There and Back Again: 2013 in Film Part 2

With my overall feelings of the year in film out of the way, it's time now to dive into my surprises, disappointments and worst of films of 2013.

First off is a new list for me and that is the surprises of the year, you know those ones that you walk out of either at the cinema or in the home and you think to yourself "Wow, I actually enjoyed that one more than I thought I would." and as a result it sticks with you more than it probably would.

And so without further ado here are my top 3 surprises of 2013:

3. The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin's adaptation of the famous novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this was a film that didn't do an awful lot for me in its previews not to mention the divisive reviews, I decided anyway to go and check it out.

And for the most part I was very glad I did as the first two thirds of this film are really excellent, the performances for the most part were very good most notably Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton and Elizabeth Debicki, the look of the film was very good and I really loved the showmanship on display here.

But what kept it down is the third act where the tone changes for more emotion and fails to make that transition well, primarily because the focus shifts to Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan's characters and both of those actors are miscast in those roles because when they're on screen you just switch off as all they do is walk around and mope for the most part and it really holds back what could've been a big winner.

2. Warm Bodies: A rom-zom-com that got its release in April but I saw on DVD, I was really taken by well done this was as initially I didn't think it would be any good but I gave it a rent and boy was I surprised.

First of all, I found the chemistry between Teresa Palmer and Nicholas Hoult to be very good, the story was well done, John Malkovich chewed up the scenery in a fun way and the horror angle was nicely toned down though the bone creatures looked a little too digital for my liking which is a pity.

But my number 1 surprise film of 2013 is:

Ender's Game: Getting its release towards the end of the year, this was a fun sci-fi flick that I felt valued character moments as much as it wanted big special effects space battles, the film also had a very good cast that performed very well and in the case of Harrison Ford being the best he'd been in a film for a long time, a long time.

Plus it also highlighted some excellent young actors most notably Asa Butterfield from Hugo and Hallee Stenfeld from True Grit and I also really got a kick out of the space battle sequences which really reminded me of the space battle in Return of the Jedi, it is sure nice to have a good Sci-Fi film again as well as a small renaissance in the genre.

Now with the surprises of the year out of the way, we go into an area that inspires an opposite reaction, the disappointments of the year now surprisingly there weren't an awful lot of these this year and I struggled to think of some but there were indeed some so let's explain more what those were:

3. Oblivion: Oblivion got its release back in April and starred Tom Cruise as one of the last remaining humans on a ruined planet Earth sent to investigate a downed ship that crashes on the surface.

Going into this movie I was pretty keen as it looked interesting but sadly whilst it looked and sounded absolutely amazing and Cruise himself was a lot more natural here than in Jack Reacher where he just looked out of place in the role the story was old hat as well as very familiar of other more superior works in the genre such as Predator, Star Wars and Mad Max, a real missed opportunity if there ever was one.

2. Epic: Now I love going to see animated movies on the big screen, a lot of that comes from the Disney renaissance of the early to mid 90's which for a lot of kids from that time were huge and for some of them like myself helped to propel their love of film.

And this one certainly looked promising with its story of good vs. evil set in a rainforest but sadly with the exception of Amanda Seyfried who tries to do something with her role and some pretty neat action there is simply nothing here at all in terms of an imaginative storyline or interesting characters and I'm sorry but I just could not buy Beyonce Knowles as the queen of the rainforest, I only bought her as being another star doing a voice role and the end song on the soundtrack.

A real shame this one turned out to be a big failure.

But my number 1 disappointment of 2013 is none other than:

American Hustle: How could it not be anything else given my own path to seeing the film in cinemas, going to buy my ticket only to be told it had been cancelled due to a special school trip.

Heartbreaking and wanting to break down and cry were the feelings that went through my mind but when I finally got to see the film after 2nd time lucky all I saw was an incoherent storyline, weak performances from the male actors and the cynical use of an era that I really love that could've easily gone with a clever enough rewrite of the script.

And my heart broke once again given after all of that trouble and effort and waiting that was it, a real shame and because of that it sits as my number 1 disappointment of the year.

But from being heartbroken we go to just feeling downright cheated out of our money as well as 2-3 precious hours of our lives, those hours we will never get back but hey on the plus side we get to wind ourselves up like 1000 day clocks and shoot sprockets all over the place and then sit back and do them all slowly once again, oh happy days are here.

We start now at number 5 with:

Elysium: Director Neill Blomkamp's follow up to his surprise 2009 hit District 9 starred Matt Damon as a man who lives in the ruins of Earth while the rich live in a space station called Elysium where any injury, illness or terminal disease can be cured in special medical pod.

Ugh, give me a fucking break, the preview for this film was terrible with its tale of how the rich live in paradise and the poor live in the wasteland and how Damon will become the working class hero that will inspire a revolution amongst the downtrodden masses.

But the final film turned out to be even worse, the storyline was a mess, the performances ranged from decent to laughable and the action was pathetic with every single bad shaky cam and quick cut every fifth of a second but the real sin is that THIS was from the man that made District 9, that I find to be the worst thing of all.

I mean if you are going to do that story in a sci-fi setting then go for it, make it the heart of the movie and make it the framework to structure the story around and also give it to a non-white actor like Chiwetel Ejiofor instead of a safe bet like Matt Damon who just came across as a bore in his role, I suppose you could count this one as an interesting director coming up against the studio system and losing and when that happens, we all suffer.

4. After Earth: Billed as one of the big Summer movies starring Will Smith and Son Jaden, the story again concerned Earth being a wasteland but this time replete with giant monsters and toxic air while little Jaden has to traverse through it with a big stick to find a downed transmitter.

Now some of that sounds awfully familiar to me, oh that's where I saw it, IN A FUCKING VIDEO GAME called Metro Last Light where you travel through the ruins of Russia to stop a rebellion in the underground Metro where humanity now calls home.

And in that game it's FAR FAR superior to this big budget trash fest, first of all Moscow all ruined looks a lot more interesting, the monsters have teeth and you don't have this young kid who's about as appealing as getting flogged with a wet newspaper.

That said though, director M. Night Shyamalan does not deserve to be kicked around for this mess, Smith himself has to take the blame for it, this was his baby and he simply hired Shyamalan to do the job, happily the movie going public gave it the same level of support as a rope supports a hanged person and that makes me very happy.

3. The Counselor: Now surely if you saw the previews for this film you would think "Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz in a film written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott, how can this possibly fail?"

Well old son, it didn't just fail it went troppo and I am deadly serious about that, the storyline is a mess, the performances are a complete bore to watch and come across as nothing more than A list movie stars indulging themselves in the worst possible way, Michael Fassbender is criminally wasted in his role and Scott's direction feels like a bunch of scenes just edited together in a blender instead of a proper editing room.

What a miserable waste of all that talent but at the same time I don't think anyone, ANYONE involved with this movie from Ridley Scott or the producers or even 20th Century Fox the studio responsible had the gall to tell Cormac McCarthy the great novelist that A) He'd written a bad script and B) Another writer would be brought in to do a rewrite but no no no we wouldn't want to do that, it's Cormac McCarthy he's the great novelist behind No Country for Old Men we can't do that well you all bloody well should have, Ridley had an interesting script for his Alien prequel rewritten to become Prometheus which itself became a mess of a film so he could've ordered a rewrite here but didn't and as a result we end up with another mess from him, a real shame.

2. This is the End: It starred Seth Rogen and his friends as the Rapture came a calling during a party at James Franco's house with numerous celebrities in attendance.

The worst thing in the world that a cinema goer can sit through is a comedy with no laughs whatsoever and that was the experience I had watching this movie, I did not laugh once as all the joke was "Oh look, there's that celebrity doing something unlike them, isn't that funny", "Oh look, there's some jokes about male bonding and smoking weed and drinking and partying, isn't that funny" and lastly "Oh look there's jokes about the male and female anatomy, laugh guffaw chuckle"

NO IT IS NOT! You need much more than just man child celebrity humour to make a great comedy, you need a sense of energy, a sense of pace and performers willing to throw themselves into their roles not this snail pace improv style that is just so fucking boring to watch and just makes you think where is a good comedy director when you need them as boy oh boy I am getting sick to death of this style of humor.

And to think there was a time when the Americans made great comedies, films like Ghostbusters, The Naked Gun and the original and Christmas Vacation movies come to mind, now it's just become a barren wasteland occupied by nasty, unfunny adlib humour written and directed by people who have no idea how to inject energy or pace into these things, unbelievable.

But alas there was one film this year that was worse than that and that dishonor goes to:

Kick Ass 2: Now I was actually really looking forward to this one as I was a big fan of the first Kick Ass film (it made my favorites list in that year) and it looked kind of promising in the previews.

Boy was I shocked because this movie was just horrible on every level, it was nasty for no good reason, the violence towards some of the female characters is played cruelly for some sort of sick joke, the villains are just abhorrent and Jim Carrey who disowned this film (can't say I blame him) was just phoning it in to get a nice paycheck.

You know normally you would never say this about seeing in a film in a cinema or I wouldn't anyway despite the film probably being complete garbage like this and the other films in this dishonorable list but this film was the one exception where I honestly wished I never saw it, it was just that bad on every level and it made me uncomfortable at times in terms of its violence.

Now the first Kick Ass film was very violent but it had a steady hand at the helm to make sure things didn't get too out of hand, here much like another famous sequel Robocop 2 there's nothing here to bring it together, to make it meaningful or even funny, instead it was just an uncomfortable, unfunny and just plain nasty watch that I just wanted to wipe from my memory after it was over.

