Why can't we work out our differences? Why can't we work things out? Little people, why can't we all just get along?

After Small Soldiers, Mars Attacks! is another film I saw at cinema on it's original release, but unlike Soldiers seen a few times on VHS, the last time I probably saw this film however is sometime in 1999, so like this is also something else I haven't seen in 9 years until a couple of days ago...

As a Tim Burton movie it rates well above Planet of the Apes, but well below Beetle Juice, Edward Scissorhands, the Batman films, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Ed Wood, so what I'm pretty much saying is it's far from vintage Burton. This wasn't the only alien attacking earth film of 1996, the other one was of course Independence Day, this of course attempts to be funnier and on the whole as a much more well known cast, among those Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Tom Jones, Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox and people like Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jack Black also went on to become more well known.

My main problem with this film is it feels like the cast are having a much better time then the audience, sure it's quite fun seeing a-list stars getting zapped to death but probably not as much fun as it is for the actors and also sometimes the humour seems a bit mistimed. But at the same time there is a lot to like about this movie, like Jack Nicholson's dual roles at the President and a Las Vegas Hotel owner, some of the deaths are fun like Michael J. Fox's and Rod Steiger's and some of the use of colour is pretty terrific.

You feel there was a much better film there somewhere down the line (i.e in the script or in a different cut), but it's still a fairly watchable movie with some good and some not as good as it should be moments. I'd still recommend it but don't expect anything classic.

<><><>

Bask in the loveliness of...

Natalie Portman

I'm feeling sick as a dog at the minute since Sunday, even left work early today, actually a long time since I've done that...

Watched a couple of things since I've been in: finished with ER Season Seven earlier today (had the last three episodes of the season to watch today), might give a more in depth look at that later, I did call the sixth season the last truly great season, maybe that's a bit unfair, also just finished watching Everyone Says I Love You, a musical by Woody Allen and his perhaps one of his most underrated movies, with an excellent cast including Natasha Lyonne, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman and Alan Alda, I highly recommend it- It feels more of a Winter movie then a Summer movie, if you know what I mean.

Gonna go to cough up some flem (very attractive), might post some of my draft posts in the next couple of days, including that shortlived television one and one about Eli Roth.

A bit about me and film

I have exactly 1650 DVDs. That's a lot right? Yeah I know the answer, it was a rhetorical question. I started collecting them in September 2001 after having a long love affair with VHS, whilst VHS was in my childhood and teenage life, I had to rely on pocket money to feed my habbit and never reached the heights of 1650 that my adult life could afford me.

My favourite actors are Robert De Niro (I own 45 of his films, I'm getting there) and Jack Lemmon. My favourite actress is probably Audrey Hepburn, but have love in the modern world for Natalie Portman and Maggie Gyllenhaal. My favourite director is Billy Wilder with Scorsese a very close second. My favourite film, I often usually cite as Once Upon a Time in the West but it's very hard to choose and my favourite television show of all time is M*A*S*H.

I am a filmmaker with a couple of shorts under my belt, people consider me talented and I could go with that, I have also taught film theory and film history on occasion.

I am not here to personally argue if I am or you are a bigger film geek (or fan or whatever) and Harry Knowles or Q.T might be world famous film geeks and I'm not comparing myself to them. I am writing here cause I love film.

Beautiful Girls

Thoughts Before Watching: I've seen Beautiful Girls quite a few times but haven't seen it since the end of 1999, so that is a good couple of years. I used to really like this movie and Natalie Portman's terrific performance always stood out for me. I am lookinh forward to seeing it again.

What's Good?: Natalie Portman is absolutely amazing and the rest of the cast fill there roles very well- Max Perlich should get more work. There are some great one line zingers ("Somebody's been eating retard sandwiches")- Ted Demme (who died in 2002) directs probably his best movie (Blow comes close) and Scott Rosenberg's script is not like the other films written by him that come to mind (he wrote Con-Air).

What's Bad?: On occasion the dialogue can feel just like like "cool" things spouted by the actors.

Defining Moment: "Sweet Carolina", the former high school gang sing along to the Neil Diamond classic. The Cameron Crowe moment not done by Mr. Crowe.

Overall: A very, very good movie with likeable and human characters, I'd recommend this to anybody who likes character based dramady.

****

V for Vendetta Cinema Review Hooray...after been seriously underwhelmed at the cinema this year, a film as finally come along that as reinstated my interest in the cinema year of 2006.

Based on the British graphic novel by Alan Moore (who had disowned the movie before a single shot) and set in an 1984 dystopian society- the titular "hero" V (Hugo Weaving, amazing considering his face is never seen) bombs up parts of London whilst Eveie (Natalie Portman) is witness to one such event on November 5th (Guy Fawkes Night- "Remember, remember the fifth of November"). V is planning something big excactly a year from the now which involves the people uprising.

The moments to the 1066 Overture are fantastic, as his the Benny Hill moment (you'll know what I am on about when I see it) and this the Wachowski's brothers (who wrote the script) here that made The Matrix and not it's sequels and James McTiegue makes a visually stunning directorial debut

The cast is awesome, Weaving of course, as his the love of my life Ms. Natalie Portman, suitably managaing emotions whilst juggling an English accent, the supporting cast of mostly British actors are fine such as Stephen Fry.

