Film Review - The Hidden (1987)

The Hidden stars Kyle McLachlan as Lloyd Gallagher, an FBI agent from Seattle who comes to LA to work with a local cop to investigate a series of bizarre murders happening in the area, but things are so much more than what they seem.

The Hidden is a highly entertaining and very exciting sci-fi action film, with its story being a spin on the classic Body Snatchers, the action here is extremely well handled, starting with a fantastic opening chase and going from there to several bloody gun fights, and yet none of it feels overdone or overlong, just short, sweet and right to the point.

You know, as I was watching this two things kept coming to mind, one was how everything felt real and not done on some green screen or blue screen stage and the other was that it reminded me of just how shitty today's action films really are, if you can find a copy of this one to watch, I highly suggest you do so, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The King's Speech (2010)

The King's Speech stars Colin Firth as George, who is next in line to become the king of England after his father dies and his elder brother is forced to abdicate the throne following an illegitimate marriage, but this new King has a rather big problem: He bloody well stammers so his wife played by Helena Bonham Carter goes to a speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush but war with Germany is looming and the nation will await the King to address them.

I wasn't sure what to expect with the King's Speech as I didn't think that I will enjoy but the film's trailer made me laugh and became slowly convinced to check it out but it's recent victory at the last Academy Awards for best Picture made me change my mind but I watched it anyway so how did I like it.

Surprisingly I did enjoy it, mainly for it's warm and touching qualities as well as it's very funny humour between Firth and Rush using every slang term in the book to help the King overcome his stammer but my favourite performance is by Bonham Carter, an actress who normally doesn't do roles like this but this film makes me wish she would do more of them as she is warm and tender in a way that shows off how good of an actress she can be.

So overall, a good film worth the time and money, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Paul (2011)

Paul reunites Simon Pegg and Nick Frost from 2007's Hot Fuzz, this time as two budding Sci-Fi fans from England who journey to America to attend the San Diego Comic Con, but one day while driving through the midwest, they encounter a strange person in the desert nearby, or is it?

While watching Paul I thought to myself that it was an absolute pleasure to see Pegg and Frost together again having missed them in Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World from last year, they work very well together and have great chemistry and comedic timing.

Not only that I also enjoyed the performances by Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Sigourney Weaver who does the Dr. Claw type role for most of the movie and Seth Rogen as Paul himself who almost ended up stealing the show from all the others.

If there is a fault I have with the film it's that the jokes don't quite work, one being the joke about the green Alien woman with the three tits despite the characters not knowing that was done in 1990's Total Recall, I wish someone had pointed that out at some stage as it stuck out like a sore thumb and Hot Fuzz didn't have that problem, but hey that's just nitpicking and that isn't the subject of this review.

What is the subject of this review was that I was entertained by some of the jokes and the performances I mentioned above and as a moviegoer, can you ask anything more than for a movie to leave you feeling entertained after it's over, this did and I was happy to say it here, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Morning Glory (2010)

Morning Glory stars Rachel McAdams as Becky Fueller, a producer on a morning TV show called Daybreak which is struggling with low ratings and mixed match hosts, but Becky has an idea to recruit veteran news reporter Mike Pomeroy played by Harrison Ford onto the show, but her boss played by Jeff Goldblum has doubts she can turn things around.

Morning Glory is at times a quite funny comedy, with pretty much the whole film carried on Rachel McAdams' shoulders who does so effortlessly with her unbridled energy, optimism and manic talking though she's also supported very much by Ford, Diane Keaton and Patrick Wilson who pretty much gets the 'there there' role.

Ford however is quite good, as he pretty much does the whole film as if he's half asleep and because of McAdams and Keaton he succeeds but for all of the good this movie tries to create it also has some pretty big faults mainly due to the shift from comedy to sincerity, quite frankly it doesn't work and it almost kills the movie there and then.

But you know, I did laugh but it just didn't quite hit the mark in the end, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Tangled (2010)

Tangled is Disney's 50th Animated Feature and is based off the classic story of Rapunzel, the girl with the long hair locked in a tower, but this time a thief named Flynn Rider voiced by Zachary Levi from Chuck finds her and agrees to take her out into the world, but not if her evil stepmother voiced by Donna Murphy has anything to do with it.

You know while I thought there was some mild enjoyment in that I enjoyed some of the songs, some of the jokes and some parts of the film on the whole I felt that the film failed for pretty much the same reason I felt Thor didn't pass muster.

Yes it's the old weak villain routine and I have a ruling that Disney movies share the same philosophy as an action picture in that they are defined by the strength of their villain and while Murphy is a fabulous actress and singer she didn't really give it the energy that someone like Jonathan Freeman did when he voiced Jafar in 1992's Aladdin, a film far superior to this one it's beyond a joke and though I didn't wish for Jafar to appear in this film as I wanted for Kratos to do so in Thor, a presence like his was sorely missed.

