Forget about it

The films Depp made when he was younger are by comparison much better than the films he's making now. I know that he made some bad films when he started off, but i'm talking about Cry Baby and even as a matter of opinion Secret Window. I'm not saying that the films he's made in recent years are bad, Pirates 4 wasn't good but Chocolat, Public Enemies, the other Pirates films are very good... it's just that he's made a lot of bad films and some of them have been made recently.

Anyway complicated rant over... this is a great film! It's slightly typical in plot, F.B.I covert operation in to gangsters and in the end the agent becomes friends with the gangster but it's still a great film. I loved it from start to finish! Al Pacino is perfect in his role and Depp doesn't give anything away. He plays the part the way that you would expect but he pulls off the gangster personality much better than you would expect from a covert F.B.I agent. You were expecting him to give it away at some point and he never does.

Also if you're someone who doesn't understand the 'Forget About It' references, watch the film and then you will! 

Rush Hour

Rush hour... where to start.
It turns into a very good film, but you have to get through Chris Tucker's constant talking before that. It's tempting from start until at least an hour in to just turn it off cos his constant talking is really irritating.

The story line is that a notorious drug guy in Hong Kong kidnaps the chinese consuls' daughter in America. The FBI are called in and the consul brings in his own P.I (Chan). To stop Chan raining on the parade of the FBI, they ask someone from La PD to be sent down to babysit him. Chris Tucker, who is due to be suspended because he went in alone on a mission and blew up all the evidence as well as allowing 2 policemen to be shot, is handed this task.

In typical Jackie Chan style there is a lot of marshal arts and he completes his mission successfully.
It's an o.k film, but its not the best film he's ever done.

You put the lotion on it's body

I've been afraid to watch this film for some time. Horror films aren't really my strong point- I hate them and find it difficult to eat after watching them.
I was helped by having seen a small part of the French and Saunders spoof, this made it easier to laugh when Jodie Foster walks silently through the prison to find Anthony Hopkins.
I think what makes it easier to watch than other horror movies is that it is out-dated. There isn't anything to Gory or mentally disturbing about it and also that Jodie Foster's accent is really annoying, so it's easier to lose concentration and not necessarily pay full attention to what is going on.
A standing ovation for Anthony Hopkins is well deserved. A man who can play many roles and never ceases to impress. I kinda like him as a psychopath, perhaps because he is not the main evil guy and more of the supporting psychopath.
It's certainly a film to consider watching if you're not in to horror. A film that explains so much about psychopaths and serial killers, without over doing it. It's all about the portrayal of the character, not necessarily the drama in the killing.
I wont say that it's a must see film, but it is a good film nonetheless and a well made film at that.

Film List

So here it is in order:

Shall we dance (Fred Estaire and Ginger Rodgers)
A History of Violence (Viggo Mortensen)
Super (Ellen Paige)
Django Unchained (Jamie Foxx, Samuel L Jackson, Leonardo Di Caprio)
The Artist
Amadeus (Simon Callow)
Clerks
The A-Team (Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927)
Behind the Candlebra (Matt Damon, Michael Douglas)
His Girl Friday
Percy Jackson and the sea of Monsters
The Silence of The Lambs (Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins)
Singing in the Rain (Gene Kelly)
The Great Gatsby ( I haven't managed to watch this yet so the post we come out when i have managed to watch it)
Topsy Turvy (That is scheduled for this week)
Clash of the Titans
Sweeney Todd (original)
Red
Hans Christian Anderson
Dream Girls
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rush Hour
There's something about Mary
Donnie Brasco
One Flew Over The Cuckoos nest
Rear Window
Tron (original)
Sweeney Todd re-make
Priscilla queen of the desert
Strictly Ballroom
The Goonies
Scarface
Silver Lining Playbooks
Funny Girl
Funny Lady
Saving Private Ryan
Good Fellas
The Nun's Story
Despicable me 2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
Jackie Brown
Jail House Rock
Dirty Harry
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
All's quiet on the western front
Tron: Legacy
Akira
Repo Man
The Shawshank Redemption
Argo
All about Eve
The Amazing Spider-man
Napoleon Dynamite
Saving Mr. Banks
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (original)
An American In Paris
The Office Space
Army Of Darkness
Wreck It Ralph
Underworld
Fargo
The Pianist
Garth Meringhi's dark place
The Usual Suspects
Robocop
American in Paris
Cabaret
Full Metal Jacket
2001 A space Odyssey
Easy Rider
Life Of Pi
Out Of Sight
Brave Heart
Raging Bull
Dead Man's shoes
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
Long Walk to Freedom
The Butler
Carousel
Inside Man
This is Spinal Tap
400 Blows
127 Hours
Be Cool
Psycho
All That Jazz
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (re-make)
Wrath of The Titans
Army Of Darkness
The Way We were
Fatal Attraction
Vertigo
South Pacific
True Grit (remake)
28 days later
I Frankenstein
The Big Lebowski
Black Swan
Die Hard
Terminator
Hurt Locker
Hugo
Underworld: Evolution
The Bird
The Untouchables
The Lost Boys
Alien
Cloverfield
12 Monkeys
Blade Runner
The Elephant Man
Get Shorty
The Godfather
Bonnie and Clyde
Freaks
Underworld Rise of the Lycans
True Grit Original
Underworld: Awakening
Tron: Uprising
La Confidential
Saw
Sunset Boulevard
The Gold Rush
Out Of Sight
White Christmas

Hercules comes to life

Growing up with Hercules, I came to love ancient history, so it's no surprise that this post is on the original clash of the titans.  Don't worry, the remake will be watched later on, but I have to admit that when we were making this list we didn't realise that the 2010 version with Liam Neeson was a remake. My brother says that the original is better than the remake (which i find hard to believe as Liam Neeson rarely is involved in a bad film), but we'll see if he's correct.

So this is a very young Maggie Smith with a lot of names that I don't recognise. For those that don't know anything about it, it's about the story of Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and how he has to battle Calibos (who was deformed by Zeus for destroying his winged horses excluding Pegasus) to save the world.

He has to fight the cracken, which he does and become a hero, which he also does.

It's not as exciting as 300 or Troy, but still easy to watch. Because it's so old, any sort of blood is clearly paint. It's well written and it's not a bad film, but it's certainly a dated film and not essential to your life. I enjoyed it and could easily watch it again.

I'm going to upload our film list, so that you can see which posts I have done and which posts should've been done and haven't.

Fritz Lang

We're moving back towards the silent films for this week's post. We previously watched the artist (the post hasn't gone up yet for some reason) and today it was Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'.
The only Fritz Lang film i had seen prior to this was 'The Secret Behind The Door' which is based on the tale of Bluebeard. Apart from that, my silent movie list extended to include 'The Phantom Of The Opera'.

What I like about Silent Movies, is that they're totally easy to watch. You watch the screen and listen to great orchestral score that is playing along wondering what the hell is going on and by the end of the film you've managed to just about suss it out with thanks to the captions that occasionally pop up. You can try and lip read and come to the conclusion that what the captions often say is a broad generalisation of what is actually being said.

So because it was made in 1927 i'm going to assume that a lot of people haven't read it and just give a summary of what the 2 hour long film is about.

In short: All these workers build machines. They work for a man and they build a city. The man has a son, who after watching his father dismiss one of the workers decides to swap places with one of the workers. The son, as a worker, learns about Babel and the other religious parallels from various books of the bible such as revelations and apocalypse. They go to a meeting with a woman who tells them that there has to be a mediator between head and hands and that is the heart. They need someone to guide them. She falls in love with the son. The father doesn't like the idea of his workers following this woman and goes to an inventor for help.
The inventor was previously married / in love with a woman whom is now dead. The woman had a son with the father and thus the son was born. The inventor has created something called the metal man and he takes the face of the woman and puts it on the face of the metal man. He uses the metal man to lead the workers in the destruction of the city and ultimately the destruction of the father and son.
Needless to say that although the city is destroyed, the son overpowers the inventor and he and his father and the woman live, whilst the metal woman is burnt at the stake because the workers think that she is a witch.