Overall, the film is extremely well made and watchable, with terrific moments and performances, I recommend this. I give it A for Awesome

****

Garden State

Whodafunkit? An actor best known for a (top) sit-com, writing and directing (and starring in) something so Scrubs star Zach Braff takes the lead role as Andrew "Large" Largeman, an actor constantly in a lithium induced coma, who returns home to Jersey when his mother dies, so far, so production line indie...

and it's like that for the first 25 minutes, and it's watchable- Braff, Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm hold the screen- but in the 25th minute it all changes, the film in a moment becomes special- I am of course talking about the scene Natalie Portman enters, the magic that Portman brings to this movie is out of this world- you instantly fall in love with her character, the compulsive liar Sam.

Portman completely makes the movie, why she wasn't nominated for a Best Actress Oscar is bewildering, to be fair this film doesn't feature the greatest quality of writing that ever existed , sometimes just feeling like a series of scenes, but Portman and the other performers make it worthwhile, Sarsgaard as Braff's old best friend also stands out in a fine ensemble.

This truly is a great film (the shortcomings are only nitpicking) and If your a fan of Ms. Portman, you'll love this so much, everybody else I'll like it too.

*****

Closer Since today is the day of the Academy Awards, I thought I’d review a movie that should have at least won one of the best supporting catergories (Clive Owen and Natalie Portman were nominated)- instead (side note: I couldn’t generally remember for a moment what actually won) Million Dollar Baby carried home a lot of the gold. Patrick Marber, who wrote the play and adaptated the screenplay (god, I remember him for Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge) that deals with four people (played by the good looking foursome of Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Clive Owen and the ever lovely Natalie Portman) and their relationships ups and downs, why she would we care though? Good looking people having these issues boo hoo, go and find somebody else equally attractive, but that is the power of the writing and the performances- it draws you, you do care, you do feel emotion whether good or bad. Like I’ve said the power is in the acting Natalie Portman is a wonderful (she plays a stripper aswell!!!!) as is Clive Owen, Jude Law is probably the most charismistic he’s been since The Talented Mr. Ripley, Julia Roberts though, it doesn’t feel like she as much to do and her performance doesn’t stay on your memory for long. Things like the Internet Chat, Clive Owen called Julia Roberts a Fucked Up Slag and Natalie Portman in a thong stay in your mind for a long time.

Quality performances, writing and directing (from Mike Nichols) make this an exceptional movie for anybody who likes grown up movies. *****

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

(spoilers) Is the Star Wars saga finally over?- the second trilogy is finally complete after Episodes I and II disappointed fans, antcipation was still high for Episode III after all- this was the one you'd get too see Anakin become Vader, the Jedi get wiped out, Luke and Leia being born, millions of fans hoping this would be the one Jar-Jar gets slaughtered. This was the prequel everybody had been waiting for- fans could excuse the weaknesses of the first two prequels- because this would be it- this would finally shut up the Star Wars fans-

Well let's go back to the original set of films- my favourite Star Wars films of them all is The Empire Strikes, I love the rebel taking a beating, fleeing Hoth, Luke's hand coming off, Han in Carbonite, the twist, ESB as an incredibly dark tone for a movie that the kids can see, and happily ROTS is the closest Star Wars films since to this tone- we got all them things we wanted (except the Jar Jar slaughter sadly)- We start with a kick ass opening scene that takes a straight into battle with Obi Wan and Anakin trying to save Senator Palaptine- Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) is suprisingly killed within the first fifteen minutes- because any Star Wars fan know the true villian of the piece as yet to show his colours. After the rescue, the film which was the main problem of the first two prequels becomes uninteresting when there's a lot of dialogue, George Lucas has never been brilliant at dialogue (Harrison Ford once said to Lucas "You can type this shit, but I can't say it")- the gushy love story between Anakin and Padme continues, but not as bad as Episode II. The film comes back into it's own with the death of Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson not going out like some punk!) and the assassination of the Jedi Knights (it's no Goodfellas but it's decent), Yoda fights Palapatine and the final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan may be the best of the saga- Padme then dies during child birth of a broken heart(!) and we see Anakin become Vader which is cool until he speaks ("Nooooooooooooo") and then truly the prequels and sequels become one (not a perfect one but still...)

Ewan McGregor as got better with each prequel in my opinion, you finally just about believe he could become the legendary Alec Guinness, Hayden Christensen is also much improved as Anakin (he suffered a bit from whiny teen syndrome in the last movie) whilst the film belongs to Ian McDiarmid as Palapatine, whose been consistently good during the entire prequels and may arguably give the best performance in the entire saga, the lovely Natalie Portman (after two brilliant performances in 2004) as nothing too do but look pretty (something she does really, really well) and Chewbacca's appearance is not as bad as I thought it would be.

Overall a good way to end the series- not perfect, I'd happily watch this a couple of more times, I kind of was tied between giving it 3 or 4 stars- I feel like I should be a bit stingy- like I've said it's all come full circle as far as six films- but now instead of perfect trilogy (the originals) now it's an imperfect saga of movies.

***