Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Its pretty darn good! I’ve never actually seen this movie the whole way through before! Or the first one, actually. Anyways, you don’t need to see the first one to get this sequel because its pretty much self-explanatory and you understand what happened via little hints in the script. Its not as awesome as Aliens was [which still remains my favourite sequel EVER] but its still pretty good.

Batman Returns

I’m going to review this ‘live’, meaning I’ll be reviewing it as I watch it because I probably won’t have time tonight to write the review as its my brother’s birthday and we’re going out to see the 4th July fireworks.

This is the first time I’ve seen this movie so bare with me, lol. I might be shocked or ask questions that people who’ve seen the film will know about.

OH NO! That poor baby! Oh… wait… he’s a mental baby. Still feel bad that the parents chucked him into the river/stream/sewage system! Now, who is this baby? Is it going to be the villain of this movie? Or is it, in fact, Batman?! We don’t know! Ohhhhh, its the villain!!! I think I’d become a villain too if I had been dumped in the sewer by my [so-called] parents!

The music is done by none other than Danny Elfman who does practically all of Tim Burton’s films so the music alone makes me all giddy because its one of the many signs of a Burton film and Burton films are always awesome!

Aw! Its Christmas!! Damn it! Now I wish it were December!!!

Oh. My. God. Christopher Walken looks AWESOME! I just love the hair!! And his eyes are a gorgeous green!!

Aw! Poor Michelle Pfeiffer! Talked down to and mocked by the male staff. No wonder she turns too… or is Catwoman good? I don’t know… *shameful*

Die Hard

Firstly, WOOOOO!! OVER 4000 VIEWS OF MY BLOG!!! Thank you everyone who reads this crap, it means a lot!!!!!

*cough* sorry, onto the review…

I may have gotten a little too excited when reviewing this movie. Its one of my favourites and I love watching it so I got a little carried away writing my notes. I knew I wasn’t going to type this one up so I wrote my notes in my neatest handwriting and in [almost] fully sentances like I would if I were typing it. Anyways, I wrote 4 pages of notes, SORRY! But they’re good notes. I think.

Aliens

This movie is pretty awesome and a million times better than the first. I think it’s the best sequel I’ve ever seen.

We return to where we left off, with our heroine Ripley in hyper sleep after she escaped from the first film. Sorry if you haven’t seen it but you must know there’s a sequel and everyone knows that someone from the first film has to survive to continue to saga. Anyways, the first film was called Alien because there was just the one alien. This one is called Aliens because there is more than one. A whole lot more than one.

I’ll be honest, I got so wrapped up in this movie that I totally forgot to write notes so I only have a few but I’ll try to make up for it with my ending paragraph.

There is slightly more CGI in this than the first but its only for shots of the ships in space, not the aliens. Thank goodness they stuck with ‘real’ aliens and not CGI because I feel that them being real is what made them so terrifying.

Futuristic sets. 80s clothing. Hmmmm…

Its all 57years into the future. Suddenly we learn that Ripley had a daughter. I don’t like this part because there was no mention of a daughter in the first film [at least not what I could hear, which to be honest, wasn’t much] so I felt it was a bit forced to suddenly mention that Ripley was a mother. I say ‘was’ because its 57 years in the future and therefore her daughter is dead. I would care if I’d known in the first place but I didn’t so alas, I don’t. I suppose it builds the grounds for the Newt [the little girl] & Ripley bond which I think they could of easily done without the daughter part. Actually… now that I remember, I was watching the special edition so that included the deleted scenes into the movie and I think that was one of the deleted scenes. So it depends on what version you watch, though there’s only a 15 minute difference between both movies and the daughter scene was the only one I could think of that wasn’t needed.

The court scene was infuriating! I totally felt Ripley’s frustration as no one believed her story about the alien. She’s in ‘court’ because she blew up ‘an expensive piece of equipment’. I think this is a proper dig at the government and special businesses, they don’t care who died or what happened, they only care about the fact they lost millions of dollars worth of equipment. Even though there is a female in the court [aside from Ripley], the whole scene feels very male-orientated and Ripley is talked down to and patronized. However, this is also done by the woman so its not just the men’s fault. Anyways, Ripley can’t prove the alien is real because she blew up the evidence on the ship and blasted the alien into space. Its incredibly frustrating to the audience because we know! We saw it! I want to run into the scene and hand them the Alien DVD and go “HERE’S YOU BLOODY EVIDENCE YOU TWAT!”

Like I said before, the government or special business or something has created a living environment on the planet that the alien comes from, being fully aware that there are dangerous aliens on it. Twats.

Casino Royale

I will admit that I was one of the people that didn’t want to see this movie when it was in the cinema because I didn’t feel that Daniel Craig was James Bond. He didn’t fit the ‘tall, dark and suave’ Bond that we all know. However, I regret this now as Craig showed a different side of Bond and a storyline which worked perfectly with his appearance and acting style. If you, like me, took one look at Craig and was like “hell no” you may want to reconsider, its not the Bond we’re used to but it shows us how he became the Bond we’re used to. Its very interesting to see how and why he is the way he is.

