April
12 - Moon - Excellent film that we only just round to watching; had a limited distribution (don't think our local Cineworld showed it). Sam Rockwell's central performance is makes the film; Kevin Spacey's is brilliantly ambiguous (the more so for the echoes of 2001: A Space Odyssey)
13 - Kick Ass - Lots of fun, but a real headfuck too. The violence swings from nastily real to ultra-cartoonish and back again, and Mark Strong's final fight scene is truly disturbing (Strong is, as usual, very good).
14 - Clash Of The Titans - Not dreadful, but definitely not brilliant. Odd choice to have quite so many strong accents on display, especially given that Sam Worthington's two biggest films to date have seen him in neutral mid-Atlantic mode, rather than full-on Aussie as he is here. Harryhausen's mechanical owl is a nice touch.
15 - 23 Steps to Baker Street - Black and White melodrama featuring a a blind American playwright living in self-imposed isolation in post-war London, who overhears a kidnap or murder plot, and spends much of the rest of the film trying to stop it happening. Very much of its time.
16 - Valkirie - Excellent portrayal of one of the German plots against Hitler during WWII. Tome Cruise is a good actor when he forgets to be Tom Cruise, and here is a part of a strong ensemble cast (but David Bamber deserves a mention for his wonderfully creepy, enigmatic, menacing portrayal of Hitler). I am baffled by the kerfuffle over the choice to have the actors not use German accents; after all, there characters are not supposed to be Germans speaking accented English. A bit like Apollo 13, this film manages to ratchet up the tension despite all of us already knowing how it ends.
17 - Aeon Flux - Dark secrets lie behind the outwardly perfect world in an Orwellian future. Yawn. Stylish, but not really very good.
13 - Kick Ass - Lots of fun, but a real headfuck too. The violence swings from nastily real to ultra-cartoonish and back again, and Mark Strong's final fight scene is truly disturbing (Strong is, as usual, very good).
14 - Clash Of The Titans - Not dreadful, but definitely not brilliant. Odd choice to have quite so many strong accents on display, especially given that Sam Worthington's two biggest films to date have seen him in neutral mid-Atlantic mode, rather than full-on Aussie as he is here. Harryhausen's mechanical owl is a nice touch.
15 - 23 Steps to Baker Street - Black and White melodrama featuring a a blind American playwright living in self-imposed isolation in post-war London, who overhears a kidnap or murder plot, and spends much of the rest of the film trying to stop it happening. Very much of its time.
16 - Valkirie - Excellent portrayal of one of the German plots against Hitler during WWII. Tome Cruise is a good actor when he forgets to be Tom Cruise, and here is a part of a strong ensemble cast (but David Bamber deserves a mention for his wonderfully creepy, enigmatic, menacing portrayal of Hitler). I am baffled by the kerfuffle over the choice to have the actors not use German accents; after all, there characters are not supposed to be Germans speaking accented English. A bit like Apollo 13, this film manages to ratchet up the tension despite all of us already knowing how it ends.
17 - Aeon Flux - Dark secrets lie behind the outwardly perfect world in an Orwellian future. Yawn. Stylish, but not really very good.