And so that is the disappointments, the surprises and the worst films of 2013 to my mind, keep an eye out soon for my favorite films of the year.

Film Review - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Based off of a 1939 short story, Walter Mitty is directed by and stars Ben Stiller in the title role, a man who can't help but dream of great adventure, brave heroics and that special someone who works in his office at Life Magazine named Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) but when a negative goes missing Walter vows to track it down, even if it means going to the ends of the Earth.

I went into Walter Mitty with fairly optimistic expectations as the preview for the film made it look like a nice film and something that I would enjoy at least, was I right to be optimistic?

Very much so as I really loved watching this film, Stiller's performance and direction are pitched at just the right note so that he delineates between the dreams and the reality, Wiig is actually pretty good here as well as the girl next door and Patton Oswalt is a lot of fun as well.

But what I really loved about this film was its story, it was nice to see a film that values story and heart and imagination in a way that old fashioned films used to do and this one blends the three together very well so that you find one or all of these in the film if you look as it can be very easy to dismiss it as sentimental fluff, the film also reminded me a lot of the Dead Poets Society in terms of its message of living deep and sucking all the marrow out of life and those scenes of adventure are truly special to watch.

One last area where I have to complement Stiller is the soundtrack, when a song comes on during the film it feels nicely matched to the scene it's under which to me is the mark of someone with a fantastic ear for using songs in a film and lord knows I haven't been a big fan of his since There's Something About Mary but here I complement him greatly for the film that he's made.

And so, I was very taken with the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, it was funny, heartfelt and imaginative, definitely one of my favorite films of the year and absolutely worth checking out, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Continuing the story of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), the Desolation of Smaug sees him and the company of Dwarves led by Thorin Oakinshield (Richard Armitage) continue to make their way to the kingdom of Erabor to take it back from the mighty Dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) but this will not be easy.

Smaug is a rollicking thrill ride in Middle Earth and resembles much more of that rousing spirit that made the Lord of the Rings films fun to watch, Freeman continues his good form and you can see the traces of Ian Holm more than in the first film but the focus this time is much more on Thorin and Armitage is up to the task of holding his own here, the film also has some very good action sequences most notably being a sequence with barrels while Elves and Orcs fight off each other which is terrifically put together and the climax is also well handled.

But this film belongs to one person and that is Cumberbatch, he literally fly's away with the film and every time he's on screen it is utterly captivating in terms of Smaug's fearsome height and fire breath but also his voice which is just magnificent to listen to, in fact there were times I thought I was hearing Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget it just had that tone to it in places and I did say "Gadget" to myself at times after he finished a sentence, this is for me a much more impressive achievement than Gollum was and it should go down as one of the best digital creations ever made for a feature film.

So all in all, the Desolation of Smaug is a real treat, much more of the rollicking action adventure we wanted from the first Hobbit film and brilliantly sets itself up for the final film next year, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Frozen (2013)

The latest Disney animated movie, Frozen is the story of two sisters Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), Elsa is born with great ice powers that grow stronger as she grows older, one day she causes a permanent winter in her home kingdom and Anna may be the last hope to save it from being a frozen wasteland.

I went into Frozen with mixed expectations, while the previews for the film made it look promising the feeling I had was that it was really nothing more than a tradition Disney Princess film most of which I'm not a huge fan of, could the film itself rise above that or fall to an icy grave.

Well, the truth is is that I sit somewhere in the middle on this film, I think that it's okay but for me personally it didn't do the trick, first off I will talk about what I did like about the film and I loved the sisters dynamic and those scenes were easily the best thing about the film though sadly there are too few of them and I also thought that Olaf the Snowman was a lot of fun to watch and he did remind me a lot of Gabbo from the Simpsons in both his look and his voice.

But as good as those elements are, the film has two big problems holding it back:

- The first of these is the lack of a strong villain to drive the conflict in the story and these films much like action pictures rely on a strong villain to anchor the film, here there really isn't one until the third act of the film and even then it feels like a twist that's poorly handled and feels like it's come from an entirely different film.

- The second is the songs themselves, don't get me wrong I think "Let it Go" is a good song but the songs here are nothing compared to great songs that Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman wrote.

You know songs like "Under the Sea", "Poor Unfortunate Souls", "Part of that World" and "Kiss the Girl" from the Little Mermaid or "Gaston, Tale as Old as Time and Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast or "Arabian Nights, Prince Ali, Proud of your Boy and High Adventure" from Aladdin, songs that you listen to once and then are permanently sitting in your memory, when this film was over "Let it Go" was the only song I remembered.

In fact, when this film was over I kept thinking to myself "I wish they made another film like Aladdin" which is a film I adore as it works for boys as much as for girls, has great comedy, a terrific villain and great songs that are memorable and seamless but this is probably just a fool's hope of mine but to wish, perchance to dream as someday it may happen, one can never tell.

But before I wrap this up I have to talk about the Mickey Mouse short that plays before the film which is a very nice mix of black and white, sound, colour and computer animation which generated a few laughs in my screening.

So all in all, I thought Frozen was okay but I doubt if boys will click with it as much as girls will so it's best to keep the boys at home as well as very young children as a fair few of them got restless at times during my showing, 2 out of 5.

There and Back Again: 2013 in Film Part 1

It's that time again my friends, the time when we write our lists and check them twice regarding our favorites, our worst and our disappointments of the year at cinemas.

And for me this year in film could be summed up in the title above "There and Back Again" as for me personally it was very much a year where my only real option to see new release movies in a cinema was to travel and this can be a fairly lengthy exercise with each Bus trip being about 3 hours in length when you factor in the getting there and going back each of those being about 90 minutes and even then your restricted in terms of session times as you can only go to certain sessions so that you can actually make your Bus ride home.

And in some specific situations eg: I want to go to more than one film and can't fit it in on a day trip then a hotel room has to be booked for 1 or 2 nights, I tell you the things one does for their main passion in life but alas you do what you have to do in these situations and sometimes it not's that bad.

But enough of the personal story I want to now dive into what I thought were the overall trends of the year and two stuck out in my mind:

The first of those is the near complete death of 3D in cinemas across the globe (and there was much rejoicing yay) in that just 2 years ago to paint the contrast 3D sessions took up the majority of session times for that particular movie say Cars 2 or Transformers 3 to name as examples, now the 3D sessions are limited mainly to just 1 or 2 a day or in some cases that I saw like the Wolverine, the 3D sessions just weren't booked at all and quite frankly I hope that in 2014 we finally see the back of this cursed format once and for all and cinemas can book smaller pictures in their place.

The second relates to that last point which is regarding the smaller pictures aimed a lot more at adults than at families, teenagers and children that seem to in my mind take up so much of the space in cinemas nowadays especially when it's school holidays, a time of year that I REALLY REALLY hate.

The reason I bring this up is that so many of the films that I and others enjoyed were out of that traditional box of the American Studio System, two that I really liked Rush and the World's End came from the UK which increasingly seems to be the place to go to in order to try and make it in the industry nowadays.

Plus you have the popularity of film festivals that trade almost exclusively in the adult oriented fare and it is something that I expect in the new year to increase in popularity because a lot of theatres sadly are reluctant to book those sort of films but when they do get a decent release like the Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Jasmine or the Great Gatsby they actually do pretty well at the box office.

I really hope that in 2014 we see more movies aimed at adults getting a wider release because adult movie goers for too long now have been given the short straw in cinemas and I would really like to see them get something in return because if it's out there, they will go and see it but sadly I don't expect a lot of change at all on this front.

And so that's part 1 of There and Back Again: 2013 in Film, keep watching after the post for more thoughts on 2013 in Film from me.

Film Review - American Hustle (2013)

American Hustle is directed by David O. Russell and stars Christian Bale as Irving, a conman with a wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) and a mistress Sydney (Amy Adams), Irving and Sydney come into contact with FBI agent Richie (Bradley Cooper) as they team up to take on mayor Carmine (Jeremy Renner) who Richie suspects is corrupt.

Before I dive into my overall thoughts on the film I want to tell you the tale of getting to see the film, you see I had booked my regular film going trip to see the film on Dec 12th which is when it opened and thought "yep this will be in and out" and sure enough, I got there did my usual thing and went to the theatre to see the movie, nothing sinister.

But alas I was told when I got there that the session I was to go to had been cancelled due to a special end of year school trip to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, needless to say I was not happy about it at all and part of me wanted to break down and cry as it's been a real hassle for me to get to new release films as the trip can take up to 3 hours or so but alas that was the hand I was dealt.

But I said to myself as I did the Bus trip home I swore to myself that I would go back to see it and I enacted on my pledge, no my sacred Oath to do it.

With all of that out of the way, how was the film now that I had finally gotten to see it?

Well sadly the film was very disappointing for a number of reasons but before I go into those I want to talk about what I did like about the film and that is firstly the film's soundtrack which really helps to set the tone of the late 70's and early 80's pretty well and a few of the tunes used had me enjoying myself, the second is the performances of the two lead actresses Adams and Lawrence, both of them absolutely nail their roles and Lawrence in particular shows that she truly is a star, part of me wanted to give her a great big cuddle during parts of the film and say "It's okay mate."

But as I said I was very disappointed in the film and I will outline in more detail why that is the case:

- Firstly the film's storyline feels very incoherent, watching it I got the sense that there was no engine driving this film along and by that I mean that there was no structure to the story to take you from the beginning to the end, it felt like a bunch of scenes edited together combined with voice over narration to help fill in the blanks.

