Pee Wee's Big Adventure & Bloodsport

Two extremely different reviews today, on with them.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure is Tim Burton's first feature-length film, before he made the brilliant Beetlejuice, so being a fan of his I though I would check it out, you will only like this film depending if you find the main character of Pee-Wee Herman (played by Paul Reubens) endearing or annoying, I myself am sitting on the fence a bit, to be honest I just find him creepy, but sometimes his enthusiasm for the role makes the movie better, the plot is like a candy-coloured Bicycle Thieves, a bad man steals Pee-Wee's bicycle, Pee-Wee wants it back, setting him up for a load of wacky adventures, the best scenes in the movie is when classic Burton trademarks are at work such as the inventive use of stop motion animation or the jaunty Danny Elfman score, it's an alright movie and as a first movie it aesthetically really good, but Burton went on to much better things after this, and Paul Reubens went to jail for masturbating in a public cinema, which makes his character just that little bit more creepy.

Next, Bloodsport, I've only seen one other Jean Claude Van Damme film and that was the brilliant drama JCVD, Van Damme's only drama, so I was wary of this, turns out it's a brilliantly cheesy none more 80s action movie, with plenty of great action scenes and quotable lines, made even more awesome by the fact that it is based on a true story, it just follows the story of Frank Dux, a US cop who decides to fight in an underground illegal Japanese fighting competition, and finds a nemesis in Chong-Li (played with zest by the the legendary Bolo Yeung), Chong only has 3 lines since the rest of his role is overactive facial expressions, but he may be one of the best villains I've seen, so in summary expect a testosterone fueled, cheesy as hell, bloody, sweaty and magnificently horrible score, truly wonderful

Rome, Open City, The Omen, Up, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari and The Nines

I watched lots of movies yesterday, so lets get on with the reviews.

Roberto Rosselini's Rome, Open City is an italian neo-realist film about various characters in nazi-occupied Italy, whilst this sort of film isn't really my sort of thing, I did love Aldo Fabrizi's role as Don Pietro, a priest with a kindly heart, some of the writing is fantastic and some of the violence shocking, not because of the gore there is hardly any to speak of, but because of the way it tugs at your heartstrings. Overall a good example of Neo-Realism, but I must say that I think that The Battle of Algiers is the best Italian neo-realist film in my opinion.

Richard Donner's The Omen is also a great movie, I've always been a fan of Donner (I love Superman and 16 Blocks) it's a movie that slowly creeps up your spine instead of trying to horrify you full stop and it is anchored by a great performance from the great Gregory Peck, who shows the nobility that he has shown in his other roles.

It's certainly not a very gory movie and I do wonder what the 2005 remake is like, they probably much more intense than this, it has one of cinema's greatest decapitation scenes, and the tone is much like Rosemary's Baby coupled with the whole devil-child thing as well, overall a well-made satisfying horror film, I look forward to seeing the sequels and the remake in due course.

Pete Docter's Up is outstanding, it finally got released in the UK yesterday and I was surprised by how funny it was, especially the talking dog called 'Dug', there are lots of great jokes, which reminded me that Pixar can be funny as well as magical, the opening montage chronicling Carl Frederiksen's early years growing up to the age he is at now is just spellbinding filmmaking, without words it tell us all we need to know about this man, including some heartbreaking scenes.

The 3D is rarely used to give a sense of wow, but it makes the action scenes more exciting, the voice acting is superb especially from Ed Asner as Carl (you may remember him as J. Joanah Jameson from the 90's Spider-Man cartoon) although the great Christopher Plummer is underused, on the downside the film doesn't run as smoothly as other Pixar films as lots of random stuff tends to happen and your not quite sure what's happening, but once it gets on it's feet it's a joy to behold, funny, engaging, heartwarming, now bring on Toy Story 3.

Next the silent horror movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, excellent use of colour and a great twist, but I've never truely liked most silent movies, the only one I love would be Keaton's Sherlock Jr., although the scene with the writing on the walls in Caligari is awesome as is the creepy as hell somnambulist (if you know what that means you get a cookie).

Finally we turn to John August's The Nines, this is a very interesting and engaging film that will get you looking for the number 9 everywhere you can, it's quite hard to explain but it has Ryan Reynolds playing 3 different versions of himself, a drug-addicted actor, a struggling writer and a video-games designer lost in the woods, all this has something to do with the number 9, Reynolds and Hope Davis are great in their roles as is Dakota's sister Elle Fanning, and it is a very fun movie to decipher, as August's first film as director he really impresses (he wrote Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and uhh... Charlie's Angels) overall an intelligent, sometimes funny, weird little movie.

And my favourite film from this selection is Up, although i also like The Nines very much, stay tuned for more movie reviews.

