Rate the last movie you watched.

[Pumpkinstew]

Watched two films this weekend

Drag Me To Hell
Or Evil Dead IV. Sam Raimi goes back to his roots and delivers a schlocky, B-movie feeling horror which will make you laugh as much as you jump.
The final act won't surprise anyone but it's a fun ride getting there.
8/10

At the other end of the movie spectrum

Frost/Nixon
A dramatisation of the interviews president Nixon gave post Watergate scandal to David Frost. Seeing the British chat-show host as a soft touch Nixon perceives it as a chance to re-tell his years in office with a positive spin and hit the campaign trail again, but he underestimates the desperation of Frost, who knows only too well that his reputation and future career hinges on eliciting some form of admission of guilt from Tricky Dicky.

Michael Sheen is pitch perfect as a young David Frost but has the good sense to leave centre stage to Frank Langella to tear the screen up as Richard Nixon. Actors of the calibre of Sam Rockwell and Kevin Bacon are similarly left trailing in his wake as his multilayered portrayal moves through charming, smarmy, indignant and finally repentant and chastened.
Ron Howard's direction is typically unshowy but refined, my only reservation is that audiences unfamiliar with the major events of Nixons term in office will find little in the way of background to aid them in the 2hr runtime.
8/10

[Matblack]

Transformers II

Loud, too long for the plot

4/10

Screamers II

Dire

2/10

Aventureland

Rehashed John Hughes stuff, I'm too old for this stuff

5/10

This has not been a day for great movies :/

MB

[Wossi]

Infestation

A young office worker wakes up and finds himself and everyone else wrapped up in webbing. Turns out that bugs have taken over. So he un-wraps a few people and they try and survive. It's supposed to be a comedy horror, but it was neither comedic or scary, unless you are scared of bugs.
Avoid.

3/10

[Belmit]

Beerfest

I've seen it before, but found extra humour in watching it with others. Two Americans travel to Germany to scatter their grandfather's ashes, only to find themselves caught up in an underground beer-drinking contest called Beerfest. After being humiliated both in the contest and for failing to prove their Germanic beer-based descent, they return to the US to put a team together to enter the following year.

Anyone familiar with the Broken Lizard comedy team will know what to expect, and the humour is along the lines of Super Troopers, which is an arguably better and funnier film by the same team.

Everyone plays their parts to the hilt, including Jurgen Prochnow (U-Boat captain from Das Boot) who must have been an amazing sport to have involved himself in such an immature film! There's even a not-so-subtle homage in the form of the ultimate downage challenge - a giant glass boot which must be finished without getting the toe-bubble in the face. Everyone chants 'Das Boot!' as it's chugged (which doesn't make a lot of sense, but...).

Some great laughs to be had, and thankfully most of them not along the 'oh look, it's funny because they're drunk!' vein. The team bring a warmth to what could have been a paint-by-numbers plot and character set, and the over-camp sterotypical Germans are spot on in their performances.

7/10

[Pumpkinstew]

Doomsday

Mad McMax

6/10

[Garp]

The Covenant

5 families with "powers" moved to Ipswich someplace in the US to avoid the witchhunts in England. One of the families died out but the 4 remained in the area. The Powers are addictive and also physically age you so their use generally is unadvised.
New boy arrives on the scene and strange magical things start happening... can you guess the plot not-so-twist?

Sadly the film is utterly predictable, there was hardly a surprise in it. The actors played their roles well but it felt like the dialogue was only there to convey just the bare essentials for moving the plot onwards. Actors were good, especially for no-name people. CGI was excellent and thankfully the film didn't go overboard with it, it never felt like a CGI fest with a few bits of plot to tie it together.

It wasn't "OMG give me my 90 minutes back" but it's not one I'd particularly recommend.

