
2009
17 Again –
diverting enough for this sort of fluff.
9 – visually
interesting but unbelievably bleak, really feel this would work better as a
graphic novel.
A Christmas Carol –
“You will be haunted by three spirits.” “I’d rather not.” A straight version of
A Christmas Carol is fairly dull, and when this does try to add bits (like a
pointless chase sequence) these moments are even duller.
Aliens In The Attic – poor.
Astro Boy – so
sad.
A Town Called Panic – amusing.
Avatar – can’t
believe I watched this tripe.
Cirque Du Freak: The
Vampire’s Assistant – there’s something wrong with a film when the best
character is a spider.
Cloudy With A Chance Of
Meatballs – “It was a really long time ago but... I, too, was... a nerd!”
“Too?” So funny, this must have one of the highest ratios of jokes per minute
of any movie.
Coraline –
visually interesting but not very satisfying and fairly forgettable.
Creation – dull
and probably obvious.
Did You Hear About The
Morgans? – even Hugh Grant can’t save this.
Dorian Gray –
aargh, no, ghastly, bad, terrible, awful, nothing works about this at all, it
completely fails at any kind of pace and the ‘monster’ noises coming from the
painting are hilarious and what’s with all the slo-mo?
Fantastic Mr Fox –
just weird, doesn’t seem to be aimed at children and the animation is creepy.
Harry Potter And The
Half-Blood Prince – what’s the point of the Half-Blood Prince, it makes
no difference to anything.
Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The
Dinosaurs – I was incredibly disappointed by this, a total dud.
It’s Complicated – “Just
add it to the list.” John Krasinski is amusing in a supporting role, but
otherwise I was not invested in any of this.
Knowing – nastily
depressing.
Monsters Vs Aliens – “Don’t think of this
as a prison, think of it as a hotel you never leave because it’s locked from
the outside.” It’s fun, but I didn’t
care much about the characters (due to the film skipping the month in which
they get to know each other) and in the end, Susan’s personality is swallowed
entirely as she discovers the only thing worthwhile about her is her
superpower, which is an incredibly depressing moral.
Moon – a
lot more interesting than it looks, but I wish it had a happier ending,
although it does have an ending about fifty per cent happier than I was expecting,
plus Sam Rockwell is brilliant.
New Moon – I’m
Team ‘Edward and Bella should fall off a cliff and DIE’.
Ondine – it’s
difficult to empathise with a fisherman.
Sherlock Holmes –
a mixture of violent fight scenes that are practically wetting themselves over
how cool they are and clichéd Holmesesque deduction; Holmes doesn’t come across
as remotely intelligent, just occasionally lucky or psychic (Watson’s good
though).
Shutter Island –
trippy, twisty nonsense is not my kind of thing and the actors felt like
performance artists, the whole thing kept reminding me of The Others, The
Wicker Man, Identity, Memento and Gone Baby Gone all mashed together and I have
issues with the ending.
Star Trek – WHAT
DID THEY DO?
The Ghosts Of
Girlfriends Past – bad.
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus – wha?
The Invention Of Lying
– illogical film, it’s a funny idea for a sketch but doesn’t work for a
full-length film and veers between being a comedy about blunt people, a clumsy
satire on religion and a love story that tells us it’s okay to be ugly so long
as you have a nice personality (if you’re a man).
The Princess And The
Frog – Tiana and Naveen are awesome.
The Proposal – a
rom-com without much focus on either rom or com, plus it’s misogynist, as
Andrew rebels against having a female boss and by the end he’s telling her to
shut up and forcing her into a kiss; did we just slip back in time sixty years?
Transformers: Revenge Of
The Fallen – the psychotic ‘goodies’ terrorise the harmless ‘baddies’,
chase them when they run away and savagely murder them, and then laugh about
it.
Up –
the emotional exploration of life after the death of a loved one is at odds
with the dispiritingly naff, ridiculously illogical, hole-ridden plot, while
the paper-thin villain is an insult to anyone with a brain cell; this is often
very amusing and guaranteed to jerk the heartstrings, but overall it’s
simplistic and unsatisfying.
Where The Wild Things
Are – the puppetry is impressive but otherwise, what a tedious, horrible
film, what was that and who could it possibly be aimed at?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
– utter pants.
Zombieland – no
matter how hard a film tries to look good or have quirky ideas, if it is
obvious, it is boring; the only positive I can think of to sitting through this
paint-by-numbers childlike attempt to create a piece of fiction is: at least
it’s short.
2010
127 Hours – “Is it true that despite, or maybe because you’re a big f***ing hard
hero, you didn’t tell anyone where you were going? Yeah. That’s absolutely
correct. Anyone? Anyone. Oops.” At first
feels over-directed but you get used to it, there’re only so many ways you can
keep the audience interested in a guy in a hole pinned by a rock, and this
works.
Burke and Hare – what are we supposed to get out of this?
Date Night – “And
will you, for the love of God, put on a f***ing shirt!” Harmless date night
type movie, sweeter than I expected.
Despicable Me –
utterly lame.
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid
– it was all right.
Dinner For Schmucks – didn’t
particularly make me laugh, and there are several very Hollywood changes from
the plot of Le Diner De Cons.
Furry Vengeance –
life threatening.
Grown Ups – not
funny, don’t like the characters and going to a water park is not a simple back
to your roots thing, it’s what spoilt rich people do.
Harry Potter And The
Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – nothing really happens.
How To Train Your Dragon
– very funny, poignant and the dragon is adorable.
Hugo – the plot
is all over the place, it wastes many opportunities and it’s stupid.
Iron Man 2 – much
better the second time.
Knight And Day –
stupid so I got bored.
Life As We Know It – despite a mildly interesting premise, this
soon slides into the usual hokey Hollywood misogynist pap.
Made In Dagenham – an enjoyable history lesson in the fight for equal pay, but I’m not
sure it has much rewatch value.
Mars Needs Moms – “Is
that broccoli?” “No, that’s vomit, but I understand the confusion.” It would be
an okay movie if it wasn’t for the (what one hopes is) inadvertent
anti-feminist theme and reinforcing of heteronormative family stereotypes.
Megamind – “Minion,
Code: Send In The Brain-bots.” “You know, the whole point of a code is…” “Oh,
Code: Just Do It, Minion!” I love this movie, such a rare example of actually
examining the concept of good and evil. “You were right. I was... less right.”
Nanny McPhee And The Big Bang
(Nanny McPhee Returns) – “We are in the land of poo.”
Utterly naff.
Percy Jackson & The
Lightning Thief – the plot developments are painfully predictable, the
structure mimics that of computer games, with a quest to find objects,
levelling up and boss battles, and it’s lazy pandering to teenagers that
Percy’s issues are actually superpowers, but the mythology stuff is pretty
cool, so it is watchable.
The A-Team – WHAT
DID THEY DO?
The Kids Are All Right –
really disappointing film about a gay couple and their kids that spends
the entire time focused on a male/female sexual relationship (also feels a bit
like bi-erasure).
The King’s Speech –
a rather staid historical drama but it’s enjoyable enough and the leads are
excellent.
The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice – “Go Team Magical Stuff.” This was a fun movie, smarter than I was
expecting for the genre.
Toy Story 3 –
WHAT DID THEY DO?
True Grit – “Are we trading again?” Almost indistinguishable from the 60s movie, so
I really don’t know why they bothered remaking it.
2011
A Monster In Paris –
a nice film, but it raises more questions than it answers and it’s jarring
that the story starts with the B couple instead of the A couple.
Arthur Christmas – “I
lost everything in that flood.” I find some of the characters so frustrating
that it stops me enjoying the film.
Attack The Block – “This
is too much madness to explain in one text!”
Watchable, but fails to elicit any real scares, excitement or laughs.
Bridesmaids – an
okay chick flick, when you ignore the ‘look women can do gross out humour too’
stuff that’s painfully spread on top.