But my other key problem is this: the film's tone at times it plays out like an old fashioned Disney fairytale but also it tries to be a post modern Shrek like movie and the two styles didn't mesh together, it should have gone in one way or the other, not try to mould both.

All in all, though I did like some of it, to me it fell short of satisfaction so just a 1 and a half out of 5.

This is the Recession the Box Office has to Have

For those of you out there that follow Australian politics, you might remember this quote by former Treasurer and Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating.

"This is the Recession that Australia had to have"

And at the moment, it would seem the Box Office is going through the same thing, with 4 lacklustre months in the Box Office (the current top grosser at present is Rango which is about $117 million dollars), it would seem that this may be the recession the Box Office has to have.

But what caused this, what events led to this happening, well dear reader let me count the ways:

1. Limited Sessions:

Cinemas depend very much on the right session times and in some cases of late, the movies only seem to get the ideal session times at times when people's chances of getting to those films may be limited and when they can get a chance to get to it, that film will have played for about 2 or 3 weeks and as a result it will most likely be on its final weeks or final week.

Which only makes things worse if that person happens to be a traveller also and doesn't have the luxury of having that movie in their living area, as a result they either have to miss that film or wait for the disc.


2. Limited Showing Weeks:

Recently I had a chance to see Google's Amazing News Archive of old newspapers from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, two major newspapers here in Australia and in one of those issues it showed Top Gun playing for 47 Weeks, almost a year in cinemas.

In this day and age that is absurd but reading that got my thinking, what if theatres returned to that as a way of getting people back to the cinemas because most movies these days run on average of about 2-3 weeks (the recent release Sucker Punch comes to mind) if some films are lucky (Avatar and The King's Speech being two of them) they might go on longer for about 4 or 5 weeks but again it feeds into the first point, which is that limitation of cinema showings which can also be incredibly damaging to a movie's theatrical run.


3. Emphasis on Children's Films:

At the moment, most of the prime time sessions are going to children's films, no doubt due to it being School Holidays at the moment and cinema chains will be eager to entice young kids and their families to come to the cinema.

But it also I think feeds into a much bigger problem, and that is a complete lack of movies for adults as most of those like Wall Street 2 to use as an example are pushed back to very late in the afternoon and the evenings, as a result it becomes harder for those movies to make some money from the sessions and justify staying in cinemas for longer than the exhibitors will be wanting to keep it if it's becoming nothing more than a drain on session bookings they might want to start using for future pictures or ones that are more successful.

But lastly, even if that movie and for this example I'll use Peter Weir's The Way Back, there's also every chance that the studio backing it may decide not to give it a wide release which again can limit on its exhibition and grossage which is what happened to Way Back, it was given a very small and limited theatrical release in Feburary and was gone before most people had a chance to see it.


4. High Prices

Probably the last reason on this list is the issue of high ticket prices in some cases, which for adults can be as high as $20 on average plus on top of that you add another $10-$15 on average for Popcorn and Drinks plus the surcharge if it happens to be a 3D screening.

Now for most people that is a fair chunk of change and that again can limit the number of people that go to a cinema session or out for that night altogether as they might decide to stay in that night feeling that they won't be able to afford it and as they say, it's the little things in life that make it worth living.

But some of you are probably asking the Question "What can be Done about it?" and to be honest with you, I just don't know, I guess it will depend on how the rest of the year plays out, what with the blockbuster season just now starting to kick off with Thor and in all honesty, there may very well be little that can be done about it.

But for now it seems, it would appear that we are indeed in a Box Office Recession, whether it's a short or long one remains to be seen.

Film Review - Megamind (2010)

Megamind, the latest from Dreamworks Animation is the story of two super beings, Megamind voiced by Will Ferrell who is blue and has a large brain and Metro Man (Brad Pitt) who is essentially a Superman type figure, but when Metro Man is defeated, Mega Mind finds himself without purpose.

And so does this movie which is Mega boring, now I know that over time there has been great animated movies last year's Toy Story 3 being one of them and great Superhero movies the first Superman being one of them but this fails at both of those mainly because there is nothing here to hold the viewer's interest, so much of it feels like it's been done before and more interesting in other pictures.

And not only that, it wastes the talent of Tina Fey, who had no reason to do this at all but did so anyway, why she did I'll never know but apart from those even the animation feels sterile and did I mention how boring this movie is, for god's sake why didn't someone inject some excitement into this, I mean there were times where I wanted Dr. Claw and his MAD organization from Inspector Gadget to come and take over the movie, at least that might have been good, instead of this disaster.

All in all, skip this, .5 out of 5.