- Secondly the male actors are all very weak I thought, most of the time all they seem to be doing is shouting either at the camera or at the other characters in the scene, Bale seems to be imitating Al Capone in the Untouchables as his speaking voice seems to be that quiet mumble, Renner fares a little better but doesn't really get much of a chance to spread his wings in his role and Cooper is just flat out weak here, given very little to do and his acting smacks of trying too hard to impress his co-stars, a shame.

- And lastly the use of the era for me is very mixed, now I love LOVE that era of the late 70's and 80's I mean you had the Star Wars Trilogy, the dawn of VHS, great music and more but here a lot of it feels artificial and doesn't really root you in that time period which Argo and Rush did do very well I thought and those films did make me think of that era.

But here it doesn't work very well and just seems like window dressing whereas a clever rewrite of the script could have very easily set the film in the modern day and that sounds very sad.

But I have another objection and this is primarily for the Australian readers, I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish that the old Roadshow logo from that time period (you know with the country of Australia in it and it had the blue streaks on it and the do do do do do do do do do do do do music played) had been used to open the film as the one that did was just the regular logo they use on their theatrical releases that they distribute it and for the most part fine that's fair enough.

But I couldn't accept it here as this was wanting to be an old fashioned film set in a specific time period and if you're going to do that then it has to be set with the logos and again Argo did this by using the old Warner Brothers logo to open the film whereas here it's just the regular old Roadshow logo and I was wanting the old one from that era to open this film.

Alas, American Hustle for me was a big disappointment for me and sadly despite some great songs and performances, I just can't quite bring myself to recommend it, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Nine and a Half Weeks (1986)

Nine and a Half Weeks stars Mickey Rourke as John, a man who works on Wall Street and Kim Basinger as Elizabeth who works in an art gallery, the two meet at a local market and fall in love, in more ways than one.

Part of me was quite keen for this film, it looked like an exciting, sexy adults only film the type of which we very rarely get nowadays, could the film fulfil that fantasy or fail at the task?

Well this falls squarely into the latter category as it is a failure beyond any doubt for three very key reasons:

First of all, the film is boring to watch as Rourke and Basinger rarely connect as a couple on screen, I know that is the point of the film somewhat but there needed to be some common connection between the two for the film to work somewhat during its darker moments and it doesn't, Basinger comes across as the better of the two but Rourke just stands there looking handsome, smiles to the camera and mumbles his lines throughout the film, what a waste.

The second is that the sexy moments the film promises are anything but and come across as tedious instead, lacking the power and impact they should have in order for the film to work.

I have no doubt this was done to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating in the US which pretty much means You're Smegged but you can't promise a film like this in terms of going into those sorts of intimate desires for good or for bad and then chicken out and play it safe in order to avoid a fight with the censors, you either have to go for broke or not do it at all, this middle of the road approach simply doesn't work and it severely weakens the film.

The last problem is that Rourke's character is simply horrible, I hated to watch him on screen after a while and by the time reaches the end you've just had enough of this man and the horrible way he treats Liz the more the film goes on, I have to admit I really wanted one of the other characters to say to her "Are you okay?" at times or say "You don't look okay, can I help in some way?"

Now again I know that this is the point of the film somewhat but you also need some form of humanity in this story in order for the darker moments to have more of an impact as I said earlier and without that like I said, the film falters and frankly, Rourke's character is only worth 2 1/2 Weeks at most, 9 would be pushing it.

Now what does work in this film, well it's the soundtrack and its really terrific, two songs in particular really stood out, the first was "The Best is Yet to Come" by Luba which opens the film in a much more promising way and the second was the famous Joe Cocker song "You Can Leave your Hat On" which gave me that feeling of humanity the film itself doesn't have.

And so, what could've been a exciting and dark film for adults only instead turns out to be hateful of its female lead, boring to watch and plays it safe in its darkest moments, I can't recommend this one at all and part of me wishes it were better than this, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - FX: Murder by Illusion (1986)

FX: Murder by Illusion stars Bryan Brown as Rollie Tyler, an Australian Special Effects man living and working in the US who finds himself with an unusual client: The Justice Department who want to use his talents to stage a fake assassination, a task that will not be easy.

I really enjoyed FX, it had some great effects work (no pun intended), a no nonsense script that got right to the heart of the matter and used each minute of its running time usefully and some great performances, especially by Brown who anchors the film effortlessly and you really get on his side when he goes on the run and I also really liked the performances by Dennehy and the late Jerry Orbach.

But I have to talk more about the script as not only does it function as a great thriller but also with its imaginative use of special effects from the great Bear he has at the front of his workshop to the shootout that opens the film and down to the prosthetic work which looks so real, if this movie were made now it would look ridiculous and have none of the imagination or realism behind it.

So yeah, I loved watching this movie and would highly recommend it to anyone, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - This is the End (2013)

This is the End,
It Stars Seth Rogen and his Friends,
He and They go to Party,
Then their Home Bursts Again.

Then the Skyfalls,
The Earth Crumbles,
They Must Stand tall and face it all together,
At LA.

And quite frankly that plot synopsis set to Adele's Skyfall song is funnier than any of the jokes I saw in this movie as I found it to be an unfunny borefest pretty much from start to finish, Rogen and Co are not very funny as themselves though Rogen has been good in the past in roles such as his one in 50/50 and the whole idea of the end of the world is mainly there for some pointless references and cameos some of which border on amusing to just pointless.

But my real problem with this film as I said is the near complete lack of laughs I mean so much of the jokes are based off of that leery manchild humour that might have been amusing when I was 16 or 17 (oh wait a minute it's just come to me, I didn't think it very funny then, I just thought it was horrible and nearly cruel) but now I just find even more unfunny, it basically consists of:

- Constantly talking about drinking
- Talking about smoking Pot
- Talking about Boobs
- Talking about Intercourse

And so on and so forth.

That's pretty much the gist of a lot of the film's humour right there, I hated it when I was 16-17 and I hate it even more now not to mention the boring as hell pop culture references that come out of nowhere and for me don't seem to be inspired as to be thrown in there because well that's one part of the manchild style humour throughout this film and all it did was make me cringe whenever they came on.

So yeah boys and girls, I did not enjoy this movie very much at all and it will probably go down as one of my least favourite films of the year, 0 out of 5.

Film Review - Ender's Game (2013)

Ender's Game is based off the 1985 Sci-Fi novel and stars Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin, a gifted young child when it comes to strategic games and who Graff (Harrison Ford) believes is the one to lead the Earth against a deadly alien race that nearly wiped out humanity 50 years before but this will be a very deadly game for Ender to play.

I went into this movie with very mixed feelings as I was not familiar with the source material but at the same time Sci-Fi is a weakness genre of mine so I was convinced to go and check it out, did it deliver?

Actually I thought it did, this was a well made Sci-Fi film with some good action scenes but the film also values character moments as well and as a result, you find yourself really enjoying the story more because you have more of that investment in what happens.

The cast is also very good in their roles with Butterfield really showing that he can more than hold his own in a big film, Ford actually seems to be enjoying himself in a film role and there were times watching him where I went "That's the Harrison we all fell in love with", Viola Davis, Hallee Stenfeld, Abigail Breslin and Ben Kingsley also performed very well and Stenfeld and Butterfield also have a very nice chemistry.

But the real highlight of the film for me is the battle sequences, they were fantastic both in terms of the effects and in the writing in terms of laying out tactics for the fighters ("Accelerate to attack speed and draw their fire away from the Cruisers" from Return of the Jedi to use as an example) and in terms of the battle scenes themselves with the shots of the various fighters swooping to dodge enemy fire, protect their mother ships and more.

Sadly that was also the one area of the film where it fell for me, not in a negative sense I have to say but more the sense of that I was enjoying these scenes so much I wished for them to be longer so they could be more of a proper space battle like the one in Jedi which is 9 minutes of pure excellence and yet with all of this CGI tech we have at our disposal we still haven't seen a good space battle since, a shame but this is only a minor complaint from me about the film.

And so, Ender's Game is a game worth seeing for Sci-Fi fans but non fans of the genre will not find a lot here to interest them and fans of the book should walk out of this one pretty pleased with the result, let's call this one a very nice surprise, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 picks up where the first film left off and finds Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) working in the company of his idol Chester V (Will Forte) but his old home is now putting out food/animal hybrids that could threaten the world so Chester wants Flint to stop it but this won't be easy.

I went into this movie very excited as I really liked the first film and when I saw the preview for this movie it looked like it would be a very promising follow up, did it deliver the goods?

Very much so, I really had a lot of fun watching this movie, it made me smile for most of it's running time and the cast were all very funny for the most part, especially Anna Faris who finally seems to have a decent role in a film following all the Goldie Hawn esque characters she's had to play over the years, Terry Crews was a fun replacement for Mr. T who sadly declined to return for this film but I didn't notice the change while watching the film and all of the Foodimals on screen are quite a sight, especially the Strawberry babies, the Cheeseburger Spider with French Fry legs, the Banana Dolphins and more.

The animation in the film is also really well done, showing a fluidity and style that you used to see in hand drawn animation but is sadly rarely seen in Computer Animation so it was nice to know that it is still possible.