3/10

[semi-pro waster]

Hard Luck

Starring

• Wesley Snipes
• Jackie Quinones
• Cybill Shepherd
• James Hiroyuki Liao

Thriller

2/10 I've got to admit I only watched about half of this (which is why it scores as highly as it does because I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt) but it makes no sodding sense at all. I imagine the meeting went something along the lines of

Scriptwriter: "Right folks what would you like to see in a film? Write it down and put your suggestion into a hat."
Scriptwriter: "Ok, you've done that, great so we've got a flashback scene at the start but we'll put something from the middle of the film in and then drop that thread for ages."
Scriptwriter: "We've got Snipes in prison for no apparant reason, good, and he marries his counsellor? Fine, we love cliches."
Jimmy: "Can we have him wake up in abandoned hospital in the aftermath of a typhoon?"
Scriptwriter: "Of course we can Jimmy but I'd appreciate it if you showed a little imagination here - how about if we liberally scatter dead bodies around and since I've got executive power over this that's exactly what will happen."
Gwen: "How about having him being a drug dealer and a community musician who does work with kids trying to prevent them from messing their lives up?"
Scriptwriter: "I like your thinking Gwen, that juxtaposition will really throw the audience and I feel we should make the very next scene set in a stripclub."
Jimmy: "Don't you think that's a bit generic?"
Scriptwriter: "Ah, Jimmy you naive fool, this isn't just any stripclub, there's a dancer wearing an Indian headdress (honestly I wish I was making this up) and we'll have a drugs bust in there with some corrupt cops but, and this is the kicker, Snipes will make off with the loot and kidnap the stripper he had dance for him as a driver."

I've had enough of this imaginary discourse but the film makes even less sense than I've given there, I've not even attempted to explain why Cybill Shepherd is a serial killer with a young Japanese lover and a son of 30(ish) who has a mental age of 5 because I don't have the foggiest idea. There's also a cage fighter and his sweetheart who wants him to quit fighting before Cybill Shepherd and her young lover attempt to murder her and he chases after them to try and assault them. There's a police chief who is trying to recover the money used in the drugs deal by the bent cop aforementioned.

If I explain now that Mario Van Peebles is the scriptwriter, director, producer and also acts in this then perhaps the reasons for this atrocious heap of nonsense become a little clearer. I imagine you could get a similar script from putting 20 4Chan users with ADHD in a room with access to crack, LSD, weed and alcohol then once they've finally created something you rip it into pieces and reassemble it removing all references to Pedobear, mudkips, scientology and doing a barrel roll. I didn't see any ninjas or pirates but I couldn't swear with certainty that they weren't there and my mind just refused to accept the crazy.

[Fayshun]

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

CGI fest, "U" certificate but with a few nudges towards the adults. I've not laughed so much at the cinema, ever.

Flint Lockwood, uber-nerd inventor, creates a machine that turns water into food. Due to his clumsiness it ends up over his hometown of Swallow Falls, a tiny island off the coast whose entire life is based on sardines. Flints machine initially causes it to rain cheesburgers, the mayor (voiced by Bruce Campbell) sees this as a way to put Swallow Falls back on the map.

The voice acting is awesome, the CGI is suitably cartoony and the physics of the CG clouds/water is just amazing. </geek>

Josh gave it 10/10, got 8.5/10 on the Faysh-thumb-up-o-meter.

And Lom, I and the 2 eldest kids shared the cinema with 3 other people and we sat in the "Premier" seats.

[Flibster]

Eddie Murphy film fest on Sky at the moment.

Beverly Hills Cop

Everyone knows these films...

9/10

Beverly Hills Cop II

8/10

Beverly Hills Cop III

...c'mon... a theme park and just so twee...

5/10

Bowfinger

I actually really like this film. It's just very silly in many ways. It's also a good showcase for Steve Martins writing.

8.5/10

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by Garp

The Covenant
It wasn't "OMG give me my 90 minutes back" but it's not one I'd particularly recommend.

3/10

I'd be more harsh than you, and state that it's slightly less interesting than watching paint dry.