Captain America: The
First Avenger – a superhero in the 1940s is AWESOME COOL, Peggy is
excellent and how could I possibly say anything bad about a superhero film with
that musical number in the middle?
Cowboys & Aliens
– “Got a kid and a dog, why not a woman?” So the problem with this movie is
that it takes itself too seriously, while the contrivance of having a good
alien character who knows exactly what is going on and how to solve it removes
all of the tension and intrigue from the era setting, plus the characters are
bland and the dialogue uninspired; all that said, it is watchable.
Crazy, Stupid, Love – “What
a cliché.” A garbage movie, that writes
and treats women as garbage; there is a muttered line towards the end that
suggests that objectifying women is wrong, but the shouted moral is still that
once a man stakes a claim on a woman, she is his property, regardless of her
consent.
Harry Potter And The
Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – why did Lupin and that twin have to die, I’d
happily trade Ron and Hermione if those other two could survive and what was
the point of Snape?
Jane Eyre – excuse me while I scream into a pillow – WHAT DID THEY DO?
Johnny English Reborn – it might not be great but I’d rather watch
this than a James Bond.
Kung Fu Panda
2 – it’s like the first one except even less interesting, also
characters keep getting shot by cannons and surviving.
Paul – GOD AWFUL,
it looked like poo from the trailer, it was worse.
Rango – a strange blend of
the unsettlingly weird and bog standard western.
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
– ‘Apes stupid.’ A bit dull, the plot feels very edited and rushed so you never
get attached to any characters, and annoying there are zero nice humans in it.
Sherlock Holmes:
A Game Of Shadows – “Did you kill my wife?!” Actually a lot of
fun, I didn’t follow the MacGuffiny plot that closely and they could maybe tone
down the Holmes/Watson shipping a tad, but Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr are a
riot throughout.
Source Code – “Oh
boy.” The premise is really cool but I don’t think they got enough out of the
execution of it, particularly regarding the ending (also while the Quantum Leap
references are great, it’s really a lot more like Groundhog Day).
Super 8 – “I loosened it for you.” Excellent film, nostalgic, funny, scary, exciting with wonderful performances, but
the ending is a let down.
Tangled – funny
but no guts.
The Adjustment
Bureau – “I hate downtown.” An interesting premise but not an
interesting movie.
The Artist
– a compelling film but it works better the first time when the tension is
so taut it could decapitate you; repeat viewings lose that.
The Beaver – “It’s a brain. Mom says yours got broken.” Not my kind of film, very
slow, I never connected with the characters and why did no one get him help?
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – way too many characters to give any depth to
anything, and strangely downbeat.
The Green
Hornet – quite enjoyable, even though the lead is a total jerk.
The Help –
fairly absorbing story but the ‘novel adaptation’ nature of random characters
popping in as if we should know who they are and important scenes seemingly
missing does get distracting; seriously, who the hell is Stuart, what is he
doing here and where did he go?
The Muppets – I
love nostalgia as much as the next maladjusted adult, but rehashing the same
plot the muppets have done at least three times already is jejune (plus, stop
ignoring the 90s!), and it badly needed to pick and stick to a POV – Walter or
Kermit, not both.
Thor – here’s an
idea, don’t kidnap your enemy’s son and pretend he’s yours, don’t raise him to
despise his biological race so that when he finds out his real heritage he’ll
be overwhelmed by self-loathing, don’t tell him he was born to be a king but
can never be the king, don’t fall asleep in the middle of the most important
conversation of his life and don’t tell him he’s a failure when he’s dangling
over an abyss… (Odin wins this year’s Worst Father Award).
Winnie-The-Pooh -
“‘Back soon.’ Sounds like Backson… Oh well.
Good luck everyone!” WHY did they
make another one?
X-Men First Class –
wake me when the X-Men get here; repulsively misogynistic.
Your Highness – ghastly sense of ‘humour’.
2012
21 Jump Street –
the fish out of water/culture clash plot looked like it could be amusing, but
it instantly dissolves into a string of sex and drug jokes that aren’t remotely
funny, and the two main characters are so bad at their jobs that they really,
really deserve to fail.
A Fantastic Fear Of
Everything – interesting.
Avengers Assemble –
dumb fun.
Big Miracle –
overpopulated movie that somehow demonises every character in it and forgets to
make anyone the lead.
Brave – plotless,
characterless, humourless, derivative, pointless, boring bag of lame.
Cabin In The
Woods – if you try to be smart but show the gore, revel in the violence
and ‘reference’ previous horror films, then you’re just as bad as them (still,
totally called it on the ‘not really dead’ character – why would you kill off
the ONLY character you remembered to write for – no Scream 2 for me today!).
Chronicle
– booooooooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.
Flight
– the trailer made this look exciting but it is actually a very
dull film about alcoholism.
Hitchcock
– “And that, my dear, is why
they call me the Master of Suspense.” A really enjoyable biopic (focusing
equally on Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville) with great performances
from Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren.
Horrible
Bosses – a waste of an already overused premise, with dislikeable leads.
Hotel Transylvania –
within the first five minutes there’s a joke where a disembodied bottom
frames someone for an enormous fart – it was at this moment I should have
realised the level of intelligence involved here and turned it off – alas I
endured it all; it is really, really dumb; and lame.
Ice Age 4: Continental
Drift – not as bad as the third film, but forgettable.
Journey 2: The Mysterious
Island – “Who gave him a speaking part?” Rubbish, far too similar
to the plot of the first movie and the ‘literary references’ are ludicrous.
Men In Black 3
– “If we report this, they’re going to scrub the launch.” “I didn’t see
anything.” Entertaining fluff; the finale is surprisingly underwhelming but
Will Smith and Josh Brolin give enjoyable performances.
Mirror Mirror –
quite funny but seriously lacks focus and depth and Snow herself is devoid
of personality; still I do desperately love Nathan Lane.
ParaNorman –
feels like someone put a lot of thought into this film and yet the finished
product is so convoluted it just gets dull and were any of the characters
remotely interesting (plus, moral, turns out it is wrong to kill children: who
knew?!)?
Red Tails – an interesting part of history but very poorly handled as a film.
Rise Of The Guardians – some interesting ideas but not enough was
explained and the villain didn’t really work because a) his name is one loop
away from a swearword, and b) his MO is exactly the same as the hero so why are we
supposed to side with one over the other?
Robot & Frank – so short it doesn’t progress beyond the interesting premise.
Seven Psychopaths – appears to have been written by a fourteen
year old.
Skyfall – it’s
ludicrously stupid, clichéd and anti-climactic as well as demeaning to women
with a chillingly callous attitude towards life and utterly detestable
characters (but I did like Mallory and Q).
Song For Marion – “I do maths and everything.” A by-the-book weepy/feel-good Sunday
afternoon movie.
The Amazing Spider-Man – no one needed another Spider-Man origin
story.
The Dark Knight Rises
– catwoman really irritated me, Bane was hilarious, I don’t understand why
Lucius didn’t flood the room with the bomb since that was exactly why they
built in that failsafe and it was painfully obvious who the ‘real’ bad guy was
so I was baffled why Batman didn’t work it out.
The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey – actually pretty watchable, best when it remembers
it is The Hobbit (funny and fanciful with a sweet lead) and only getting dull
when it tries to be The Lord Of The Rings and because it is ridiculously
overlong, unedited and inflated just to bulk it up into a trilogy.
The Hunger
Games – “You know what my mother said? She said ‘District 12 might finally have
a winner,’ but she wasn’t talking about me.” A compelling watch.
The Lorax
– filled with nauseating ‘minion’esque critters and incredibly fickle
characters, this moralising SATIRE isn’t deep enough to hold an entire film,
particularly when you raise the question of why didn’t The Once-ler just plant
the tree like fifty years ago instead of sitting in his room not doing that.