Planet Terror

On a high from the thrills of Zombieland, I decided to hunt down a zom com which i had not yet seen (I've seen Shaun Of The Dead way too many times), thus I stumbled upon this gem in HMV, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror starring Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan, both of which I've never seen before in a movie, are both fine but not fantastic in their roles, although McGowan is given a hell of a final action scene, the rest of the cast are made up of extended cameos by cult icons, like Josh Brolin (Llewellyn Moss from No Country For Old Men), Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese from The Terminator), Jeff Fahey, Naveen Andrews (Sayid from Lost), Bruce Willis, Danny Trejo and Quentin Tarantino as Rapist No. 1, Naveen and Biehn fare the most as they are both incredibly cool and Tarantino has the best death scene.

The film is much like an old cheap zombie movie from the 60s or 70s, unapologetically violent, a bit twisted and with the really cool idea of having a gun for a leg.

Rodriguez's films usually split me, while I think Sin City is a masterpiece and The Faculty is good fun, Desperado, Spy Kids & Once Upon A Time In Mexico underwhelm me considerably, but this film is just a hell of a time, it was obviously made on the cheap and it shows but that's part of it's charm, on the downside the plot doesn't fully make sense I still don't know why there are zombies and some of the talking goes on a bit long but overall a fun, if dispensable film with a cracking score

Zombieland

Zombieland is a very good movie, like a box of tricks it constantly throws things at you, metaphorically as well as literally, the opening scenes are utterly astounding, they are gory, shocking and hilariously perverse all mixed with Jesse Eisenberg's witty voiceover, the opening credits are a little reminiscent of Snyder's Watchmen but it has its own frantic charm, Woody Harrelson exudes awesomeness in his role of Tallahassee and Eisenberg is like Michael Cera but his schtick hasn't worn out it's welcome yet, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin are both fine but underused, the action scenes are the best parts of the movie and the comedy is good too even though it drags a bit sometimes with pop culture references to Hannah Montana and Facebook, the fact that a zombie movie is trying to give us a message about family is a bit cloying, a film like this needs to be more mean-spirited like Raimi's recent Drag Me To Hell, so overall a fun, gory hell of a time, and be sure to look out for a very special cameo.

American History X and Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Today's films were the following: American History X: Brilliant brilliant film, Edward Norton's best performance me thinks, I like the use of the score, it's very, umm, dramatic, like this was Lawrence of Arabia, but it works very well especially during the end scene, Edward Furlong is less effective than Norton, but Norton is a hard act to follow when he's at his best, the use of black and white and colour is also inventive and calls to mind Tartovsky's Solaris, but this time the black and white is the past and colour is the present, before and after Norton's character gets 'better', I hear this technique is also used in Coppola's Tetro, but I ain't seen that, next film.

Seance On A Wet Afternoon: A man and woman (a fake psychic) kidnap a child of a rich family and hold her to ransom, whilst the woman acts as a psychic to tell the family where the child is, Kim Stanley is brilliantly on the edge as the woman (apologies but I rarely remember character names) her eyes dart about with suspicion, but she is kind to the daughter, the experience of losing a daughter years before has made her yearn for something else to care for, Stanley is brilliant but this film belongs to Richard Attenborough, as Stanley's long suffering husband who genuinely loves his wife but knows that he shouldn't be participating in this criminal act, his eyes full of sadness whenever he has to be a criminal and worrying for his wife's sanity, it is an understated performance that is the beating heart of the film.

Also saw Toy Story 3D, cause everyone loves Toy Story, the 3D glasses still hurt my eyes a bit but the 3D's very good.

And that is all folks, I'll be back with more tomorrow when I go to see Zombieland, see you there... oh I have no followers, well isn't this just the internet equivalent of talking to myself? seems like it, well check it out tomorrow anyway.

please don't give up reading, it boosts my fragile ego

Hello there internet, I am a movie fan as it were and I have decided to write a little blog as I delve deep into the troves and troves of motion picture wonderment that I have unfortunately missed, know while I did attempt this quest quite a while ago with the help of a website called www.icheckmovies.com, I've now know what movie I'm supposed to watch, unfortunately there's a lot of obscure movies, there are plenty of people who have probably not seen the 1001 movies to watch before you die, before they died, so according to internet they led a very unhappy life ("I led a glorious life, I encountered the dodo, I surfed the pacific ocean with C3PO and a hispanic llama, I resurrected Elvis, I cured cancer!" "Yes but have you seen The Bigamist?" "Is it a porno?").

Now while you may not enjoy my escapades I must tell you I plan to become a film director one day, so you might be reading the blog of a future famous person, or the blog of a future road sweeper, but anyway every time I watch a movie never before seen in front of my eyes I shall tell the internet and the internet shall reply lolz.

yours sincerely DonkeysRAliens