But sadly the film lets itself down in the villain department, every time Chester came on screen I felt like the film stopped so he could have his screen time and also his plot wasn't all that interesting, just the all too familiar corporate takeover story but unlike 99.9% of films I see, I won't knock this film down for it as I was having too much fun watching it to care all that much but still it does hurt the film.

So all in all, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is great fun and is up to the task of living up to the first film, the upcoming Frozen will have its work cut out ahead of it if it's going to top this film as my favourite animated movie of the year, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - One Chance (2013)

One Chance is based on the true story of Paul Potts, a Welshman who works in a mobile phone store but who wants to sing Opera but he has a bit of a problem: He's very nervous but when the chance to appear on Britain's Got Talent appears, he must take his chance to make a better life for himself.

This movie is quite frankly, a near complete waste of time and money mainly because for so much of the movie I didn't really care all that much about whether he would overcome the odds and find his voice so to speak, the script throws in all of this melodrama about accidents and panic and the one true love that just made me cringe throughout so much of it, I just didn't care about any of it.

However I did like Colm Meaney as the Dad and it was sure great to see him in a movie again and almost all of the film's best scenes involve him but to be honest your better off watching the real Paul Potts singing online instead of wasting a full admission (which isn't cheap) and seeing this hokey film.

So yeah, this movie didn't do a lot for me at all, it's not a bad movie by any stretch but I just found completely forgettable and as such, I can't recommend it, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Biggles (1986)

Biggles is based off the long running series of Books and stars Alex Hyde-White as Alex Ferguson, an American who finds himself travelling through a hole in time to World War 1 in 1917 where he meets the famous British pilot James "Biggles" Bigglesworth (Neil Dickson) but this won't be the only time the two will cross paths.

It's hard to know where to begin when describing this movie as quite frankly it just doesn't work at all, none of it really seems to pop and it feels two separate movies that have been pasted together to try and make a cohesive whole and as a result neither really stands out.

I mean all of the 1980's scenes are boring to watch with some not very funny comedy for the most part and the scenes in World War 1 which while they're quite good don't get much of a chance to shine for as soon as you get into those scenes and the story inside them ZAP! right back to the modern day stuff.

But the real problem with this movie is that Biggles himself doesn't feel like the star of his own movie, instead he feels like a supporting player to Ferguson as a lot of the film's main events revolve a lot more around him than around Biggles himself whose name is in the fucking title, I really wish the filmmakers had had the courage of their convictions and had made a proper Biggles movie.

And indeed that was the original idea for this movie, it was going to be a proper Biggles movie in the style of Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as being closer to the original books and that's what the aforementioned WW1 scenes give you the taste/promise of but the huge success of Back to the Future led to the shoehorning in of the time travel storyline which doesn't work at all and as a result you finish watching the movie feeling both cheated and angry which is how I felt.

However there are a couple of things I did like about this movie, the first of those as I said above are those scenes in WW1, they feel authentic, they're exciting to watch and they make you think "This is what I want from this movie" not pathetic jokes about Celebrity Dinners which have references to Schwarzenegger and Eastwood in them, give me a fucking break guys I don't want any of that in this movie, I want the good vs. evil, exciting adventure, aerial dogfights and brave heroes risking it all for Queen and Country.

The second is the film's theme song "Do You Want to be a Hero" by Jon Anderson which sadly is not used as effectively as it should be and the last thing is the performance by Peter Cushing as a retired British Colonel who brings some gravitas to the modern day scenes and delivers a very good performance but sadly he too feels underused which is a real shame as this would be his last ever role in a feature film.

So in closing, Biggles is not a film I enjoyed very much, it has a time travel storyline that feels shoehorned in, storylines and performances that are underused and underdeveloped and a general feeling of a film that is not only suffering an identity crisis but also feels like a missed opportunity in places, all involved should've either made a proper Biggles movie or not bothered at all, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Following the events of the first Hunger Games film, this sequel finds Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) back in her home District but her actions have inspired humanity to fight back, something she witnesses during her victor's tour but hearts on fire carry strong desires and rage deep within where no pain (No Pain) can be found.

I went into Catching Fire with very mixed expectations as I was not a huge fan of the first film in the series but an attractive preview plus my own adoration of Jennifer Lawrence pushed me over the edge to go and give this film a look despite being constantly reminded of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film The Running Man.

But those fears are now unfounded in fact as I really enjoyed this 2nd film in the series and would rate it much higher than I would the first one, everything in this movie feels more refined, the world feels less showy as it did in the first film and the actors feel a lot more comfortable in their roles.

The first one I have to mention is Lawrence herself, she is completely captivating this time around even though I thought she was pretty good last time but here she holds your attention the entire time she's on screen and there are times where I just wanted to give her a cuddle and reassure her that it will all be okay, I also thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman was very good as well in his role and I also liked Donald Sutherland who has a much larger role here than he did in the first film though there were times where I couldn't help but think of his role on the Simpsons where he was the curator of the Jebediah Springfield Museum.

I do however have one complaint and that is that the film is a little too long, a good 10-15 minutes could've been cut out of this film and you would not have missed them all that much, I'm getting a little fed up with movies that go to a 2 and a half hour length for no good reason, what is wrong with a big film being 90-130 minutes long, anything beyond that just feels a waste of screen time as far as I'm concerned.

So yeah despite that one quibble I quite liked Catching Fire and would happily recommend it for all Hearts on Fire who might say to themselves "Katniss, KATNISS, KATNISSSSSS" beforehand, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Waking Sleeping Beauty (2010)

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a documentary made by Don Hahn and Peter Schneider that chronicles the rebirth of Walt Disney Pictures as a viable fighting force in animated movies once again in the 80's and 90's, movies like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin which became huge hits and changed the face of animated films as people saw them, but the road to success is never an easy one to travel.

As someone who loves going to animated movies at the cinema, I absolutely adored this documentary, it has a fantastic array of archival footage (the doco plays out in the exact same way the Senna documentary did in that it only has the voices of the participants and the footage from the time playing over it) as well as a wide array of people who worked there during that period from Hahn and Schneider to former chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to veteran directors John Musker and Ron Clements and down to the animators like Glen Keane.

Each and everyone involved has a fascinating story to tell and the doco also shows that while the films on the outside were enormously successful with theme park rides, huge ticket sales, glowing reviews from critics (Siskel and Ebert's reviews show up a couple of times) and high awards prestige, the inside story was anything but with the tragedy of losing Howard Ashman to AIDS, the fighting between the executives over the credit of their success and the eventual disintegration that led to the near 20 years of failure until 2010's Tangled signalled a new age of success for Disney once again.

There is however one complaint I have and that is I wished the doco had covered more of the production on Aladdin which would've made the doco about 10 minutes longer as Mermaid, Beauty and the Lion King are covered pretty well but Aladdin only gets a bit of a look in, I have no doubt that this is to do with what happened regarding Robin Williams and the deal that was made for him to voice the Genie and what happened afterwards, a bit of a shame but understandable at the same time.

But apart from that very minor quibble, this is a fantastic documentary that is a must see for any animation film fan out there or hell just film fans in general, 5 out of 5.

And Now, Why I Adore the CBS/Fox Video Collection

In the last of these remembrances of Australian VHS Brands, I take a look at what is arguably my favorite one of them all.

And that is the CBS/Fox Video Collection.

My fondness for this particular brand like the Village Roadshow brand started from my early years and a copy of "Give my Regards to Broad Street" which starred and was written by Paul McCartney and also starred our own Bryan Brown.

But it actually wasn't the film itself that took my attention it was one of the previews before it that did the job and it was for Return of the Jedi as the preview they used to promote it on their releases was the re release trailer from 1985 that started with the streaks of entering into Hyperspace and as a young child that image stayed with me.

A few years now pass and it's 1995 or thereabouts and I find myself in my Pop's house going through his video collection one afternoon and I found a couple of CBS/Fox tapes in it.

The two tapes he had from the CBS/Fox Video Collection were "Romancing the Stone" and "Revenge of the Nerds" and they grew on me there and then due to the lettering on the front label of the tape as well as the warning label on the top sticker as well as the small engraving of the logo on the top of the tape itself (CBS/Fox releases from that era have them so if you have one be sure to look for it, it's not hard to find.)

Needless to say I thought to myself "I wonder if either of these tapes will have that trailer with the streaks at the start on them" and I put both of them in the machine and sadly it wasn't either of them but the experience of those is still powerfully imprinted in my memory today from the background that looked like tiles you would get for your kitchen floor that had the typed out blue font for the warning at the start to the logo that came bursting onto the screen with the fanfare blaring (which I'm sure scared a few of us as young kids.)

And then came the announcement of "And Now, More Previews from the CBS/Fox Video Collection" and the letters came forging and at first you didn't quite know what they were and then you saw the word "Previews" come flying onto the screen and it was flashed up like it was flashlights in a city somewhere, it felt like an experience plus my Pop's lounge room was the right size to make that experience feel more real to you plus at the end of both of those tapes there was another warning and then a reprise of the logo which reminded you to rewind the tape before returning it to your video library.

A couple of years pass once more and it is 1997 and I was taken to the video shop to hire The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as I had now become a big fan of the Star Wars trilogy and I was really keen to see Jedi again as well as Empire for the first time as I hadn't seen it prior to then and when I opened up the case to Jedi I saw that it looked a lot like the two tapes my Pop had and sadly all I could see was the after film previews as the beginning of the tape was too far damaged to be able to watch and that included the start of the film, it wasn't until I found a copy to keep 11 years later did I learn what previews were in front of it needless to say I was a bit disappointed.