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! (The
Pirates! Band Of Misfits) – “Blood Island. So called because it’s the exact shape of
some blood.” A couple of duff jokes, but
generally really, really fun, an improvement on the creepy book.
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – an engrossing teen flick, although I was not invested in his crush.
The Woman In Black – BOO!
Wreck-It Ralph
– occasionally ingenious, shame about setting it in a dull game and the
terribly convenient monster menace that randomly don’t know it’s a game for no
reason.
2013
About Time – “Go
in there and wait, quietly. I mean it;
don’t make a sound… or I’ll kill you.” Boring AND sexist, my two least
favourite attributes for a movie; I thoroughly regret watching this.
Alan
Partridge: Alpha Papa – fairly entertaining Alan Partridge film.
Behind The
Candelabra – “I’m a seeing eye person.” Biopic’s gonna biopic, i.e. rushed and no
depth.
Captain
Phillips – poorly directed but the plot is very exciting, just a shame that due to
its ‘true story’ nature the first half is a lot more interesting than the
second half.
Cloudy With A
Chance Of Meatballs 2 – lacking the wit and charm of the (extremely
good) first film, this is nothing more than a pile of food puns, questionable
morals and the characters of the first film turning up and having nothing to
do, plus it essentially rewrites the beginning and ending of the first film;
LAME and extremely disappointing.
Elysium – got about halfway through and had to pause
for some reason and have discovered absolutely no desire to continue watching the
rest; there’s just nothing/no one to care about; also really feels like a novel
adaptation (yet apparently isn’t) as none of it goes into enough detail.
Frozen – what a load of arse.
Gravity – “I hate space.” Since the main character is so useless and has little discernible personality, I didn’t really care what happened.
Her - NOPE
(could this be any less my kind of movie?)
Iron Man Three
(Iron Man 3) – “Where’s my sandwich?” For me, this works
as the logical conclusion to the Iron Man story.
Justice League:
The Flashpoint Paradox – “I knew using these morons would put you
off your guard.” “Hey!” Unbelievably gratuitously gruesome, no way in hell this
should only be a 12 certificate.
Man Of Steel –
I can’t believe how many people must die in this film; it has some of the
clumsiest writing I’ve ever witnessed and endless blurry action sequences, this
is hilariously dumb and sadly tedious, with pathetically pointless characters,
a practically psychotic hero, some awful performances and just not in any way
what I want from a Superman film; I laughed hysterically during the Jesus scene.
Pacific Rim
– very obvious and dumb, but it is about robots fighting monsters so it’s
really my own fault for watching it – it’s the total lack of any interesting
characters that kills it.
Prisoners – film starts by tracking a deer through the wood, and I said ‘If they
kill that deer, I’m turning the film off,’ the end.
R.I.P.D. – generic and derivative, and it was a misstep to have two white dudes
masquerading as an elderly Asian man and a good-looking woman, scenes which
come across as awkwardly unfunny at best and offensive at worst and kept
reminding me that this would have been more interesting if we could have had
those actors in the main roles instead.
Saving Mr. Banks – “When does anybody get to go
to Disneyland with Walt Disney himself?” Watchable if extremely heavy-handed,
can’t imagine it is very true to what really happened: saintly Disney must do
battle with crazy mean Travers so that the wonderful film Mary Poppins can
exist as is right and proper.
The Adventurer: The Curse Of The Midas Box
– the same as all other adaptations from
children’s book serials (and there’s not enough Michael Sheen in it).
The Croods – “Hey, I know that guy!” An odd
mixture of humour, i.e. some witty, some utterly lame, but the ridiculously
have-their-cake-and-eat-it everyone-lives happy ending is just so schmooey
heart-warming, it’s bound to leave a good impression.
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug – the trouble with ‘middle’ movies is there’s
no intrigue of setup and no satisfaction of resolution.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – “Remember who the real enemy is.” Feels
oddly structured after the first film, but it’s another compelling instalment.
The Kings Of Summer – excellent cast (for some reason all the
adults in the movie are played by sitcom actors) in a compelling and amusing
movie, but I really could have done without the drawn out killing and skinning
a rabbit scene and that pretty much killed the end of the movie for me.
The Lone Ranger – could have been okay if it didn’t have the creepy and pointless framing
device, had focused less on Johnny Depp and wasn’t just so nasty all the damn
time.
The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty – “I didn’t see the movie, so I don’t really
know how it works.” A sweet, uplifting movie (not sure if it would work twice,
but certainly enjoyable once).
The World’s End – deliberately but painfully predictable, fails to engage at any point.
This Is The End – “That’s embarrassing.” Incredibly juvenile and gross, but if you can
get past that, it is entertaining.
Thor: The Dark World – “She wouldn’t want us to fight.” “Well, she
wouldn’t exactly be shocked.” Dull, confusing gibberish, except
(unsurprisingly) for the bits with Loki, who wanders through his brief scenes
like a ray of life-giving sunshine.
“…you’ll kill me? Evidently there’ll be a line.”
Warm Bodies – “Don’t pick at it!” The zombie perspective is surprisingly funny but
the film does devolve into some very obvious romance tropes.
2014
A Little Chaos – there didn’t appear to be a plot.
Big Eyes – I guess this was okay but like a lot of biopics it is totally
forgettable.
Big Hero 6 – the sad grossly outweighs the happy and the plot/twists are so obvious
they could brain you.
Birdman – unbearably pretentious but also surprisingly obvious and dull.
Dear White People – “Oh I’m sorry, was I supposed to take ‘Free speech, my ass’ as a
legitimate suggestion?” Watchable but the ensemble cast left the story feeling
a bit unfocused, I can see why it was made into a TV show.
Earth To Echo – highly derivative; the selling point is obviously the ‘found footage/YouTube/phone
app’ style of filming, but I actually found that really harmed how interesting
any given scene looked, while the plot is fairly asinine.
Edge Of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat: Edge of
Tomorrow) - the cool premise actually
makes this very watchable, although the final act lets it down.
Effie Gray – this was so, so dull, and totally forgets to give the lead any personality, hopes, dreams or agency, so I didn’t really care what happened.
Ex Machina – “I turned to Caleb and he looked up at me and he said, ‘You’re not a
man, you’re a God.’” “Yeah, but I didn’t
say that.” The disappointingly horrible
ending makes you wonder why you bothered sitting through the rest of it.
Guardians Of The Galaxy – it just didn’t engage with me.
Muppets Most Wanted – what idiot changed the title of a film
that’s opening AND closing songs are about the damn title?
Nightcrawler – “I also like the way you smell.”
There’s no likeable character in this so I didn’t find it compelling.
Noah – despite the pro-vegan message, Noah is a terrible person and this is an
upsetting and unrewarding watch.
Paddington – a charming surprise; this adaptation is sweet and emotionally invested
(just a shame that the villain plot is upsettingly dark and also illogical –
just how old is she supposed to be?).
Pride – “Dai, your gays have arrived.” Harmless if forgettable.
RoboCop – with a fuzzy plot, lame ending and themes that go nowhere, this is
ultimately completely forgettable.
Testament Of Youth – did you know that war is bad and lots of
young men were slaughtered during WWI; this film seems to think this is news,
there’s nothing else to it at all, other than being filmed in a mildly
pretentious fashion and I feel like they are selling Vera Brittain short.
The Babadook – not what I was expecting (in a bad way).
The Book Of Life – “Kids today, with their long hair and their no killing stuff.” Watchable, but it’s hard to know what I think
since it’s such a hodge-podge of ideas, yet the basic two-guys-one-girl story
is so tired; would be better without the pointless-adds-nothing framing device.
The Boxtrolls – “We exterminate justice!” Charming
film (except for the villain’s disgusting comeuppance). “You bit me.
With your mouth.”
The Grand Budapest Hotel – “The plot thickens, as they say. Why, by the
way? Is it a soup metaphor?” Wes Anderson is one of those love or hate
writer/directors and having now seen five of his movies, I really don’t want to
see any more.