If you're in to silent movies, watch it. If you're someone that can't follow silent films, just try and appreciate the world of silent films and the quality within them.

The one and Only... Django Unchained!

So it's back to me again and this week i get to do Tarantino's seventh film Django Unchained.
Unfortunately, when this was released in cinema last year, I hadn't quite turned 18, so going to see it wasn't possible.

Tarantino's first film 'Reservoir Dogs' in 1992 wasn't that great. You were left at the end of the film still trying to work out what the story line really was. It was one of those films that was definitely a learning curve and platform for his future films. I can only say that his films just got better and better. Pulp fiction in 1994 staring John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson was a great film. I know that this isn't the point of the post.. the point that I am trying to make is that Tarantino just keeps getting better. I wasn't sure if he could beat Kill Bill, 1 and 2. I haven't seen Inglorious Bastards, so I can't really make a direct comparison but I can say that he definitely managed to step up his game with Django.
Django was nominated for 5 Oscars including Best supporting Actor, Original Screenplay and best picture. It won: Best Supporting actor (Christoph Waltz) and Best original screenplay (Tarantino). Unfortunately, It was released in a year that was packed with great films, Les Miserables, Argo, Lincoln, Skyfall and Life of Pi were all released in the same year, which made it very difficult for Django to pick up any more awards than it did.
It's a great film and I was really impressed with Leonardo Di Caprio. The films he has done as an adult have been great... it's just a shame he spoilt his career with Titanic. People forget that he can act because of that film, but he has done a lot of great films in his career and this one is no exception.

For those of you that haven't seen it:
Plot:
Western adventure film starring : Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo Di Caprio, Kerry Washington and Samuel L Jackson.

Django is a slave in Texas, 1858. A man called Schultz, who is German from Dusseldorf is carrying a warrant for the arrest of the Brittle brothers. Django is offered his freedom in return for helping Schultz find the Brittle brothers. Django can identify them, that is why he is brought along on the ride.
Django becomes apprentice to Schultz and learns the trade of becoming a bounty Hunter. He partners up with this man. Schultz explains that in giving him his freedom back, he feels obliged to help Django become reunited with his wife.

I think that saying anything more would be spoiling the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdM9vrCbow This is the official trailer.

Liam Neeson is Hanibal

A film I've been wanting to watch for a few years now, but had no idea what to expect.
I always got this sort of mixed reception from people about it and now i have no idea why. It's an amazing film... slightly comical but really awesome.
It makes you wonder why anyone would take Liam Neeson's daughter in 'Taken' when you add this to the list of films he has done and the characters he has been.
I could go on for ages about it but i wont. If you're into action and want something slightly less than Taken or Denzel Washington films but want something more than Roger Moore as James Bond then this is definitely the film to watch!

3 hours to kill- and it's not The Lord Of The Rings!

So next on our list was something we weren't sure about categorizing.

Amadeus is not a musical- it's about the life of Mozart and does have a lot of music in it, but it's not a musical because it doesn't have the main characters singing songs about how they feel all the time.
It's actually an interesting portrayal of Mozart as an arrogant young man who knows that he is musically gifted and better than everyone else. I don't know if that is how we think Mozart was when he lived, i'm not an expert and never thought about it much, but i think if i had that much musical talent i would be really arrogant as well.
The story is told from the point of view of his rival basically.
I could write you an essay or I could say that if you're an opera fan or a Mozart fan... watch it! It is almost 3 hours long, but when you listen to a classical music concert, the three hours you sit there for only feels like one. Time flies when you're relaxed.
Certainly make time to watch it and try and watch it in one sitting. It loses some of the easy flowing ability to just watch if you start from an hour in a week later.
The only name that I knew when I watched it was Simon Callow and it took me a while (3 hours) to work out who he was!
It was made in 1984, so you have to bear with the quality, but as it's set in Vienna, it has a similar feel to the setting of Casanova (the Heath Ledger film).

