An astonishingly violent film, but with highly compelling acting and screenplay, and the nice concept of ‘Gun-Kyoto’. Very heavily influenced by 1984, all emotions have been banned (this ban being implemented by the use of drugs), as have art, music, and so on, and it is the jobs of the clerics to enforce it. The clerics are highly trained martial artists, who have statistically analysed gun battles to work out the sequence of moves which minimises their chances of being shot while maximising their chances of shooting their opponents. It also apparantly extends to punching and the use of swords. My favorite part of the film is when our protagonist (a cleric who has escaped from the drugs) enters a room at the end to confront the arch-baddie. 15 clerics appear from being pillars bearing swords, the arch-baddie looks highly smug, and our protagonst dispatches all of them without breaking a sweat. The camera switches to the baddie as the last cleric falls, and his smug smile drifts into realisation that he’s in big trouble… So I did enjoy it, but it was essentially a film about violence (and bloody violence at that), which is never my favourite type of film.
This was a lovely concept (an monk who must protect a scroll for 60 years, and in return doesn’t age and recovers from any injury inflicted on him), strongly influenced by Jackie Chan, Crouching Tiger, and a bit of Matrix – but sadly heavily let down by the script and acting (in places). It’s a good fun film – the action is great (but more please!), and the main actors hold their own – James(!?!) King as Jade rocks, as does Seann William Scott. Chow Yun-Fat breezes through the physical stuff, but comes a bit unstuck with the english dialogue. The rest of the cast are actually pretty poor (although the Nazi dude does have a good screen presence), looking like actors from a 2 bit American soap. Oh yes, and the ‘twist’ at the end is not worth holding your breath for.
What a riveting year this has turned out to be, eh? Almost halfway through, and only one diary entry. Still, that’s probably good news for my PhD (only 19 weeks until submission day!). I start writing up properly next week, although I’ve still got quite a bit of research to do. Spoke to an old friend last night (the friendship is old, not the friend) – his daughter (I was at school with the guy, and he’s got a baby!!!) is being baptized on Sunday. We’re going down to see them, but still ended up chatting for hours on the phone. But it did bring to my attention that I’ve not done anything with this site for months. So I decided to have a little spring clean. I’ve mainly put up a few more reviews, and updated my ‘to see’ list. Actually that list is quite depressing – for every film I manage to knock off it, another 3 get added! Really must start going to the cinema more. Still excitements that are going on – just 5 or 6 weeks to the new Harry Potter book, I’ve been accepted for a conference in San Diego in August (my first international one!). House is coming along – bedroom and sitting room are all but finished, bathroom just needs tiling. Oh yes, and our ‘outdoors’ is completely finished – got a lovely patio now. Of course it’s rained non-stop since it was finished, but that was only to be expected. That’s enough for one day – better go and write these reviews.
H’mm – February before I made a diary entry.. Not good! Nothing really to report – most exciting thing that happened recently is the announcement of Harry Potter 5 (Order of the Phoenix), which is being released on 21st June. Yes, I’ve already ordered it!
A very odd game, with a lovely concept that’s let down by it’s implementation. You control a mosquito who lives in a japanese family’s house, and the idea is that you have to suck blood from the various family members, in order to stock up for the winter. Of course, they’re not too happy, and if they see you will enter into ‘battle mode’, where upon you have to calm them down by hitting various points on their body. There’s three main problems with the game – the first is that the graphics are fairly poor, nowehere up to scratch for the PS2. The second is that the controls are just too hard and unresponsive – this is supposed to be an insect! The last one is just personal taste regarding the barely concealed sexual overtones – fancy sucking some blood from a teenage girl having a bath, or perhaps from her upper thigh while she lies on her bed in hot-pants? Perhaps I’m just prudish, but I could’ve done without that. Probably a game to miss.
This is a fun, if bizaare, game where you have to manipulate the controller in time with the beat in order to conduct the virtual orchestra properly. In practice this means tapping the ‘x’ button with the correct strength at the correct time, and it’s a bit tricky! But there’s lots of well known pieces, and it’s actually quite compelling!
I absolutely LOVED this film – Best action film I’ve seen for *ages* – equal in calibre to Spiderman, and has to be one of the best Star Trek films.
It’s been a while since I’ve come out of a film raving about it – but it had it all… I laughed, I cried (well nearly anyway. I’ll leave it as saying that we suffer a major loss in the film), I held my breath.. well you get the idea. Really was edge of seat stuff – but with all the old characters we know and love. There was a certain finality to it, however, and the rumour is that this is the last TNG outing. But anyway, I loved it, hugely enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone. Well, actually it helps if you’re into Star Trek!
This was a great film – I’m a fan of this ilk of film (Monsters Inc, Toy Story, …), and this was no dissapointment. Unashamably one for the kids, but with enough depth to keep adults attention too. A must purchase for those with young’uns.
Another fun film, although this failed to really meet up to my expectations. I didn’t find it particularly funny, where I was hoping to, but I guess it was quite insightful. A few things didn’t really hang together well to me, and I think the relationship between Jess and Joe was neither explained nor explored adequately. Oh yes, and the plot was incredibly predictable – could set your watch by the key events (heroine starts on journey, heroine meets mentor, heroine has crisis and temporarily abandons journey, etc). Perfectly watchable though – good Saturday night entertainment.
I was pleasantly surprised by this film – watched it at my mum’s over Christmas, and was expecting to be a bit bored. But actually it’s a very funny engaging film.. even Hugh Grant is quite acceptable in it. Well worth renting out of an evening if you fancy a film.