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies -
by no stretch should this have ever been a full movie, it is at best a finale
of another movie, and good luck actually spotting the hobbit.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 –
“And if we burn... you burn with us!”
Previously I felt that this instalment was lacking since it is only half a
plot, but actually this time round it worked just fine. “Do you have any other
conditions?” “My sister gets to keep her cat.”
The Imitation Game – “Can I have some soup please?” Apparently
not very historically accurate, which is weird because it didn’t really have
much else going for it.
The Lego Movie – I didn’t know I wanted a LEGO movie, but if they were going to make
one, this is exactly the film they should have made.
The Maze Runner – much better than the trailer made it look, this is still predictable
and too reliant on setting up a franchise (Teresa might as well be cut).
The Monuments Men – the tale of eight men who go to different parts of Europe over the
course of several years to protect thousands of pieces of art; as you may
guess, it lacks focus.
What We Do In The Shadows – “I was thinking, maybe I just should
bring a broom down here for you, if you wanted to sweep up some of the
skeletons.” Amusing; Taika Waititi is unbelievably adorable.
X-Men Days Of Future Past – “Wanna pick all that shit up?” The plot is
driven by ‘we need to make a movie’ and not by any semblance of internal logic
– a) DON’T free Magneto and b) DO use Quicksilver for everything; the
characters act like complete morons or lunatics for no reason, it is
infuriating (and don’t go out of your way for the Rogue Cut – or ‘the same
stupid movie but with one scene of Rogue that goes nowhere’).
2015
Absolutely Anything – “Biscuits!” Unbelievably poor.
Ant-Man – the smaller scale plot works really well, making this a refreshing
watch considering how weary I am of superhero flicks.
Avengers: Age Of Ultron – it’s hard to really care about this ensemble
piece because no one gets the chance to shine, plus they’re all super miserable
now (Coulson and Loki are sorely missed).
Bill – “That’s a coincidence.” Mildly amusing.
Descendants – “Their children are innocent.” Basically High School Musical coated in
Disney cartoon lore.
Goosebumps – “Did you want to exchange numbers?” “Not a good time but yes.” While
this is probably cool for fans of the books, as an outsider I found it more
annoying and predictable while the finale is too visually similar to Jumanji.
Home – a lot better than the trailer made it look, this has a great premise.
Inside Out – while the anthropomorphised emotions and control room stuff are fun
ideas, the actual plot of Joy wandering around lost is tedious, plus you really
can’t give two hoots about characters who by their very nature are this
one-dimensional.
Jurassic World – sexist.
Mad Max: Fury Road – watchable in that the action never lets up,
but not particularly memorable once it’s over, due to never getting to know the
characters; for all the hoo-hah about it being feminist, the women are little
more than objects to be moved about and the only two mildly interesting
characters are the two men.
Man Up – toxic.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials – “Some kind of farm.” The middle movie of
this YA SF trilogy takes no time to remind the audience what is going on,
unhelpful with a cast of such bland teenagers, and the generic script often
feels as if it were written by auto-complete; gone is the mildly interesting
maze of the first film to be replaced by boring old zombies.
Mr. Holmes – “What are the odds that you would know two men who would live that
long?” Slow but watchable, although the three threads are not equally
interesting or developed.
Paper Towns – “What if it is literally anything else?” Watchable
coming-of-age/road-trip/teen-flick but very tropey, made worse because the
filmmakers would probably say they were trying to deconstruct certain tropes
but instead ended up reinforcing them.
Room – “I’m sorry Jack.” “It’s okay. Don’t do it again.” Fairly compelling due
to the horrific subject matter, but actually the child’s POV, which of course
is the selling point, means we skip a lot of interesting stuff.
Shaun The Sheep Movie – Mildly entertaining, though I could never get past how it isn’t set in the same universe as Wallace & Gromit, so this isn’t the real Shaun.
Spy – enjoyable enough at least once; this is an obvious attempt at promoting
female empowered films and it’s about time, just a shame that she has to have a
romantic dynamic with all three male leads.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – nah.
Suffragette – “We’re half the human race; you can’t stop us all.” Starts off following an individual story
(rather clumsily at times) to show us how lack of vote and rights could affect
women on a personal level, then hurries to catch up with historical factual
events and totally forgets all about that character it spent most of the film
setting up.
The Danish Girl – started this but so far Eddie Redmayne’s performance just hasn’t
captured my interest; will probably watch the rest at some point.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 – “I thought we’d agreed never to lie to each
other.” The cutting of one story into two pieces is sorely felt in this instalment
as it feels like years since Peeta was a main character, but it’s still a
satisfying conclusion to the series. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the
seventy-sixth Hunger Games.”
The Lady In The Van – watchable despite its pretentiousness.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - “I don’t think you understand. It tore the back off my car.” An incredibly slick, over-directed movie
that’s so charming it completely gets away with it; great fun.
The Martian – watchable but astoundingly lacking in peril; one of those movies that
makes you want to read the book instead.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel –
harmlessly watchable.
Tomorrowland: A World Beyond – “You’re not funny.” How did this even get made, it’s awful.
Tremors 5: Bloodlines – they sort of forget to do the cool, scary
underground menace and focus too much on the not-as-good flying monsters from
the third movie, and it’s a mistake to have the two leads spend so little time
together.
Trumbo – “You don’t even like me.” “I like you fine; you don’t like me.” A watchable, well made biopic, galloping
through time, events and people as they do, idolising and demonising as it
goes.
2016
Arrival – “Who is this child?” Not a bad movie just safe to say this is not my
kind of thing; slow paced and heaped with flashbacks that eventually do turn
out to be relevant, but unfortunately leading to a really irritating twist and
a fairly underwhelming conclusion.
A Street Cat Named Bob – a compelling movie that will horrify you
when you see how some people treat the homeless, but doesn’t have a very strong
finale.
A United Kingdom – “I jabbed her so she’d make a noise.” Tells an interesting historical
story but isn’t a particularly enrapturing film, and since it is a film
probably isn’t that historically accurate.
Ballerina – annoying movie in which the main character is not very likeable and
doesn’t deserve the breaks she gets.
Batman: Return Of The Caped Crusaders –
“Quickly Robin, to the crosswalk.” Having
just finished watching all of the TV show, it was fun spotting the references,
although weirdly some of it doesn’t seem to match; this is a witty film with
pretty much everything you could want thrown in plot-wise, but because of that
it doesn’t have enough time to focus on a lot of it. “Holy unsatisfying
ending!”
Being Charlie – “I should probably save my virgin asshole for that special someone,
right?” There isn’t really enough plot or that much character development –
come the finale, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of it.
Bridget Jones’s Baby – “I think my lung’s collapsed; but this is
not about me.” Mildly amusing but also kind of tired; it’s sad to see Bridget
and Mark still failing at love after all this time; it does pick up towards the
end.
Captain America: Civil War – I’m getting tired of team-up superhero
movies now; Robert Downey Jr is the best thing in it and keeps it watchable,
but that seems kind of harsh when it isn’t even his movie.
Dad’s Army – sure to irritate any fan of the TV show it’s
‘based’ on, but who else is it for?
Doctor Strange – a competent movie that, while trope-heavy, inverts enough to make this
a refreshing addition to the tired superhero genre, but that said, I don’t
think it’s one for much rewatching – the characters are rather flat.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them –
Colin Farrell gives an excellent
performance; whereas Eddie Redmayne just does an impression of Matt Smith;
there’s not really enough plot to gather any momentum and at least one
pointless character getting in the way, but the real tragedy is the absolutely
horrific ending: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
Finding Dory – weak; the old leads are completely redundant, the grandeur of the ocean
is missed by setting it in muddy buckets and by the time you get to an octopus
driving a truck I pretty much want my money back.
Florence Foster Jenkins – “They’re not for practical use.” Nice
comedy drama.
