Film 2009 with Phil

That’s right, more film reviews. These are three movies I've watched in the last few days that I have never seen before - exciting I know. I'm going to watch 300 tonight, I've seen it before, but not in HD! (Thank you Love Film!) I won't bore you with my thoughts on it though. Yes I will. It rocks. Acting, not realistic, neither is the costume, sets, scrips or anything else, but its full of men (Scottish men to make matters better) with big muscles killing each other. Awesome. I won't defend it, but I certainly won't knock it.

3:10 to Yuma

It has to be said, the actors are what drew me to this movie, Christian Bale and Russel Crowe are two of my favorites. If I remember correctly this is a remake of some old western. And it's not a bad one. I'm not a big western fan, but I have seen a fair few as my dad is somewhat partial to the genre, being an old oil man that he is. Interestingly neither of the two leads (Bale and Crowe) are American, and their accents are not strong southern drawl, so you can actually understand what they are saying. The premise is simple, the bad dude has to be escorted to a train by the good (or goodish) dudes so he can stand trial in the city. Along the way stuff happens, and mutual respect is earned. There's nothing groundbreaking here, though the claim on the case that it is the best western since Unforgiven may be true, but that's not that difficult as there really haven't been any westerns made since Unforgiven. Fun, well enough made, but forgettable.

The Crying Game

When the DVD's for pocket lint thing started a while back. I Googled lists of the best British films, as I felt I needed to broaden my film tastes beyond Hollywood blockbusters. This came up so I got it, but never got round to watching it until now. The first twenty minutes are more or less what I had been expecting, having read the back of the DVD, not that that's a bad thing, they were a good twenty minutes. It's when the main dude goes to London that it got weird. He meets someone, someone about whom I was wondering whether or not something was the case and I was right, and it's sort of a love story, with a bit of Northern Ireland conflict politics thrown in. This is a good film, and a different film, and for its time no doubt a revolutionary film, and in many ways it still is. You have to be in the right mood to watch this, it is quite slow, and there is a lot of dialogue and character scenes, but if you are in the right mood, you Will enjoy it. It's also one of those films you enjoy more afterwards, and by that I mean it has a lasting effect on me, much like Good Night and Good Luck had, and the PBS documentary Ghosts of Rwanda.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets

This enjoyable tripe came free with the Blu-ray player, and its taken me a few months to get round to watching it, partially because my dad watched it and said it was terrible. I didn't think it was. Yes every aspect of the story and the premise is ludicrous, but accept that and its a perfectly acceptable popcorn movie. Indiana Jones is clearly the influence, possible the sole influence as all that is really missing here is a hat and a whip, though I suppose there is more of the problem/riddle solving going on here, and the plot is far more complicated. The one thing that really annoyed me about this was the bit in England. In the 60's American movies were full of bumbling posh English idiots saying things like "I haven't the foggiest," and in those days perhaps it can be forgiven, hell, maybe London was like that then, I wasn't there. But there is no excuse for the same nonsense in a film made and set in the 21st century. This part is made even more annoying by the fact the the American President in this movie is a poster perfect President, intelligent, handsome, charming, and understanding. American democracy = perfect, British system = bumbling. I'm not auguring with the latter half of that, the British system is far form perfect, but so is the American. Rant over. Fun film, exciting film, absolutely must suspend all sense of reality or good taste to enjoy at all film.