That year also KFC ran a special Johnny Quest promotion with their kids meal and one of the prizes you got was 3 free rentals of Family and Children films from the video shop it was 1 each week, this would become my introduction to the later CBS/Fox releases that the yellow and blue colored spines on them plus the ad for those just before the film started.

But lastly, my last memory of the CBS/Fox Video collection comes from the year 2000 and I find myself in my local video store and I see this image of Kurt Russell almost sticking out in front of me so I take a look at it and it's of Big Trouble in Little China which was one of their releases, needless to say when I got the chance I rented it as well as Mario Party 2 for the N64 and I enjoyed both at the time and 9 years later a copy of the CBS/Fox release of Big Trouble became mine to own.

And so, I wrap up this look back at my favorite VHS brands in Australia, it's been great to be able to share these memories with those that read them as they represent an era of films that I really love and hopefully for any Aussies reading this or any of the others, it brings back some memories of your own.

Please rewind this cassette before returning it to your Video Library.

Film Review - The Counselor (2013)

The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy and the story concerns the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) who proposes to his girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz) and who takes a job that could net him 20 million dollars, a job that could also go horribly wrong.

I was intrigued by the Counselor based off the previews I saw for the film as it looked like a dark and exciting film that I could find myself getting into, the addition of Fassbender being in the film had tipped the scales to the point where I decided to go and see the film, did it deliver the goods?

Sadly not as this film for me was a complete and total disaster, how much so, let thee count the ways:

The first reason is that the film's storyline is all over the place, scenes feel like they were pasted together from a longer edit of the film without any of the context to back them up, characterization feels very inconsistent, at times they're plotting and at other times they're sitting around drinking wine and admiring the pet Cheetahs they have and then there's the one scene where it literally feels like Ben Kenobi from Star Wars saying over it "She's had a great Disturbance in the Force, as if one single voice cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced, she fears something terrible has happened."

The second reason is that the actors themselves are a near complete bore to watch, most of the time it just feels like a bunch of A list stars indulging themselves in excess and privilege without any heart attached to it, Cruz is simply wasted in her role, Pitt does very little apart from look handsome in a Texas suit and Hat and Bardem continues his OTT acting from Skyfall.

But the real sin here is the utter waste of Fassbender, one of our finest actors at the moment and not even he can redeem this film as he just comes across as a complete bore and I just sat there thinking "How the fuck can you make Michael Fassbender boring, it just doesn't make any sense" as all he does basically is scowl, cry and recite his lines in a monotone voice, hopefully he reminds us with his next film that he truly is talented and that this is an unfortunate bump in the road of a very stellar career so far.

And the third reason is the horrible attitude the film displays at times, the first of those is the infamous Car scene hinted at in the preview which I just found to be disgusting and the other is the near complete lack of personality in the female characters, each of them are either:

A) Wearing jewellery that is just over sized to the point it looks like they're wearing a miniature jewellery store in their fingers and miniature chandeliers in their ears

B) Wearing clothing and heels that make them look like trophy women who marry only for money and not for love

and C) Just there mainly to act as a plot device and then be cast out when they're no longer needed.

I really thought we were better than this but obviously I was wrong.

There is however one thing I did like about the film and that was Diaz, she basically takes the film and runs away with it with her daring and calculating performance that seems to have found the right tone for the film whereas the other actors do not, thinking they need to be ACT-ING instead so they can be nominated for awards, give me a fucking break.

And so to wrap this up, I was not a fan of the Counselor, it was a mess story wise, boring performance wise and at times just horrible and disgusting, avoid this one at all costs as for me it's one of the year's worst films, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Prisoners (2013)

Prisoners stars Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, a small time repair man who heads to his neighbour's house to celebrate Thanksgiving when his young daughter and her friend go missing, Keller gets very determined to find her, no matter the cost.

It's hard to know where to begin when talking about this movie as in all honesty, I mainly thought it was just okay, nothing great but nothing all that terrible either, Jackman is sensational in his role and you believe fully his quest to find his lost daughter though at times his scenes where he gets angry made me think of when he was playing Wolverine, Jake Gyllenhall is also very good in his role and is a nice calming counterpoint to Jackman's increasing anger in frustration and I thought Viola Davis was very good as well in her small role.

But the film as a whole felt to me like a well worn path in terms of thrillers, the three key films it reminded me a lot of were River's Edge, Misery and the Silence of the Lambs and those three films I felt were superior to this film as to me the dark tones of Edge, the Abduction theme of Misery and the overall cold look of Lambs sort of began to blend together for me with the twist here being the children being kidnapped instead of the adults.

Those three other films were superior to this film in another way: They're not 2 and a half hours long, each of them is about 90 minutes to 2 hours long and for me Prisoners is simply too long for its own good and could've done with a good 20 minutes chopped from its running time, I'm kind of getting annoyed with films going over the 2 hour and 10 minute mark and while some films like the Place Beyond the Pines justified it, this film does not.

And so to wrap up, while I thought Prisoners was well made and has good performances, it also had an all too familiar feel for me and was simply too long and it's a bit of a shame as I like dark themed movies but this one missed the mark, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Thor the Dark World (2013)

A continuation of the Thor film series, this story sees him deal with the Dark Elves lead by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who vow to take back the universe and cover all the stars in a 2nd darkness but not if the son of Odin can stop him first.

I went into Thor the Dark World with very mixed expectations as I was not a fan of the original Thor film that Kenneth Branagh made and the previews for this new film looked particularly average, did this new film deliver?

Frankly, it did not, there is nothing in this film that I found in any way engaging or interesting, so much of it is just a borefest to watch and I sat there and at times almost fell asleep during it, now I like Chris Hemsworth and I think he's great in Rush but here he just seems to be phoning it in at times, Natalie Portman I didn't really care for nor did I really care for Tom Hiddelston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander or Rene Russo as all of those people as well just didn't pop on screen this time.

Not surprise given that the director of the film Alan Taylor is a TV director from Game of Thrones and is pretty much infusing that style here and it doesn't work, I was also very sad to see Idris Elba be wasted in the manner he was in this movie, it feels like a crime to do this.

But the real sin of this movie is one that I have said before and will say again, it is the villains, the Dark Elves here are weak, probably the weakest villains Marvel have ever put into one of their films and Eccleston is a crushing bore as Malekith, I can't help but wonder if Mads Mikkelsen had been able to do something with this role if he had been able to do it as originally planned though to be frank, I don't blame him at all for bowing out as there's nothing on the page to work with and the overall look of the Dark Elves just look like a cross between Transformers and Lord of the Rings and it too is boring to look at.

There was however one thing I did like and that was Kat Dennings, she seemed to have some fun in her role and it was the only time where I was interested in what was happening in the movie, hopefully she like Elba did with "Pacific Rim" goes onto much better roles in the future.

And so to wrap this up, I did not enjoy Thor the Dark World very much at all, it was for me the weakest of the Marvel films in the Avengers timeline to date, hopefully next year's Captain America follow up The Winter Soldier delivers the goods more than this one did, 1 out of 5.

Blu-Ray Review - Pacific Rim

The Film:

Released back in July of this year, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, his personal love letter to the Japanese Monster and Robot movies of his youth concerns the human race at War with the Kaiju (Japanese term for Monster) and their main weapon being the Jaegers (German for Hunter), gigantic robots piloted by two humans but humanity is losing and one last gamble to take out the Rift between the two worlds may be the last chance humanity has to survive.

I adored Pacific Rim when I saw it cinemas back in July, I sat there in my chair smiling, cheering, feeling tense in my chair and watching in awe as these gigantic creatures duked it out, it was a fantastic experience that sadly I was never able to repeat before it left cinemas.

And sadly there were two key reasons this film failed in cinemas:

The first is simply the concept behind the film, Big Monsters vs. Big Robots, a tradition steeped in Japanese cinemas but has rarely if ever caught on in a big way in the West even when Japanese anime shows like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z developed big fan bases in the West in the late 90's and early 2000's but shows along the Big Monsters and Big Robots tradition have not caught on and as a result, the film had difficulty finding an audience.

The other big reason was simply the timing of its release, the film opened in cinemas in mid July and here in Australia that meant right in the middle of the School Holidays where you had films like Man of Steel, The Heat, The Lone Ranger, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and Epic and I'm sure for most cinemas they probably thought "I've got more than enough films to show and with it being the holidays the kids films have to take precedence."

And that was something I saw for myself waiting in line to see this movie, almost everyone else behind me was waiting for Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University to start, frankly I kept thinking to myself afterwards "If only it had been delayed to the 25th of July" then it's only real competition would've been "The Wolverine" and it may have done much better at the local box office.

But that's all hypothetical as it did not happen and like John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China in 1986/87, it may have failed to find an audience in cinemas but it certainly found one on Video and I have no doubt Pacific Rim will find its audience on disc.

The Video:

To sum it up: Spectacular.

And that is no joke dear readers, the video quality on this disc is truly some of the best I've ever seen on Blu-Ray and there have been a few I've liked quite a bit but this may well take the cake from those titles.

The clarity, the colors, the detail all pop here and there isn't as much as a speck out of line here, especially during the many night scenes where it's raining and big fights are going on, all of those scenes are clear as crystal and it also highlights the many details Guillermo put into the film with his mechanized sets and corrugated iron of the Jaegers to the cartoonish look of the Kaiju and even then you don't think to yourself your watching a digital creation, truly terrific stuff.