Ghostbusters – way too heavy on the references.
Hacksaw Ridge – “Help me get one more.” It’s a
decent watch, heroic pacifists always make the most compelling leads, even if
the morality is a little suspect, but the battle gore is so extreme that the
audience becomes desensitised within seconds, almost every shot seems to be
another exploding head, and I can’t help come away from the whole battle with a
bad taste in my mouth regarding how the Japanese are portrayed; it just feels
full-on racist.
Hail, Caesar! – “It’s… complicated.” You know it’s a Coen when it’s all surface
style and no character depth; basically just the day in the life of a guy who
fixes problems on a movie lot, so there’s no actual plot.
Hidden Figures – “Despite what you may think, I have nothing against y’all.” “I know. I
know you probably believe that.” This biopic spreads itself too thin, so it
never focuses on the characters in enough depth, their home lives are so skimpy
that I wished they’d cut them altogether, and dear god stop saying Math terms,
I have no idea what is going on.
Kubo And The Two Strings – “If I’m Beetle and you’re Monkey, why isn’t
he called Boy?” Poetic, abstract and sad, i.e. not my kind of thing.
Love & Friendship – “Facts are horrid things.” Emulates the
Austen style well in that everything of interest happens off screen and we’re
just told about it later; ultra-frivolous and diabolically frustrating that
this heinous character suffers no comeuppance.
Mindhorn – it’s funny, but the plot is maybe too light and obvious and the ending
is rather dull.
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
– fairly dull and difficult to
follow; forgets to set up any interesting characters; standard magical teen
fare.
Moana – a nice film; funny with likeable characters, but maybe could be a
little more eventful.
My Life As A Courgette (Ma Vie De
Courgette; My Life As A Zucchini) –
such a sweet (and sometimes dark) story that addresses issues regarding kids in
care that you don’t see very much.
Pete’s Dragon – “But I don’t wanna never see you again.” Filled with too many
characters, all of whom are dumb, mean and illogical, there’s no one to
particularly like and the plot progresses in stupid ways; it falls somewhere
between bland and poor, but the kid-acting and special effects are good.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Everyone Dies: The Movie.
So B. It – “Soof.” One of those sweet but weepy movies, although the ending is
kinda lame, and then you realise you were tricked into watching a tweenage
melodrama.
Sully (Sully: Miracle On The Hudson) – could have done without the dream sequence
stuff in the first half of the movie but the second half is exciting enough to make
up for it; mostly I appreciate this film because it was so much better than
Flight which has a similar plot.
The Edge Of Seventeen – “You know what you need? You need someone to
rob you so you can re-enact Home Alone.”
Starts off really well, with a convincing and witty portrayal of the
isolation that can come with puberty but slides towards the finale without
heightening the drama and having the main character come to the epiphany that
she is selfish and magically deciding to fix her life by not being selfish any
more, even though that won’t remotely resolve any of the issues the film set
up; also the subplot about the teacher, which looks to be the main focus at the
start and from the advertising, is in fact so irrelevant and small it could be
cut entirely.
The Finest Hours – “That’s regulation,
you know.” Enjoyable disaster/rescue movie, although the romance didn’t add
anything.
Their Finest – a fairly engrossing film but the shock sad bit towards the end
(despite in hindsight the obvious foreshadowing) was too sudden and horrible
for me; just as I was beginning to think I’d like to own this movie, I realised
that I never ever want to see it again.
To Walk Invisible – well acted, but doesn’t feel very authentic
and despite the title supposedly referring to the Brontë sisters, it focuses
almost entirely on Branwell, while very little happens on screen, so overall
disappointing (and it ends as an advert for the Brontë Parsonage Museum).
X-Men: Apocalypse – these X-Men prequels are incompetent and
what the hell have they done to Cyclops, stop RUINING him!
Zootropolis (Zootopia) – “Life isn’t some cartoon musical where you
sing a little song and your insipid dreams magically come true. So let it
go.” Such a positive message for children to learn.
2017
Baby Driver – “Every damn song is about you.” Enjoyable to start with, but it just
doesn’t know when to quit.
Batman vs. Two-Face – “You know what they say, if you can’t kill
them in a horrible lab experiment, join them!”
Lacks the meta charm of the first film, but since it’s the last outing
of Adam West’s Batman, it’d be churlish to criticise it harshly. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
Blade Runner 2049 – unbearable.
Bright – a lot more violent than I was expecting, it’s ultimately just three
not-hugely-interesting characters racing from one shoot-em-up to the next, all
during one ironically so-dark-it’s-difficult-to-see-what’s-going-on night.
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie – “Why are the robots shooting each other?
Aren’t they supposed to be friends?” “I don’t know. I’m the artist, you’re the
writer. That’s why we need each other.” Imaginative use of storytelling
techniques means this can be surprisingly charming, unlike when it spends the
entire movie stating that if you don’t find ‘potty humour’ funny, you’re
brain-damaged.
Carnage – “We are not vegans; they are carnists.” Intelligent, funny, moving
satire with quite a few moments of genuine footage where I had to hold my hand
up to hide the screen, but then that’s the point isn’t it, if you can’t take
it, don’t support it; should be required viewing for all carnists.
Coco – “Well, you’re cursed.” It’s watchable but the characters aren’t very
likeable and the plot is painfully obvious – not sure whether it is
intentionally derivative, or just unbelievably trite (on a side note, I wasn’t
really sure if I liked The Book Of Life when I saw that, but after Coco, I
can’t help comparing how The Book Of Life does a lot of the same plot ideas
better).
Darkest Hour – unbelievably pretentious direction that takes you completely out of
the story, so all you can see are actors and sets instead of characters and
events, but that may also be because there isn’t much of a plot or narrative
point: will Churchill surrender to Hitler, um, gee, I wonder.
Dave Made A Maze – obviously visually very creative, but at its heart it fails because I
don’t like Dave and his total non-reaction to the fact that he gets a lot of
people murdered is off-putting and confusing.
Descendants 2 – “Is it Happy’s son? Coz let me tell you he’s not as happy as his
father. Kind of a dark streak in fact.” The bad guys are completely justified
in this – how the hell did Ben forget his entire philosophy about freeing
innocent children from prison?
Downsizing – unfortunately I only got somewhere between halfway and two thirds in
before the film cut out so I don’t know how it ended, but I can’t say it was
very interesting up till then – it almost seems to forget its own really cool
and interesting premise, never really addressing any of the issues or doing
anything particularly visually interesting that you’d expect with a ‘shrunk
down’ plot.
Dunkirk – you know the phrase ‘Dunkirk spirit’, this movie doesn’t have any; it
looks good and it’ll hold your attention, but the non-linear plot is confusing
while the little dialogue and lack of depth/background to the characters means
you never really connect with them.
Ferdinand – “What could you possibly need that for?” While this has some lovely
morals, it’s not a particularly good film, it’s not funny and certain plot
elements felt like serious missteps.
Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie – “Don’t you give up now. Your blind optimism
is one of your most annoying qualities.” It’s finally here, fans, the end of
the Hey Arnold story, not to be missed; rewarding the loyal viewer, the first
part throws out a whole bunch of references to past episodes and the rest is an
adventure story that answers all those hanging questions: what is Arnold’s
surname, what happened to his parents, and how does he feel about Helga?
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle – “Martha, come look at my penis!” It’s kinda harmless I guess, but it fails
hopelessly at being either funny or exciting, or emotional or having any
interesting characters, and it doesn’t even try for creepy or scary, and while
the initial idea of the Jumanji game regenerating in order to lure in new
generations is quite clever, the rest of the film totally fails to stick to the
original logic and this is a poor substitute for the original movie.
King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword – imagine The Lord Of The Rings if it was
directed by Guy Ritchie, i.e. boring and
annoying.