You're a very fine swan indeed!

I took the time to borrow musicals off of my brother a few weeks ago and watch this film.
The song 'The Ugly Duckling' was used in a car advert a few years and it really annoyed me that I didn't know the original and most importantly that I didn't know all the words!
So.... I decided to go and watch the musical that it came from- 'Hans Christian Andersen'. Perhaps some of you are like me and recognise the name from somewhere. Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish Poet and Author, famous for writing most of the stories that are well known, such as Thumbelina.
Danny Kaye stars as Hans Christian Andersen, the cobbler who gets in trouble for telling all the children in his village stories when they should be in school. In the end, the school master gets so fed up with him that he refuses to carry on teaching untill Hans has left the village. Hans is encouraged to leave by his apprentice Peter and he goes to Copenhagen. He is immediately arrested for defiling the kings statue or something to that effect. There he meets a girl that is on the other side of his prison bars and he tells her the story of Thumbelina.

He is hired and taken out of prison to make shoes for the ballet... no need to say that he basically falls in love with the ballerina who is married to the director and choreographer. Hans makes her shoes and writes her a story about the little mermaid. The ballet then depart, as ballets do and Hans is left to return to being a cobbler and telling stories.
At the end of one story, he notices that all the other children are knocking the hat off one child and he tells this child a story about an ugly duckling!
Hans isn't aware that the boys father is a publisher for the newspaper and he publishes Hans' stories. Then of course the ballet return and they are using Hans' story of the little mermaid.
In the end, he returns back to copenhagen and carries on telling stories- this time with an audience because he is now Hans Christian Andersen the writer instead of just Hans the Cobbler.
Alls well that ends well!

Benjamin Barker?

I realise that I've done a lot of the posts recently. Est has a post on the artist that i need to nag her to publish.
my post for this week (or it really should have been for last week) is on the original Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barbour of Fleet Street with Angela Lansbury.
Yes if you're wondering if i'm going to post on the re-make with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. That's scheduled for a little later in the year.

So.... where to start???
I was impressed with Angela. We all know she can sing because she sings in beauty and the beast and we all love her for it. When she starts singing as Mrs. Lovett, I wanted her to stop singing staight away. Singing as her character means singing crazily. For a moment I thought that she really couldn't sing at all, then when she stops singing the worst pies in London and sings a few other songs you realise that she can sing.
I don't think that Angela Lansbury claims to be the best singer in the world, but her voice was certainly good enough to play a character that is eccentric and definitely crazy.
Lets take a look at what we have.... obviously filmed while performed on the stage- which i quite like. It helps to know what you would see if you went to see it on stage. This film was made in something like 1982, so the costumes and make up are very outdated. You can even argue that the quality of the singers are perhaps not as good as they could be, but that's not really important.
It is a long film- 2hrs 20 mins is a long time when most people essentially know the story line and i guess you're wondering what keeps you interested for 2hrs and 20 mins. I guess that its quite mild and easy to watch. The blood obviously isn't gory- it is clearly poster paint and that makes it much easier to watch if you're by yourself.
I'll be honest and say that I didn't feel that there was anything in particular that kept me on the edge of my seat, but seeing this film is essential in the world of musicals or even in the art of stage play. The set was minimal and the cast was really very small in comparison to most modern day musicals.
Some people will argue that this should be on your list of films to see before you die- I don't know if i would enforce it, but so long as you're mentally at least fifteen, there is no harm in watching it.