Wood Green Cineworld 21:10 Saturday 12 May 2012
Mexico is a tough place: very so often there is a horrifying news story from the ongoing battles between various drug barons and the authorities. I'm relieved that I firmly resisted a former friend's attempts to persuade me to cross the border to Tijuana when on holiday in California in 2009. In this film an American criminal crosses that border in an unorthodox way, by crashing through the border fence, with a stack of cash in his vehicle. On spotting the money the Mexican police insist he's dealt with by them, and he sardonically narrates the trials and tribulations of trying to survive in 'El Pueblito' which translates as 'the little town'. The wealthier prisoners pay for their whole family to stay with them and so there is all kinds of activity going. Mel Gibson plays 'The driver', the hapless US inmate, whose accomplice dies in the border crash, and who ends up solo in what he describes as the world's worst shopping mall. He tackles the steep learning curve, required for survival, with alacrity, and whilst he learns how to dodge and even manipulate the thugs who . Whilst initial finding it depressing, as I thought more about the 37,000 people that have been killed in something akin to a civil war in real life Mexico this had many lighthearted moments and an interesting, if perhaps unrealistic, development of the story, as the driver befriends a 10 year old boy and his mum and gets new reason to get the upper hand on some of the corrupt individuals who hold some control. 83%

Bexleyheath Cineworld 21:00 Friday 11 May 2012
I thought this was great fun. Johnny Depp stars as Barnabus Collins, whose family sails from Liverpool to New England in 1760 to set up a fishing port that they name Collinsport. A spurned would-be lover, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) casts a spell which kills his parents, curses the woman he loves to take a deathly backwards plunge from a cliff and after turning him into a vampire persuades the townspeople to bury him alive. The rest of the story is set in 1972 when construction workers uncover Barnabus's grave and he's able to escapes. I really enjoyed the soundtrack and the humourous plot as the 18th century man learns to live in the modern world. For me and by the sound of it, much of the audience it sustained a 'laugh a minute' at times. I especially liked the performances of Helena Bonham Carter as a doctor in residence at the dysfunctional family's mansion, and Chloë Grace Moretz as the sulky teenager, who is singularly unimpressed by the ancestral arrival. Oh, yes, there's Alice Cooper too. I'm not a big follower of vampire stories but there's isn't much blood and it's one of the few I really could watch over and over again. It's probably also now my favourite of Tim Burton films. 89%

Haymarket Cineworld 20:45 Tuesday 8 May 2012
This is really good. Set in a posh Dublin hotel around the turn of the last century it features excellent acting, especially by Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska and Janet McTeer. Ms Close plays the titular character who works as a waiter, and whose big secret is uncovered when he is asked to share his bed with someone else working at the hotel. Considering that it's only in recent decades that trans people have won equal rights in employment and many other areas of the law, it's not surprising that times were tough for anyone attempting to live in the gender they feel comfortable with. In the end credits I noticed that there was some use of computer graphics: there is a mention of matchmoving which I presume was used for a scene on a beach, but I'm curious in case it was used throughout to make gender-specific movement look more realistic. I liked listening to the Irish accents, one in particular reminded me of a friend I haven't heard from for a while, and it was interesting to observe similarities and differences in behaviour and attitudes relating to the class system in the hotel business.

It's is a emotionally captivating story with some interesting twists, that shows how desperately difficult life was for everyone in the late 1890s, with no welfare state and with typhoid fever sweeping Ireland threatening people's lives and their livelihoods. 89%.

Shaftesbury Avenue 21:10 Monday 7 May 2012
The gross out humour continues from where it left off all those years ago. I did find it funny: it probably helps that there has been a significant gap so that there is plenty of seams of humour to tap. The reunion happens over a long weekend so there are three nights of partying and a daytime lakeside scene. The characters have archetypal traits that provide reminders of school and university days  and the group of friends have grown on me and become likeable through familiarity in the same way of the lads and lasses of the 'Inbetweeners Movie'. Of course, to keep pace with changing technology there are many references to social networking and it's amusing to see how they have attempted to adapt to adult life. I probably could have done with seeing the original American Pie films as I couldn't clearly recall some of the back references. 87%

Shaftesbury Avenue Cineworld 16:10 Saturday 5 May 2012
This is the story of a soldier who seeks out a woman whose photo he finds on the battlefield. Zac Effron plays the ex-marine who wants to thank Taylor Schillings character for the photo that saved his life but thinks don't turn out quite like that. He becomes entangled emotionally in her life, before he can explain how he met her. She's single mother with a young son and her ex is still very possessive so there's a lot of romantic drama emotional angst. It has similarities to films like Dear John and Brothers - a bit too much treacle but watchable. 73%