The Audio:

Presented in both 5.1 and 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (each is its own track) I pretty much have to echo my own comments about the video quality and say the same thing here.

Unlike a lot of Blu-Ray sound mixes where you have to adjust the volume every 5 minutes, the 5.1 mix finds a very even balance between the fight scenes and the quieter moments where you can keep it at a consistent volume, sit back and enjoy yourself.

And boy oh boy will these mixes do that for you, every sound has been recreated perfectly and is really nicely spaced so that you can close your eyes and focus on the sound of the rain at night or the gears of the Jaegers or the sound of the weapons firing or even the sound of the monsters screaming, it's a terrific sound mix.

As for the 7.1 mix well to my mind it's a little quieter and not as good as the 5.1 mix but you shouldn't be too disappointed with it if you decide to go with that mix (the 5.1 mix is the default mix on the disc so you'll have to select the 7.1 mix manually)

The Extras:

Guillermo Del Toro has long created extensive special edition discs for his movies and had a big hand in their creation and that is the case here as while there isn't a lot of extras, what is here is of a very high quality and more than deserving of a high rating.

With that out of the way, let's dive in shall we:

Audio Commentary by Guillermo Del Toro: Talking almost nonstop and in considerable detail, this is a fantastic commentary track that takes you through almost everything you could ever want to know about the making of the film and the creation of both the monsters and robots, if you're a fan of this film make the time to give this track a listen.

Focus Point Featurettes: 13 Focus Point Featurettes round out the extras on this first disc and combined run just over an hour, they delve into a wide range of topics from the creation of the sets (large sets were created to give you the feeling of being inside the head of the Jaegers), the casting of the Rangers (which includes a very cool clip of Idris Elba saying his famous line at the table read), some Set Visits as well as a look at the creation of the musical score (Russian lyrics were written for the reveal of their Jaeger) and more.

Unlike a lot of these Focus Point featurettes that Warner Home Video make, these ones are actually of a pretty high quality and you get a sense while watching them that your really seeing Guillermo's thought process as he's planning the film and as he's shooting it, a very cool feeling that sadly is becoming more and more rare on Blu-Ray releases these days as big special edition releases are cast aside in favor of streaming extras and retailer exclusives that just end up pleasing no one.

That's all for the first disc but before I tell you about the second disc I have to make mention that anytime you stop the film and take the disc out, the next time you put it back in your machine an option will come up allowing you to resume where you left off, a very nice touch.

Now then, onto disc 2.

The second disc (with Striker Eureka on the disc art, Gypsy Danger is on the feature disc) is full of high quality extras that delve deeper into the experience and combined with the commentary and featurettes on the first disc, help to make for a very nice package.

The first extra here is "The Director's Notebook": An interactive feature containing a reproduction of Guillermo Del Toro's notebook during his planning stage for the film.

Inside you will find sketches and text notes as well as icons that will translate part of the Spanish text as well as give you access to some very cool art galleries (one of which contains propaganda posters) as well as some further video featurettes that are extremely cool (my favorite of which concerns a temple carved out of the remains of a Kaiju head the interior of which couldn't be shot due to budget constraints).

Again what was cool about this feature was taking you inside Guillermo's planning process and how he went about creating the world the film exists in, this kind of detail is just remarkable I think and it makes this feature absolutely worth checking out.

Next comes a couple of featurettes:

The first of these is called "The Drift Space", a 5 and a half minute featurette that breaks down the film's drift sequences so more back-story about the characters can be told, a very cool feature that reveals some neat stuff about the history but it's doubtful you will watch this featurette more than once but hey I'm glad it's here.

The other is easily the better of the two and that is "The Digital Artistry of Pacific Rim", a 17 minute featurette about the creation of the film's digital effects of which there were many and the way in which Guillermo helped supervise their creation.

This was a really cool featurette as it shows Guillermo hard at work directing the effects supervisors as if he was directing his actors on the sets, the fight sequences and overall digital effects work in this film was nothing short of amazing, arguably the best CGI I've ever seen created for a feature film and Guillermo's eye for detail is a large part of that and it was very nice to see how it was created here.

From there we go to what could arguably be my favorite extra on this entire set and that is "The Shatterdome."

What is inside the Shatterdome, well what is here is a big collection of art galleries ranging from the Kaiju, the Jaegers and down to the costumes and environments as well as housing a few animatic sequences for some of the big scenes in the film.

The artwork that Guillermo and his team created for the film is nothing short of amazing and it really shows you not only the scope and size of the film that he had in mind for it but also in the case of the Jaegers it shows you the various details of just how these big machines work, all the various nooks and crannies that connect it together and it really makes you believe that these robots have a functionality to them and aren't just a walking talking scrap heap like in the recent Transformers movies.

I loved going through this section and it is absolutely worth the time to do so.

Next comes a small selection of deleted scenes which total about 4 minutes, these are primarily character based moments and are of nice value but I can see why Guillermo cut them.

And sadly this is the only area of the disc set where I have any real gripe to make as Guillermo was quoted in interviews saying that he had cut about 30 minutes in total out of the film and that all of it would be on the Blu-Ray release, sadly that hasn't happened here and it's a real shame as without that, the set feels incomplete.

And lastly we get a small blooper reel containing the standard stuff blooper reel extras have so there's not much to see here and it's doubtful you'll watch this extra more than once.

The Verdict:

Pacific Rim gets first class treatment on Blu-Ray and for me it's one of my favorite releases on the format so far for the film is terrific, the Audio and Visual quality is of the highest grade and the extras are genuinely insightful despite the disappointment about the deleted scenes.

If you are a fan of this film, do not hesitate to pick it up when you get the chance, you won't be disappointed.

Film Review - Captain Phillips (2013)

Based off a true story in 2009, Captain Phillips stars Tom Hanks as the aforementioned captain whose cargo ship is hijacked by Somalia Pirates led by Muse (Barkhard Abdi) and his terms of ransom will be high as will be the stakes for the Captain's rescue.

I went into Captain Phillips with very mixed expectations as while it looked like an interesting thriller, the preview for this film really put me off with his BWAAAAMMMPPPP noises and fast cutting and I thought "this doesn't look all that good" but I became curious as to whether I was being mislead by a bad preview which can be the case at times and that the film itself might be good.

Well as it turned out to be the case, the film went straight down the middle for me, don't get me wrong it was much, much better than I thought it would be mainly due to Paul Greengrass's direction and the solid performances by Hanks, Abdi (he is the real star of this film) and the nicely surprising appearance by Max Martini from Pacific Rim and I certainly did smile when he showed up.

But alas I wasn't really all that engaged for a large chunk of the film, it's well made, the climax is very tense but as I think more about it I get this feeling of "Eh, it was alright and I was glad I went and saw it but at the same time it was just straight down the middle.", it's probably the best I can explain that feeling but that was honestly how I felt throughout a lot of this movie.

So to wrap this one up, Captain Phillips is worth seeing for its terrific climax and solid performances from the two key leads but for me it was very much a straight down the middle thriller, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - About Time (2013)

About Time is directed by Richard Curtis and stars Domnhall Gleeson as Tim, a man who learns from his father (Bill Nighy) that he has the ability to travel through time, an experience he comes to learn well and hopes it will make him lucky in love, though he has no idea what will be in front of him.

I went into About Time very hopeful as the premise of it being a Sci-Fi romance movie reminded me in some way of the first Terminator movie which at its heart was a Sci-Fi romance as well as Arnold walking around killing a bunch of people but that's that movie, did this one deliver the goods?

Right-a-Rooney it did, I thought this was a very charming film with some nice heart to it and good performances by Gleeson, Nighy and Rachel McAdams who is better than I've seen her be in some time in this role, I also really liked the time travel premise the film develops and the rules that govern it and had me thinking a little bit about it after the film was over.

However the film is not without its faults and the main one is that it's too long and at a certain point in the film I began to get a little impatient and started to check my watch on a few occasions, if you had pretty well cut out the stuff with the kids for the most part then the film would've been much more manageable and maybe, just maybe the ending might have had a little more emotional impact.

So yeah despite that small flaw, About Time is a well made and touching rom com that is well worth seeing, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Rush (2013)

Rush is directed by Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt and Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda, both fierce rivals on the Formula 1 circuit in the 1970's, a rivalry that can prove deadly.

I went into Rush with very high expectations as I really loved the documentary Senna from 2011 and this film looked terrific from the previews I saw, did it hit pole position or crash out on the track?

Well, not only did it hit pole position but it came first at the finish line, I really loved this movie almost from start to finish, I thought Howard's direction had a vitality to it that his early work like Cocoon had and didn't feel limp and ridiculous like his Da Vinci films did, Hemsworth was great I thought and confirmed my view that he has become the new Mel Gibson and Bruhl was more than his equal as Lauda and the scenes between the two of them are terrific.

The other thing I really liked was how it recalled the era of the 1970's, an era that I'm very fond of and some of the songs that were used in the soundtrack really got my attention, one of those being "Gimme Some Lovin" which was also used in Days of Thunder, I also thought Olivia Wilde was surprisingly good in her small role, proving that she actually can act as well as be a pretty face.

So all in all, Rush was everything I hoped it would be and more and will surely be one of my favourite films of the year, a definite must see, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Gravity (2013)

Gravity is the new film from director Alfonso Curaron and stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as a pair of astronauts working on a satellite when word of a Russian attack comes through and causes an accident that leaves them adrift in space and struggling to get home.

