This Weeks Review (28th Jan - 3rd Feb 2012)

Next Time: Sinners & Saints and Girl With A Dragon Tattoo

Moneyball

Phil's Quick Capsule Review:
Brad Pitt?  Johnna Hill being serious? Baseball Movie that ISNT Major League?  Surely this film sucks, right?  Er no.  Actually is bloody brilliant.  Doing for Baseball what Social Network did for geeks in front of a PC, Moneyball is a superbly made, highly interesting, brilliantly acted slice of cinema.  


Best Bit: Will they get 20 in a row?


Rent, Borrow, Buy: Buy


IMDB Rating: 8/10


If you liked this try: Social Network (9/10); A Few Good Men (8/10); Major League (7/10)

This Weeks Review (21st - 27th Jan 2012)

Next Time: Moneyball 

Margin Call

Phil's Quick Capsule Review:

Who thought people sitting in a room could be this exciting?  What is essentially a drama about the start of the financial crisis, ends up being a tense, claustrophobic,  well acted thriller that is only really let down by  the fact that a) it wont appeal to everyone and b) it lacks the ultimate sense of the wider context for both the company and the world.    

Best Bit: The cast.  Top draw


Rent, Borrow or Buy: Rent 


IMDB Rating: 7/10


If you liked this try: Boiler Room (8/10); Wall Street (8/10); Wall Street 2 (6/10)

This Weeks Review (14th - 20th Jan 2012)

Next Week: Margin Call

Warrior

Phil's quick Capsule Review

It's not the classic MMA film that I expected (or the hype would have you believe it was), but there is a lot to like in this high gloss but predictable Fighter like action thriller. My biggest issue?  The fights never ring true.  That said Hardy is great and at least you believe he could kick your arse.  Could have been great, instead it's just a contender.   

Best Bit: Brothers on the beach. 

Rent, Borrow, Buy, Stream: Rent

IMDB Rating: 7/10

If you liked this try: The Fighter (7/10); Circle Of Pain (3/10); Watching The UFC

This Weeks Review (7th - 13th Jan 2012)

Next Time: Warrior

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Phil's Quick Capsule Review:

Sigh.  It's amazing that you can throw this much money and a film and make it this dull.  Over 2 hours of running, jumping and fighting that just left me cold.  Even Depp looked bored at times.  This is just by the numbers filmmaking at it's very worst! 

Best Bit: When I released I was playing on the Ipad and not watching the film.  

Rent, Borrow, Buy, Stream: Stream

IMDB Rating: 4/10

If you liked this try: Pirates Of The Caribbean (8/10); Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 (6/10); Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 (7/10)

Phil's Quick Capsule Review Returns... 7th Jan 2012

2012 Preview...

Phil's Quick  look at what’s wetting our whistle for the upcoming year in films... 

MOST EXCITED:  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

In Brief: Really?  I need to tell you why?  Okay – Nolan has never made a bad film.  The first two Batman films were simply amazing. This one has Catwoman & Bane.  All this and the fact that The Dark Knight was soooo good... well this wont disappoint.  Trust me.

The Rest:

2.The Hobbit: Part 1

In Brief: Peter Jackson returns to middle earth for the back-to-back Hobbit movies.  A great cast (including several Rings alumni who also make a return to middle Earth), epic source material and top notch FX all but guaranteed means that this is one of the must watch films of the year. 


3.Prometheus

In Brief: The trailer is superb and It’s Ridley Scott making a return to the world of Alien.  Okay so Scott can be a bit hit and miss over the past few years but if the story is what it’s been reported, it sounds simply superb. 


4.The Avengers 

In Brief: Thor. Captain America. Hulk. Iron Man. Nick Shield.  This is the culmination of 4 years of Marvel planning coming together in one Epic film.  This is what Blockbusters should be.


5.Amazing Spiderman 

In Brief:  This one I’m less confidant about if I’m being honest HOWEVER the cats is great, the director a promising track record and a stand up villain in the Lizard something tells me that this could just be the shot in the arm that this franchise needs.


Bubbling under: 

Expendables 2 (I so want it to be good) , Piranha 3DD (didn’t turn up last year), The Dictator (Borat & Bruno were superb, this could be better) , Snow White & The Huntsman (great idea), 007: Skyfall (Bond, back and kicking arse with probably it’s best cast & director yet!), Django Unchained (Tarantino!) , World War Z (Great book)

* * * * * * * * * 

POTENTIAL STINKER OF THE YEAR: TWILIGHT BREAKING DAWN PART 2

In Brief:  Shooting fish in a barrel it may be but again is this one isn’t another dull, teenage wet dream of a movie then I’ll eat a tramps hat.  Look I don’t go out my way to hate these films but they kinda make it easy, don’t they!

Bubbling Under: Men In Black 3 (2 was pretty poor), GI Joe Retaliation (even with the Rock it’s going to be dull), Ghost Rider 2 (Again... piss poor original), Total Recall (I so want to be wrong!), 21 Jump Street (Just no!), Red Tails (Lucas making a WW2 movie.  No), Dredd (Again another film I want to be good but just cant see it)

Last Year... My Projected HIts & Misses

So how did I do in 2011?  Urm... well not great.

For the Best:  I tipped Cowboys & Aliens, The Hangover 2 & Sucker Punch as films to watch.  Oh and Cars 2.  All in all then four of the least well received movies of 2011.  Cars 2 was Pixar’s first critically disliked film, whilst Sucker Punch topped most people’s ‘Worst’ list.


I also pegged Battle Los Angeles which actually wasn’t bad.  At least Harry Potter, Captain America, Thor and X-Men were MUCH better. 

As for the Stinkers?  Well Twilight Breaking Dawn part 1 was a dead cert and it didn’t disappoint.  Well in terms of being crap that is.  

Transformers 3 was my worst film of the year, Scream 4 was dire, Pirates 4 was dull & Green Lantern was also bad so all pretty much came in as expected.