The opening scene is in black and white and has a real film noir feel about it which works with Bond, oddly enough. I don’t think it would of worked with previous Bonds [except maybe Sean Connery but he could make any scene work]. It’s a very risky start to a Bond movie but it worked brilliantly for me.

I love the Casino-themed opening credits. The song is awesome, my dad loves it too. There weren’t any lady silhouettes or shapes which I thought was very interesting as that was always a running ‘theme’ in Bond credits. This movie is all about why Bond can do his job and why he objectifies women; this is before he would shag anything that moved. Therefore, I think its good that there’s no woman ‘shapes’ in the credits because its not the thing that’s on his mind. Anyways, I love the Casino theme, with the card types [heart, spade, club, diamond] being shown as bullets, weapons and blood.

We know the bad guy is the bad guy because he has slicked back hair, a scar over his eye, the music screams ‘BAD GUY’ and he has asthma.

When Bond was in Madagascar watching a group of men gamble as a snake fought a weasel, I thought to myself “Bond would never wear something like that!” but then I remember that if he wore his usual attire, he’d stick out ‘virgin in a brothel’ [sorry, Gene Hunt quote there >.<]. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t dress stylishly for the majority of the movie [well, whenever he HAS clothes on]. He has his usual suits and then Bond Girl has a tailored suit made for him and he has his [now] iconic suit. My dad kept reminding me that this movie shows how everything was ‘born’, as it were; the suit, his drink, his lust and so on. You need to remember this too.

19 minutes into the movie and we see our first objectification of a woman. However, we also see our first objectification of Bond! I know! I think that’s what makes this movie so interesting; it’s the first time that Bond is also a ‘piece of meat’ and not just the women. His body isn’t exactly the ‘wow’ factor for me but… I don’t know, he almost looks like he has a normal[ish] body and not a Hollywood ‘cheese grater abs’. Obviously, still fit but something that men can look at and think “I could actually look like that, for once.” You know? And obviously, there are some women who went to see this movie just for the shot of Bond coming out of the water in tight Speedos. The shot of him coming out of the water almost mirrors Ursula Andress’s rise from the sea in Dr. No.

Sherlock Holmes

Because its Mother’s Day, me, the worlds best mum [mine] and my brother sat down together to watch Sherlock Holmes which Tom rented from Redbox. Its not on my list but alas, it seems that if I do ‘recent’ films the blog gets a little more views and that’s all good!

The film… is NOT about Sherlock Holmes. I’m sorry, but its not. They just took his name and plastered it onto something and someone who is not Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law was surprising great as Watson, I thought that was good. However, as much as I love Robert Downey Jr and as much as I would marry him on the spot, he just played an English version of himself. Hollywood, for lack of a better word, f***ed up entirely on letting Downey Jr do whatever the hell he wants. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved his character but it was NOT Sherlock Holmes. The film would of worked fantastically if it were some made-up names/characters. Hollywood and bloody Guy Richie tried to turn Sherlock Holmes into a freaking action hero and no sir, it does not bloody work! This movie is visually amazing, I love the cinematography and the editing, I thought it was fantastic. But. ITS NOT BLOODY SHERLOCK HOLMES!

Right. Sorry. I think I may of calmed down now. The plot is good and relatively easy to follow whilst being intelligent at the same time. I loved at the end when Robert Downey Jr [I refuse to call the character Sherlock Holmes for reasons stated above] explained how he worked it all out, very clever! That was the one ‘Sherlock-y’ thing they got right, how intelligent he was.

Downey Jr’s English accent is good but his tone of voice makes it rather difficult to understand at times. He needed to lift it up a bit and now be so low, it often sounded like he’d had a stroke.

It has the unnecessary action we expect from Iron Man, it has the typical plot points like a James Bond movie and a pointless kiss like every single action movie ever made. No. NO! SHERLOCK HOLMES! NO! HE’S NOT AN ACTION HERO! For Christ’s sake…

Quick note, Rachel McAdams is a bit pointless but she looks stunning and has gorgeous dresses and kept her American accent and didn’t go down the crap English accent route so I let her off…

If you ignore every time they call the character Sherlock Holmes, its actually a very good movie that is visually and technically amazing [I especially love the explosion scene which I thought was fantastically shot]. If you’re not English or have never read Sherlock Holmes, you’ll probably enjoy it far better than we did.

128/212

Kate
xoxo

The Man Who Would Be King

My 100th film! I’ve now watched 100 films since the beginning of this year! Will probably do ‘big celebration’ for my 106th film because then I’ll be half way through my challenge!

Anyways, this was a good film to have as my 100th, got to love a bit of Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

Michael Caine’s makeup in the opening scene made me think of Team America which has ruined practically every movie for me because now I seem to not be able to get through a movie [mainly action] without thinking about Team America!