I went into Gravity with very high expectations as I am a big Sci-Fi fan and like hearing the clarion call of the trumpet I felt compelled to heed the call and go and see it the first chance I could but alas upon release that chance didn't come.

But now the time had come when I could finally get my chance to go and see this film and as I held my ticket and waited for the film to start, I began to get more and more impatient "enough of this, give me the film I have waited for." I thought and did it deliver?

Like hell it did, this is both a terrific and terrfying sci-fi flick that is also for my money one of the year's best films, Bullock and Clooney are at near career best form here, both play off each other very well and Bullock nicely surprises in terms of handling the more dramatic scenes with ease and I also liked Ed Harris's very small role as well.

But the real star of this film is Curaron and he extracts EVERY. SINGLE. BREATH. out of his audience with his opening scenes of wonder at the world below that then seamlessly transition to moments of pure terror that had me on the very edge of my seat and feeling a little bit faint at times during the film and I was certainly very happy to breath the free air again afterwards.

But to extend on the tension of the film, Curaron also plays on the fears people have in life very well, fears of disaster, closed environments, fire and doom are fears people hold in their life in one way or another and this movie exploits those brilliantly, at times I thought I was watching a Sci-Fi/Horror film as the fear it creates is so well handled that you really feel it in a big way.

So all in all Gravity is a terrific and terrifying cinema experience that I am more than happy to recommend to anyone up for the ride but like a roller coaster some may feel bouts of sickness afterwards so please keep that in mind, 4 out of 5.

Roadshow Home Video: The Next Generation

For a while now I've written columns about my fond memories for certain VHS brands here in Australia, first was the big R Roadshow releases that existed from 1982 to 1985 and the other was for CEL cassettes that existed mainly in the mid to late 80's.

But this one is for one that to me is very special and that is for the next incarnation of Roadshow Home Video cassettes, the next generation as it were when it first came into being in late 1985 under the Village Roadshow banner with the big yellow V and the Terminator-esque music that accompanied it.

My fondness for this particular brand began in my younger years when I saw a copy of the Roadshow cassette of the UK Thriller Hennessy with the late Rod Steiger in my house, you could say it was love at first sight for me as I would think about it during the day at school as well as the top sticker on the tape which had a small blue version of the V on it, can still remember an ad for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" that showed before the movie began.

Though that particular tape would fade away over time (hey the DVD revolution made short work of a lot of tapes so I'm not the only one) my love of the Village Roadshow cassettes became more and more fond as the years rolled on with releases like Robocop 2, Basic Instinct (which previewed Romper Stomper and Fortress, two of the first Roadshow Entertainment titles), Maid to Order, Rebel which has become a rare title over the years and many others.

In 1986 Roadshow did something very cool on some of their releases, two of those were Rebel mentioned above and Sky Pirates ("Indiana Jones and the Temple of Crap" according to its director John Lamond) and that is after the movie they had a little short movie on there which I thought to be a pretty cool way for short film makers to get their work seen in a big way so major kudos for that short lived venture.

Part of that fondness also extended to the spin off labels created around that same time, one of those was Premiere Home Entertainment which had a brilliant opening and closing logo with booming orchestral music, an outer space setting and a laser that reminded me of the Death Star.

And again like Hennessy my fondness also comes from my early youth and a copy of Eddie and the Cruisers 2 that was in my house at the time and was released under the Premiere label and since then I'd never forgotten the logo described above.

And again as with the Village Roadshow releases that fondness would grow over time for the Premiere releases with titles like Truly, Madly, Deeply, The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren, Death Before Dishonor which had a special double sided cover and was directed by Terry Leonard who worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blood Simple the debut film by the Coen Brothers which had a brilliant trailer at the time.

And so, that is my column talking about my love and fond memories for Village Roadshow Video tapes, it's a brand that I hold dear when I think about that era and I'm sure others do too.

Film Review - Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

The third entry in the Mad Max series, this story sees Max (Mel Gibson) come across Bartertown where his possessions have been taken after they're stolen by Jebediah the Pilot (Bruce Spence) while there he runs into Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and after he runs afowl of her finds himself banished where a group of children find him and see him as their saviour to take them to their Promised Land of the Tomorrowmorrow.

Having been a massive fan of the first two Mad Max films I was very keen to sit down and watch the third film again after a few years since my last showing, the first two for me are very much 5 out of 5 films if there ever were any and are the only two films I've seen that have come close to rivalling the Star Wars Trilogy as my favourite films, could this one have any real chance of measuring up?

Well it doesn't to be honest as this third film really meanders around the place in terms of telling its very thin storyline that doesn't really feel like a fully formed film but more of a collection of 3 short films that make up the whole somehow:

The first of these "Bartertown" is probably the best of the three but not by much as its main fight sequence whilst decent enough just felt very out of place in what I would call a Mad Max movie, I mean almost all of the action in the first two films was set in high speed pursuits out on the open road just as the Goose says in Mad Max 1 "See you on the Road like we saw the Nightrider" I mean that is what should have happened here and not this hand to hand fight that as I said is okay but feels very out of place in this series.

The second of these "The Tribe of Lost Children" is where the film virtually dies and it feels like Steven Spielberg took over the director's chair from George Miller in this part of the film though to be frank if he had directed the whole movie then I wouldn't have been in the least bit surprised by that as it feels a lot more like something he would do with Harrison Ford, hell you could've swapped Gibson for Ford in this movie and have it be "Indiana Jones and the Tribe of Lost Children" and again you would not notice the difference.

And finally the last segment which is the climactic chase sequence is frankly a fucking rip off to every Mad Max fan that watches this film as not only does it feel like an afterthought (you know something folks we'd better have a big chase scene for all the Mad Max fans out there because the truth is the other films had them) but it feels VERY VERY VERY anti climatic to the point where you begin to feel ripped off afterwards.

And as for Bruce Spence well he's barely in the damn thing, he shows up at the beginning of the film and then he's tossed aside until there's 10 minutes left in the full film and given the key role he played in the last film, again it feels like a rip off for the fans to do this and as for Turner well she's decent enough but almost completely forgettable and when compared to the Nightrider, the Toecutter and the Lord Humongous who were the chief villains in the first two films it feels gravely disappointing.

But then again this whole movie has that feeling permeating all through it, no doubt caused in a large part by the absence of producer Byron Kennedy who sadly passed away before this film was made and given how vital his role was to the success of the first two films, his absence is felt all throughout this movie as both Gibson and director George Miller don't seem to have their heart in this film at all and you can see it written on Mel's face at times especially during the final chase scene, it's very very sad that the series ended in this manner and hopefully the fourth film due next year will set things back on track.

So all in all, I cannot recommend Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome as much as I would like to with all of my being given how big a fan of the first two films I am but I cannot do that as it feels very thin story wise and film wise feels more like 3 separate films rather than 1 complete one and given how focused and fast paced the first two were this feels like a big step down, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - White House Down (2013)

White House Down stars Channing Tatum as Cale, a police officer who dreams of a job with the US Secret Service protecting the President (Jamie Foxx) who makes a vow to withdraw all US troops from the Middle East but during a tour of the White House with his young daughter, the place is attacked Die Hard style.

White House Down was for me, a very fun time at the movies, mainly due to some smart writing by James Vanderbilt and solid direction by Roland Emmerich who also made the Day After Tomorrow and 2012, Tomorrow I really enjoyed whilst 2012 was simply too silly for my liking though this film is a nice return to form for him.

And Vanderbilt's script is a big reason for that, it's a script that has it's quiet moments solidly written that made me think that this had been thought through to some extent whilst it's action scenes for the most part are completely silly and it's not afraid to embrace that fact which for me added to the enjoyment of the film and at times I was reminded a great deal of the first Die Hard film, especially during one scene with a Tank.

The film also has some very solid villains, for me a big big big requirement for the overall success of an action picture and this movie more than delivers on that front, notably James Woods and Jason Clarke who is excellent in this movie essentially playing the Alexander Godunov role from Die Hard (I don't want neutral, I want dead) and Woods well when I saw his name pop up I thought "This won't be good, he was the lord of the Underworld" a reference to his voice role as Hades in Disney's Hercules.

As for Tatum and Foxx well they make a pretty good duo but I would've preferred Chris Evans in Tatum's role as he embodies the all American Action Hero better than Tatum does plus Evans has more charisma and screen presence than Tatum does who is very bland here in this role though Foxx more than picks up the pace in that department and does very well as the President as does Michael Murphy, Richard Jenkins and Maggie Gyllenhall in their roles as well as Joey King who plays the daughter.

As for the film's action scenes well some of them are quite good while the film's hand to hand fight scenes are not, they're shot too close and edited too quickly so you lose track of who's who and where they are during some of them.

But sadly the action critically lacks the teeth of the post Die Hard action films it wants to be like as there is a fairly big body count piled up during this film and almost little to no blood is shown which I found hard to believe nor does it have the coarse language those films had much more of, there's some of it here but not as much as I would've liked given the kind of film it wants to be.

But this point sadly is not the film's fault but rather the US rating guidelines it has to work in, almost every big action picture has to have the PG-13 rating attached to it (the American version of our M rating) in order to bring in the biggest possible audience so that the film could bring in big box office numbers on it's opening weekend whereas if this film had indeed been made in the post Die Hard era where R rated action films were allowed to be made (some of which were rated M here in Australia, Die Hard being one of them) then this would've had the violence and language it needs to become a real winner as without those elements, the film gets a bit hollow at times and given how so much of this film works, its a real shame.