Kong: Skull Island – “I’ve never said that name out loud before,
it sounds stupid now that I say it.” I thought Tom Hiddleston could do no
wrong; my mistake.
La La Land – drab singing and duller characters make this kind of tedious.
Little Evil – “I’m the Keymaster!” Good fun
for a one-watch, probably not worth revisiting.
Murder On The Orient Express – while the production is stylish and Kenneth
Branagh is very entertaining as Poirot, the movie can’t escape Christie’s hacky
plot twists, which left me cold and irritated.
Okja – more heart-warming than I anticipated until the harrowing ending, but
call me crazy but I like it when the villains get defeated at the end of the
movie rather than just get away with it.
Paddington 2 – the mixture of celebrating modern multi-cultural London and whimsical
wrongful conviction nonsense that seems to have wandered in from a Wallace
& Gromit film is gratingly at odds, while the entire plot makes little
sense and is rather tired; that said, Hugh Grant is ludicrously entertaining
throughout.
Please Stand By – “Oh, I wish my grandson could meet you. He would so get whatever it is
you’re talking about.” A nice film.
Pottersville – starts out well but quickly nosedives into tripe and the It’s A
Wonderful Life rip-off ending makes no sense.
Spider-man: Homecoming – “Just a typical
homecoming, on the outside of an invisible jet, fighting my girlfriend’s dad.”
A sweet and funny movie that puts a welcome spin on the superhero genre by
giving us a child lead.
Table 19 – “How close to the toilet do you feel now, Mr Kepp?” “The same, the
distance is the same.” Fun little film that could have done with a bit more
plot structure.
The Big Sick – “You know what I realised halfway through, you’re from Pakistan.”
It’s a good romcom, I didn’t know such a thing existed, but here it is.
The Boss Baby – “Staci, read back the notes.” “I can’t read. What’s it say?” A weird
but interesting take on the rejection an older sibling feels when there is a
new baby, even if the actual plot isn’t great. “Tree! I’m gonna hit it!” “Aim
for failure and you’ll always succeed.” “What?” “Aim away from failure!”
The LEGO Batman Movie – “Remember that time with the two boats?”
“This is better than the two boats!” “Hmmm.” Cute and silly kids’ movie, but
nothing special.
The LEGO Ninjago Movie – “Is that Green Ninja still staring at me?”
“Yes, sir.” “Eugh, what a weirdo.” A few fun ideas but it’s less interesting
than you’d think it would be, given the premise.
The Mercy – “My children will still need a father, and I will still need a husband.” Didn’t enjoy this at all.
Thor: Ragnarok – “Your saviour is here!” A very
fun superhero flick, although it can’t relive up to the delightful surprise it
was the first time round.
Unicorn Store – “And also, are you going to murder me?” It was all right, I guess, a
little bit bland for a surreal film.
Wonder Woman – “I believe in love.” Very dull, with flat unlikeable characters,
god-awful dialogue, hardly any heroics and a villain plot that makes little
sense.
2018
Ant-Man And The Wasp - “You’re the world’s greatest grandma.”
Unfortunately it’s one of those ‘swap the MacGuffin’ movies, which can get a
little dull, and while I liked the intimacy of the first move, it would be nice
in a sequel if he could actually do some superhero stuff instead of everything
just being about the Pym family.
A Wrinkle In Time – “Charles Wallace.” What the hell was this, incoherent and dull nonsense.
BlacKkKlansman – “No C-4 for you!” A pretty good film, although the random arty moments
of direction seemed kind of out of place.
Black Panther – decently watchable action adventure superhero movie, although it
still has some tired old tropes in there (no I won’t help you fight – okay so
see you in the finale then yeah?), while the three awesome strong female leads
are all ultimately defined by their relationship to men and are we sure that
the most advanced country in the world should have a law where the king is
chosen via fight to the death?
Bohemian Rhapsody – “I decide what I am.” A
watchable well-made biopic that’ll make you blub; it has the usual faults of
many biopics of too much rush, not enough depth, over-the-top demonising of
anyone who got in the way and I could have done without the extremely
on-the-nose future predictions/winks at the audience and I’d like to trade the
very lengthy Live Aid re-enactment finale for some slower pace earlier in the
movie, but if you like Queen music, you’ll enjoy the movie.
Breaking In – “Fear I can manage; desperation – whole different thing.” Exactly
what it looked like from the trailer – a less good Panic Room.
Crazy Rich Asians – “Buk-buk, bitches.” Disappointing, this is
just every trope in the romcom book and it forgets to resolve its own set up.
Daphne & Velma – “A ghost wouldn’t have a butt.” Harmless
tween movie.
Dumplin’ – “I’m doing this for me, not for them.”
Harmless sentimental fluff that never goes into enough depth, and has
the lead character seemingly create her own problems rather than face real
ones.
Early Man – “Symbol of a game sent from Heaven.” It’s hard to believe quite how bad
this movie is – it’s the antithesis of funny, filled with the lamest, oldest
jokes you’ve ever heard that can’t raise even a tired chuckle, while the plot
is inconceivably dull, focusing entirely on football, with some fairly poor
voice acting and several really dumb ideas; the tragedy being that it takes
ages to make these movies and they wasted all that time on this turd.
Game Night – “Glass tables are acting weird tonight.” Watchable, with the humour
veering wildly between annoying and clever, but the relationship at the heart
of the film is really nice; you don’t often see married couples so equally
written.
Henchmen – morally confusing, but this is still a fairly harmless (if totally
forgettable) kids movie.
Incredibles 2 – “When was the last time you slept?” “Who keeps track of that?” I never
really clicked with the first movie, I think because I didn’t find the Parr
family at all likeable and the plot didn’t grab my interest, while the fact
that dozens of superheroes had been murdered was too dark; with this one, I found
at least some of the characters were more interesting, the baby’s always
entertaining, the superheroics were more relatable while it’s refreshing to
have a female lead in that area, the plot managed to be creepy without being
disturbing and I found the villain plot more rewarding; not saying it was
brilliant, but it was fairly enjoyable and it did more for me than the
original.
Instant Family – nice heart-warming comedy drama, although it has to rush through the
timeframe a bit too quickly for it all to really land.
Johnny English Strikes Again – “Yes, all right, we all know what garrotting
looks like.” Harmless, worth a few laughs, if not very hearty ones; recommended
for the grandparent generation who don’t understand technology.
Love, Simon – “I thought maybe we could sign up for Grindr together.” “You don’t
know what Grindr is, do you?” “It’s Facebook for gay people.” A really
compelling, heart-rending-and-warming story with a wonderful performance at its
centre from Nick Robinson.
Mary Poppins Returns – “Nowhere to go but up.” It’s very obvious
that the songs in this each represent a song in the original movie and the
‘plot’ has been strung along between them to try to replicate the same feel but
all that accomplishes is a pale, charmless replica of Mary Poppins that had me
almost nodding off during two musical numbers; instead of a journey of
emotional growth, the story is entirely a ‘find the MacGuffin’ quest, all the
more boring and infuriating because the film heavily signposts where it is to
the audience so you sit there screaming inside your own head for two hours
while the characters bumble along like morons, and it has hints of tawdry
nastiness completely absent from the original, the lack of Burt is fatal, and
then you have to awkwardly sit through Angela Lansbury’s cameo at the end that
was clearly written for Julie Andrews; if you’ve never seen Mary Poppins and
you don’t mind lazy writing, then you might enjoy this, but I wish I had never
bothered to watch it.
Mortal Engines – "Raaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!" Just bad.
Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle – I was really excited when I heard there
was going to be a more true-to-the-books adaptation of the Jungle Book, but
other than Bagheera, this didn’t feel much like Kipling’s stories at all and it
is relentlessly unpleasant and nasty.
Ralph Breaks The Internet – this was so boring, I thought it would never
end.
Rampage – braindead.
Ready Player One – I didn’t particularly like the book that much, but OMG the book is so
much better than this.