Sean Connery and Michael Caine are a great pair though I feel there could have been a tad bit more best friend chemistry but it was still pretty damn good.

I laughed when the army was walking by. The army is a mixture of different towns/cities, each town/city wearing a different colour. It looked like the opening to the Olympics.

Mrs Michael Caine makes an appearance. I didn’t know who she was but my mum and dad immediately went “MRS CAINE!” We thought it must have been funny for Michael Caine to see his wife be ‘married’ to Sean Connery.

This movie should be seen for the location shots alone. They had a great location manager.

This movie is the [now] classic tale of the test of BFFness [best friend forever-ness]. The moral of the story is… don’t give your BFF power because they’ll bugger it all up.

Bit of a crap review but it was really good.

100/212

Kate
xoxo

Speed

I like this movie and I hate this movie. There are elements which I think were awesome, moments I thought were OK then moments where I just rolled my eyes and played on Facebook.

The opening titles give the impression that it’s a sci-fi film so that’s a bit misleading.

I feel two things for the beginning sequence where there are people in the elevator and are now hostages. As I was watching it, I felt it went of for too long because I thought it was just supposed to be an introduction to Keanu Reeve’s character and his job. Then, as the movie went on and stuff happened on a bus, I realize that the opening part is very important. I guess I need to break away from the typical setting up of movies.

Since watching The Dark Knight and hearing Michael Caine talk about bad people and stuff. I now don’t think people would go through all this bomb work just for money. People normally do the bombing for revenge or to prove a point. That’s why I hated the fact that the bad guy in this movie is supposedly doing all this bomb stuff for millions of dollars. How the hell does he expect to get away with it. They mention in the movie that he is a mad man but if he was, he wouldn’t care about the money, he’d just want to see people suffer. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a bomb being on a bus and if it goes lower than 50mph then it blows up, I think that’s a fantastic idea, I just hate the reason behind it.

I didn’t like that when they were rescuing the people from the elevator that a woman’s bum was shown. I know its probably kind of realistic as the last thing you’d worry about was your underwear but I felt it was unnecessary and made the whole thing cheap.

Who knew that bus rides could be so exciting! I bet there’s been a few times when you’ve been on a boring bus journey and you’ve wished for Keanu Reeves to jump on the bus shouting that there’s a bomb on it.

The film nerd in me loved the 360° camera moves, where they’d [fot instance] circle Reeves as he’s putting his bulletproof jacket on which would have been a boring shot if it was just done with a still camera.

“Well, I should probably tell you that I’m taking the bus because I had my driver’s license revoked.” “What for?” “Speeding.” It’s a cheesy line but it still made me laugh. I also laughed when the tourist is on the phone to the other police guy and is saying what Reeves is saying Reeves: “F*** me!” … Tourist: “Oh darn…” I also thought it was interesting that Bullock’s character asks this about the bomber “What did we do? Bomb the guy’s country or something?” See! That’s why people bomb other people, not to get money!

I know I’ve bashed Sandra Bullock once or twice in my reviews, she’s a good actress and very funny, she just chooses bad movies. Anyways, I loved her character in this because I found I could relate to her. I felt that if I were ever in that situation that I would react in the same way she did.

Then, about halfway through, my internet stopped and I couldn’t continue to watch the movie, hence the review the next day because once the internet was back up the Academy Awards were on. But anyways, yeah, bloody internet left and the whole house went into panic-mode, trying to remember what we did before the internet.

LOL at the gap in the road being a gap in the road that’s a bridge. There is no way in hell that a bus could jump that gap but alas, that’s what action movies are all about!

I know that quite a few action movies are about saving strangers but I actually love that about action movies, that in horrible, dyer circumstances, we will come together and help everyone out.

There’s a surprise that’s not really a surprise if you think about it.

I thought it was very typical action movie for the director to go ‘no! A bus exploding is not good enough! We shall have the bus explode so that it makes an airplane explode too!’ And I just had the image of the dude from Tropic Thunder going “Mother Nature just pissed her pants!”

I thought that it was a nice dig at the police to have the snipers in full view as they’re trying to be sneaky. To be honest, I always love it when movies take digs at the police or government or something.

HIS HEAD FLEW OFF! IT FLEW OFF AND YOU SEE IT FLY OFF!!! YOU SEE IT!!

‘The train track isn’t finished!!’ Typical. I did love Reeve’s reaction of ‘you are NOT going to believe this…’

Hmmm… didn’t quite like the kiss at the end… there was no need, it would have been better if Reeves had asked her for a coffee or something first… just seemed crap to me… Reeves and Bullock have great chemistry but it was a bit ‘oh, yeah,, the female audience want a kiss’.

It’s a good action movie that has its flaws but they’re flaws that you can laugh at rather than just cringe at.

65/212

Kate
xoxo