So all in all despite Tatum's blandness and some fairly hollow action in parts, White House Down is great fun due to smart writing and solid villains, well worth a look, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Kick Ass 2 (2013)

Continuing the story from the first Kick Ass film, this follow up sees Mindy aka Hit Girl (Chole Moretz) being grounded into a normal life by her step father but Kick Ass himself meanwhile (Aaron Johnson) finds himself teaming up with a new fighting force called Justice Forever headed by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) and good timing too as a new enemy calling himself the Motherfucker is about to make a big impact in their lives.

I went into Kick Ass 2 with relatively optimistic expectations based around the fact that I really enjoyed the first film, I got from that what I wanted from Iron Man 2 that year which was a fun and exciting comic book film, did the sequel deliver the goods?

Sadly not as this film for me was a very unpleasant watch and the more I've thought about it the more I begin to really hate it for that reason, the violence here is just way too much and all of it is in pretty graphic detail, there were numerous times where I just had to close my eyes and look away from the screen as it was all just too much for me to bear.

I was also reminded of the style and tone of Robocop 2 in that like that film it's dark, nasty and violent purely because it can be but the first Kick Ass film like the first Robocop film filmed its violent moments in a way that wasn't off-putting or uncomfortable to watch whereas here it was just too much.

I also didn't really enjoy the more serious tone to the storyline as it just made the more comical elements from the first film feel very out of place and in that instance I thought of last year's Super with Rainn Wilson and Kevin Bacon which was basically a deranged lunatic putting on a costume and killing people with a wrench and like that film I didn't enjoy what I was seeing one bit.

And as for Carrey as the Colonel well he just phones it in something chronic and doesn't really end up doing an awful lot anyway though Moretz is just amazing and her performance anchors this film in a huge way and her scenes were the only time I was enjoying what I was watching.

And so to wrap it up, I did not enjoy Kick Ass 2, it was too dark, too nasty and too violent for me and I was wishing the film had an R18+ rating here in Australia because of that fact whereas the first film justified it's MA15+ rating whereas here it does not, rent the first film and ignore this one, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Elysium (2013)

Elysium is the new film from the writer and director of District 9 Neil Blompkamp and the story here concerns the world's richest building a paradise space station in space to preserve their way of life from the ruins of the Earth, on this deserted world we meet Max (Matt Damon) a factory worker who may hold the key to mankind's salvation.

I went into Elysium with very mixed expectations as while I really enjoyed District 9, the previews for this film made me cringe in a very bad way, playing out like a bad class warfare of rich vs. poor in the future Ughh, give me a fucking break, I did however become more hopeful that this was simply bad advertising and that the film itself would deliver the goods, would this be the case?

Sadly not as quite frankly this movie was pathetic for reasons I will now list in more detail:

Firstly the tone of this movie is all over the place, parts of it play out as very serious, parts of it are very violent, parts of it play out as laughable and parts of it also border on being cartoonish, there is no real sense of a consistent tone to the film and its storyline which I found to be that heavy handed that I just sat there bored for the most part and walking out of the cinema with a long face thinking "This was from the same man that made District 9, pathetic"

The second point is the performances which again are all over the place, Alice Braga stands out as Frey but the rest are nowhere near as good, Damon is a bore in the lead and it made me think that anyone else could've done this part hell Idris Elba would've been a better fit which left me baffled the more I thought about it, Foster is simply wasted in her role and Copley goes so far over the top I just started laughing at him whenever he spoke, he reminded me a lot of those guest star MAD agents from Inspector Gadget like Presto Chango and The Clockmaker hell based on this performance Copley could've played the Clockmaker in an Inspector Gadget reboot.

But lastly this movie also fails at having exciting action sequences as all of them are filmed and edited in a way that makes you think it was all done in a blender as they are so frantic to watch that you lose track of who's fighting who in what space whenever this happens and as a result it severly weakens the film as a whole.

There were however two things I did like about this film aside from Braga's performance and that was the visual style and the musical score, the visuals in this film are very well done and make you believe that these worlds really exist and the music underscores the film's events nicely and lend some sort of life to them that otherwise doesn't exist.

And so it pains me to have to say this but Elysium is not worth your time and money, the film is all over the place in terms of its storyline, performances and action to be worth recommending and frankly, I expected something better than this from the man that made District 9 and as a result it's a real letdown, 1.5 out of 5.

5 Years On, Do you ever think about the Future?

The latter part of that column title is a question that dates back to the first ticks of the clock, the first sands of the Hourglass and the first beeps on our Alarms each and every day and what Jack Nicholson asked in the first Batman film by Tim Burton.

Do you ever think about the Future?

Well myself personally, I have for the last few months as this month marks the 5th anniversary of my commencing reviewing movies and writing columns about them in ways such as fond remembrances and tributes to those who are no longer with us and that I was fond of.

And in that I have thought about the 5 years I've been doing this and also asking myself: Have you gotten any satisfaction from doing it, do you still enjoy doing it, does it still make you smile to be sitting in a cinema chair and enjoying the experience of the moment before the pre show starts?

Well it's been hard to say yes to that primarily due to the fact that I've felt like I've been going in circles doing it as very little for me seems to have changed since I started.

Well sort of, if anything it's been more of a case of one step forward, two steps back as in that time as I'll outline below:

The first and what has to be the most obvious for me is the fact that my local cinema has closed twice in the past 18 months, the first closure was in mid to late 2011 due to low business sales and lack of attendance which made me a little sad as it was at that time the easiest route for me to access new release films even if they came a good 3-6 months late for the most part.

Well it didn't stay closed for long as new ownership came in at the end of 2011 and gave it as much of a spit shine as they could, putting in a bigger screen, more speakers, a new projector less likely to break down and even going some way to put in new heating systems and new seats that actually had drink holders in them.

But this work was not completed as 2012 progressed and while there was a minor surge in attendance, there didn't seem to be a great deal of change in that front, the last film I saw there was Taken 2 which came at the same time as the rest of the country but only had a very small handful of people there at my session despite huge ticket sales elsewhere in the country.

Meanwhile, a part of me began to get very skeptical as to whether my newly refurbished cinema could succeed but people around me kept saying "Give it time and money and it will do okay" and at first I dismissed it but as the months rolled on I began to think "Maybe they're right, maybe once they get their hands on a digital projector then things will turn around" as during last year a lot of cinemas began converting to digital projection and as a result they got prints of films a lot quicker.

Plus the new James Bond film Skyfall was right around the corner and I was being reassured that it would come to my local, after all its Bond you'd have to be mad not to book it.

But on November 1st of 2012 that changed.

For what happened that day was that my local cinema closed for a 2nd time and it was the end, hold your tears and count to 10, feel the sadness and then, hear my heart break again for Skyfall was so so close and my excitement for the film had begin to build in a big way but alas I would have to travel to go and see the film.

What made things worse was that many people I knew were to see the film that day and for me this was the salt being rubbed in the wound in a big way which did not make me any happier I must admit.

Which brings us now to 2013 and the next three reasons I have thought about the future:

The first of these is the now required travelling to go and see new releases films which adds a 3 hours there and back again in order to get to my nearest cinema which can be both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing in that I can see a film in a nice-ish environment without any of the problems that plagued my local the entire time I went there but a curse in that it limits the time I can head to a film as the sessions have to be within an 11am-4pm slot which can sometimes turn out not to be the case.

The 2nd reason has been that this year's lineup of films has been pretty weak and up until the record breaking success of Iron Man 3 had not been particularly good at the box office, hell with the exception of Man of Steel it may be the only decent performer at the box office this year with most of the big films failing to catch on with audiences and the smaller stuff not getting much of a release into cinemas so most film goers don't get much of a chance to see them until their out on DVD.

Plus the third and final reason is that my local cinema now has no chance of coming back as a local church which shared the building bought it out for their own purposes, probably not as sad as when it closed but at the very least when it was refitted it gave me a chance to catch up with some new releases when I didn't particularly feel like travelling to go and see them as well as see some like Ben Affleck's Argo in a cinema one last time but that chance is gone now and there ain't much I can do about that.

As you can no doubt imagine, these reasons have had me thinking pretty long and hard about whether I want to continue reviewing films anymore given that there are now some pretty big hoops to jump through now to see new release movies.

But there are still a few months left of this year and some movies that I'm pretty excited about such as:

- Elysium: The new Sci-Fi flick from the director of District 9 which I still hope will be good despite some terrible previews for the film.

- Gravity: Another new Sci-Fi flick this time from Alfonso Curaron the director of Children of Men which I was not a big fan of but I'm still keen for this one.

- Thor the Dark World: The new Marvel film which looks promising somewhat from the preview I've seen but hopefully I will find it more enjoyable than I found Iron Man 3 and the first Thor movie.

- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: I really liked the first one and the preview for this one left me looking promised that this one would be good to, here's hoping it delivers the goods.

- And lastly the new Jack Ryan film directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring the new Captain Kirk Chris Pine who I think is a worthy successor to Alec Baldwin in the role of Dr. Ryan, I hope sincerely that he delivers the goods.

Those would probably be my top 5 heading towards the end of the year, will those be enough to guarantee a 6th anniversary from me in 12 months time or may I decide that after December enough is enough, I've done this now for 5 years and gone in circles as a result while others around me have had more success and until I myself can change the situation where I do have much easier access to new release films, well let me just say this Only Time will Tell.