Roma
– a compelling, enjoyable movie, although I don’t think I totally ‘got’ what it
was trying to say.
Solo: A Star Wars Story – harmlessly watchable as a stand-alone movie,
but as a prequel about Han Solo it doesn’t convince at all, plus the dialogue
and plot are clunky and it’s way too po-faced; ultimately I didn’t care about
any of these dullards.
Sorry To Bother You – I don’t like surrealism or satire, so I was never going to enjoy
this (the blurb was misleading) but the structure is also a mess.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – “Act dumb. Who’s Morales? Not that dumb!”
This is kind of a seesaw, in that the story is really cool, but actually
there’s barely any plot, and the animation is really accomplished, but also it
gave me a migraine, and the film is really funny, except the most horrific
thing imaginable happens early on that I will never get over.
Stan & Ollie – “Do we really need that trunk?” Well made, bittersweet story, although
there’s not much to it, spoilt a bit by apparently not being very accurate to
life.
Teen Titans Go! To The Movies – this is weird; the humour veers between
genuinely witty meta stuff (everything Will Arnett does is gold), to really
dark edgy WB cartoon humour that doesn’t seem to have any idea what is or isn’t
appropriate (for example, they play a hit and run for laughs), to dumb childish
butt gags; who is the movie aimed at?!
The Christmas Chronicles – “Who’s crazy now? I quit!” Pretty dull
usual Xmas-movie rubbish about believing in Santa being the most important
thing in the world.
The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie
Society – pretty weak, bland performances,
bland characters, bland plot.
The Old Man & The Gun – a lot slower and less focused than I was
expecting, I didn’t really connect with it.
Tomb Raider – “Really?” The script could definitely do with some jokes and better
character definition, but Vikander plays a refreshingly non-sexualised and
realistic woman that makes it worth the watch.
Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell – if you don’t have a new idea, don’t make a
movie; this is exactly the same as 2, 3 and 5, I am so bored, except this one
is supposed to be set in the Arctic but instead is just in a desert compound
like all the others, whoops.
Venom – “For a smart guy, you sure are a dumbass.” Eddie is sympathetically
pathetic and the split-personality thing works quite well, which makes it
watchable, even if everything to do with the villain and plot is dumb and
unconvincing and the action scenes are so long they become boring
(unfortunately, whether I enjoyed it or not, this film represents the fact that
they now can’t do the proper Spider-Man/Symbiote story, sigh).
Welcome To Marwen – a really interesting exploration of mental health, makes me sad this
was a flop.
2019
1917 – it takes a while to ignore the one-shot gimmick, but otherwise this is
an enjoyable a-to-b movie, no particular depth but sometimes it is just nice to
watch a character have to achieve a simple goal through adversity.
A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood – “I don’t eat anything that had a mother.”
Slow and arty, so I was bored and uncomfortable.
Always Be My Maybe – “You can get it to go if you wanna eat it in your car and cry.” An enjoyable, funny rom-com, but some disappointingly clichéd tropes right at the end let it down.
Blinded By The Light – compelling in some ways, certainly its
disquieting portrayal of racism, but rushes the ending, forgetting to focus on
what matters and wastes far too much time watching the main character dance to
Springsteen songs.
Captain Marvel – “That’s a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ question!” In the plus column we have lots of
good acting, likeable characters, funny jokes and overtly feminist themes, but
in the minus column we have too few jokes, a plot so MacGuffiny it’s hard to
care about, a twist so obvious I guessed it from the trailer and an attitude to
war so simplistic that it undermines our otherwise awesome hero making her look
like a naïve idiot.
Descendants 3 – “Did someone put a spell on you? Just tell me who and...” “You’ll what?
Marry them?” Mal is the absolute worst, and there are multiple scenes in which
characters go off on a side mission just to sit around and do nothing like the
scriptwriters couldn’t cope with more than one plot strand at a time, but I
have to admit I was actually invested by this point.
Doctor Sleep – the infuriating thing is that this film is actually really good for
the most part but it completely poops the bed at the end, because instead of
ending THIS story, they have completely illogically stuck the ending of the
novel The Shining in instead, which makes no sense for the character this film
is about and completely ruins all of it.
Don’t Let Go – “Which you know, because you’re my time travelling uncle from the
future.” Watchable thriller with SF leanings, but I was very surprised how
little he actually manages to change history.
Godzilla: King Of The Monsters – I only saw the second half of this, and
boy does it have little interest in its human characters, and how many times
can you think Godzilla is dead only for him to get better again?
Harriet – “I’m gonna be free or die.” This is watchable, but like most biopics
it’s very rushed; it also felt like they didn’t know when to end the story.
Jojo Rabbit – “F*** off, Hitler!” A very well made film – I don’t love it because I’m not really into black comedy, but I can appreciate it.
Judy – I really had no interest in the subject matter and didn’t manage to get
invested in the story.
Klaus – “How have we never defeated you?” Actually does something different
with the Santa legend; entertaining.
Knives Out – “Beafterfore the carved elephant.” Absolutely brilliant.
Last Christmas – “Look up.” Nice bit of Christmas fluff.
Late Night – “It’s like you’re in witness protection and your secret identity is
an elderly Indian woman.” More serious than I was expecting from the trailer,
this is enjoyable but quite formulaic and I wouldn’t watch it again.
Little Monsters – this was quite funny but I quit after a quick glance at
doesthedogdie.com – I hadn’t realised going in that this was set in a petting
zoo or I wouldn’t have gone near it.
Little Women – “Don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic
proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for
me.” The plot structure doesn’t really work, maybe novels should stay as novels.
“Your one beauty!”
Long Shot – really odd tone, feels like a right-leaning person tried to write a
left-leaning script.
Marriage Story – it works better when the story is balanced between the two instead of
becoming one-sided, and it’s kind of hard to relate to because it is set inside
the rich Hollywood/Broadway world.
Men In Black: International – “What is this? The sequel to The Notebook?
I never saw it, but I assume it’s a lot of this type of nonsense.” This was a
really fun film.
Missing Link – “There
was a nun. We mugged her.” Funny and sweetly charming.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu - “Maybe she can tell us about the long-term
psychological effects of being strapped to a baby seat... next to a bomb!”
Fairly nothingy, like most action movies for kids; however if you happened to
be a Pokémon fan, it must be a geek-spotting dream come true.
See You Yesterday – “Time travel. Great Scott.” Incredibly disappointing due to the lack of
an ending and the characters behave in frustrating ways beforehand.
Shazam! – “Get him, Batman!” The foster
kid stuff is suitably heart-warming and the kid-is-a-superhero stuff is a lot
of fun, so the film only falls down with the villain stuff, bizarrely opening
the film with the villain’s backstory, so that you can’t help but identify with
the poor kid, then replacing him with the most boring portrayal they would
muster while adding in some gruesome and violent bits completely inappropriate for
what is clearly a children’s film.
Spinster – “You were funny.” “Well, I had to be, I was weird looking.” A bit of a
slow burner but eventually becomes a satisfying tale of self-affirmation.
Stuber – “Wow... what other racist stereotypes can you do?” Entertaining
one-watch action movie that pokes fun at toxic tropes.
The Addams Family – “Because you’re my brother… and… I… love…
you.” The moral is extremely on the nose, and the humour isn’t particularly
funny, but it’s harmless.
The Kid Who Would Be King – this is harmless fare, although it really
doesn’t make any sense to send untrained, barely armed children to fight demon
soldiers.
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part – “Ha, ha, ha, I don’t get it.” A good sequel.
“Don’t touch me when I’m spaceshipping!”
The Peanut Butter Falcon – “I am going to give you all of my wishes for
my birthday.” While this comedy-drama sounded like a compelling story,
something about the style failed to capture my interest.
The Personal History of David Copperfield –
enjoyable while I was watching it,
though obviously very rushed as any Dickens adaptation would have to be, but I
have almost entirely forgotten it since leaving the cinema; I didn’t
particularly like the ‘being written’ directional gimmick (I have no idea how
to describe what I mean).
Yesterday – kind of enjoyable but doesn’t focus at all on the terrifying and
fascinating premise (that famous things are being erased from existence) and
has an absolutely repulsive toxic relationship passing for romance that ruins
the film.
2020
An American Pickle – “The
scientist explains. His logic is good. It satisfies everyone.” Because this
sets up that it relies on nonsense logic you can’t really complain about how
absurd the plot can be, but nevertheless it got quite annoying at times.
Blithe Spirit – the really horrible and illogical ending overrides my memory of the
rest of the film.
Dolittle – an enjoyable family adventure, the editing is a bit weird and the
humour varies greatly, but it’s never dull and at its heart it’s about being
kind to animals, plus Robert Downey Jr is wonderful.
Emma
– enjoyable adaptation but much nastier in tone than the original book.
Enola Holmes – enjoyable kids’ adventure, don’t know what their problem is with
Mycroft though.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire
Saga – way too long, this is most
entertaining when focusing on the acts, because I didn’t really care about the
characters.
Freaky – this sounded fun but I didn’t realise that it was a gruesome slasher so
I had to turn it off almost immediately.
Love and Monsters – “I really didn’t have your typical
upbringing. I mean, I did at first and then the world ended.” A really solid
movie; it’s funny, emotive and exciting. “Did you steal food?”
Onward – so utterly mediocre, the jokes are obvious, the characters dull, the
plot irritating, the world-building lazy, and the ending unsatisfying.
Palm Springs – entertaining but I didn’t like the characters so I wasn’t
particularly invested in what became of them.
Secret Society Of Second Born Royals – very generic tween adventure movie.
Sonic The Hedgehog – “I know you’re real!” “No, I’m not.” Generic
kids’ action movie.
The Argument – “To the dining room!” Entertaining but a slightly weak ending.
The Lovebirds – this was fun.
The Secret Garden – this brought nothing interesting to the story.
The Willoughbys – very quirky, it took me a while to get into it but it’s very sweet.
Tremors: Shrieker Island – possibly the final instalment in the Tremors franchise, at least for now, I feel absolutely nothing towards these films any more; it was nice that this one finally had a different setting (tropical rather than desert) but painful that they didn’t just recast the son character, so instead have a script that is clearly supposed to be about the son but is just some random stranger now and it makes no sense.
Vampires Vs. The Bronx – disappointingly formulaic.
2021
A Boy Called Christmas – “I still love Mummy with all the broken
pieces.” Lame.
Encanto – “The rats told me everything.” A compelling and fun movie, only the ending
seems to be resolved too easily. “At least I’ll have a friend, no he flew
away immediately.”
Free Guy – “One, two, three, GET BACK TO WORK!” While derivative at times, overall
this was a sweet and fun sci-fi (apart from that one brief embarrassing Disney
IP burp).
Ghostbusters: Afterlife – “Don’t be yourself.” Sticks too closely to
the plot of the first movie but overall a sweet and entertaining film.
Luca – “Thanks, human girl.” THE most queer-coded film I have ever seen in my
life; even though this was apparently accidental (?!) it is super sweet.
MOXiE! – ‘You Don’t Matter Give Up’ This is a nice movie about feminism, although slightly odd that the lead is a white girl inspired by a Black girl, rather than the lead just being the Black girl.
Operation Mincemeat – “My God, who isn’t writing a novel?” Fairly
forgettable historical, watchable while it’s on but nothing of deeper interest
to stay with you afterwards.
Raya And The Last Dragon – “A con baby?” Weak.
Ron’s Gone Wrong – “There are no friends in the shed.” Doesn’t seem to know what point it is
trying to make.
Space Jam: A New Legacy (Space Jam 2) – “Sounds awfully familiar.” The Space Jam
movies just don’t get the Looney Tunes and this one shows a bunch of other WB
IPs and does nothing with them either.
The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things – “I have to go do the same thing I did
yesterday and then forget about it.” I love time travel stories, and this teen
timeloop is really enjoyable right up until the protagonist switch of the final
act and the ending was kind of a let down.
The Mitchells Vs The Machines – “I found one.” “Me too.” “Yaaaay.” The story
balances on the rift between a father and daughter and the audience’s desire
for them to work it out, but since the father was 100% THE WORST, I mostly just
found this annoying.
The Starling – “Sorry our time is up. Take this pill.” Watchable but maybe doesn’t
handle the subject matter appropriately.
Thunder Force – “Don’t think a girl won’t hit you, Wayne.” Really poor.
2022
Amsterdam – “This is the good part.” Some directors make movies to be enjoyed and
others make movies to be studied, and Russell definitely feels more like the
latter type; I was attracted to the premise of this comedy mystery about three
inseparable friends but making two romantically involved spoilt the dynamic.
Bros – “Wearing shorts in winter, like a total psychopath.” An enjoyable,
funny film; we need more queer movies.
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers – watchable but not particularly clever.
DC League Of Super-Pets – “I’m a totally normal dog.” A pleasant
surprise, despite a weak trailer, this superhero animation is actually
consistently amusing, plus it has a nice message about adopting pets from
animal shelters.
Disenchanted – really quite poor; you’d think that in fifteen years, they could have
made something better.
Enola Holmes 2 – “Don’t be ridiculous.” Disappointing sequel in which Enola has very little impact on her own plot and every revelation is handled with bludgeoningly patronising flashbacks.
Everything Everywhere All At Once – “How is your airplane?” I could do with fewer
flashing images, but otherwise this is a very clever and entertaining sci-fi
that can be silly and deep in the same moment. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha.’ ‘Ha ha ha ha
ha.’
Glass Onion (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)
“It’s so dumb, it’s brilliant!” “NO!
It’s just dumb!” Another great Benoit Blanc movie, if with less rewatchability
than the original.
Meet Cute – “You tip decent.” A compelling take on the timeloop story.
Save The Cinema – “Where in the world is it?” “It’s in… Wales.” One of those comfy Sunday
afternoon type movies, passes an hour or two, is heartwarming, forget all about
it by the next day.
See How They Run – entertaining but a rather weak ending.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 – “Oh. They are stairs.” Aside from ticking a
couple of ‘that’s from the game’ boxes, this was lame.
Spirited – “This is a musical.” Loads of fun.
Strange World – “I’m a huge fan!” “Oh, thank you.” “...of your dad. Could you please
forge his signature?” Some of the bigger points were not that well-handled, but
it was entertaining and finally we get Disney’s first genuine openly gay lead
in a family movie and it’s so easy and natural it’s crazy that anyone could
have a problem with this.
The Adam Project – “Superhero landing.” Lame.
The Batman – this isn’t really my kind of film but I liked the character journey so I’ll
probably watch the next one.
The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent
– “Not that you went anywhere.” A cute
movie reminiscent of 90s action films, but I was kind of expecting it to be a
bit more meta or something.
Thirteen Lives – watchably interesting as an adaptation of a true story, but not very
memorable as a movie.
Turning Red – watchable but didn’t really move me.
Wendell & Wild – “Maybe demons aren’t the most trustworthy creatures to make deals
with.” A very busy film.
2023
Asteroid City – “I still don’t understand the play.” A couple of layers of meta
encircle this comedy-drama for no reason, it’s just a bunch of stuff.
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny – “They look like snakes.” “No they don’t!”
1969 is never going to look as interesting as the 1930s, but this fifth
instalment in the Indiana Jones series does its best to hit the right notes and
was overall an entertaining adventure romp.
The Flash – “Eric Stoltz is Marty McFly!” Watchable for the most part but the final
act is underwhelming, trite and poorly thought out; should be noted that I only
saw this superhero movie for Michael Keaton as Batman again and based on that
it wasn’t worth the watch.
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