Bexleyheath Cineworld 21:00 Friday 4 May 2012
Another action thriller full of chases and intense violence. I don't tire of Jason Statham but he does play very similar hard-man roles. Perhaps he's showing his softest side at the start where he sheds a tear, and after being beaten up by former co-workers in the police force, he contemplates suicide. On the train platform a highly intelligent eleven-year old girl tries to hide from a gang of men: she's been kidnapped and brought from China to New York City because of her ability to remember very long numbers. Statham boards the train they all get on and uses his immense cage fighting skills to overpower them and save Mei. On it goes, back and forth in the usual fashion. I wasn't greatly impressed; it was watchable but I didn't find a huge amount of originality in the script. Apart from the young girl and her brief mentor the film features hardly any women. As with many action films the editing of the fights is so fast you cannot really work out what's happened. Such a hard-nosed world. 68%

Wood Green Cineworld 19:10 Monday 30 April 2012
A thrilling futuristic prison siege drama set in a maximum security space in orbit above the Earth. It starts of with an ultra-aggressive scene in which Guy Pearce's character, Snow, is taking serious punches to the face from his interrogator's sidekick thug. I'm surprised it's rated 15 in the UK and PG13 in the USA considering the beatings and shootings but it appears that censors are more concerned with sexual references which are kept to a minimum. I do end up wondering though: in real-life Snow would probably be too brain damaged to take on the hero role in a special mission in MS1 space-based penitentiary when the inmates overpower their captors. Stakes are particularly high as the president's daughter, Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) is on a humanitarian mission, checking that prisoners aren't been abused or tortured. I liked both her character and Snow's but they clash heavily because of his chauvinistic attitudes which is where most of the dialogue-based humour is derived. There were enough twists, turns and skin of the teeth moments to keep my full attention: more often than not I shy away from sci-fi, especially when set in a space environment but, despite a couple of cheesy moments and fairly unoriginal futuristic chase-scenes on earth, it seemed to work well for me. 84%

Haymarket Cineworld 20:20 Saturday 28 April 2012
Kevin MacDonald's biopic of Bob Marley's life reminded me that I like more of his music than I thought. His friends and family talk warmly and fondly about the man and his songs. It covers his whole life in broadly chronological order and I felt that I learned a lot about the charismatic, magnanimous singer and the often trouble times he lived through in Jamaica. From the air it looks a beautiful island but the violence of Trench Town, the capital Kingston, especially during the political battles of the seventies, was eye opening. I came away feeling uplifted, as he was a special guy who brought messages of hope and peace. It's so tragic that he didn't seek out help for the cancer that took him at just 36 years of age. During this film I listened more closely to his lyrics and feel more enlightened about his spirit and life force which has endured the years since. 82%

Bexleyheath Cineworld 21:20 Saturday 27 April 2012
When a team of superheroes get together to save the world the result is more special effects than you can shake a stick at. That's something that doesn't hold enormous appeal for me. I went along with all the 3D effects but the only comic moments I noticed involved violence and I started t get distracted, losing some of the thread. I preferred the original stories in which the pyrotechnic fireballs and soaring, swooping fighters are interspersed with character development. Maybe the downside of seeing so many films but I sometimes find myself thinking about other films some of the actors starred in. I guess it was fun but at 2 hours 20 minutes it felt a bit on the long side too. 73%

Wood Green Cineworld 20:40 Wednesday 25 April 2012
It may have been a unsettled weekend, spent with friends down in Somerset, mainly watching DVDs, that has altered my perspective on the nature of screenplays. I felt this was a weakly scripted comedy: it raised a few laughs - even by me - but I can imagine looked better on paper than it has turned out on the screen. The book it was based almost certainly would be better, but when it comes to contemporary home-grown political satire, it pales in comparison to 'In The Loop' and 'The Thick of It'. The story weaves several strands of contemporary life in Britain and beyond: capacity of passionate campaigns to overturn policies, science versus faith, asperger's syndrome and the ongoing war in Afghanistan. I didn't find the romantic manoeuvres particularly convincing: overall it wasn't really terrible but I wanted to like the film more than I did. 71%

Haymarket Cineworld 21:10 Tuesday 24 April 2012
A charming French film in which Audrey Tatou stars as a young woman who is left heartbroken when her partner dies in a car crash. She throws herself into her work, adapting quickly to a solitary life, but after an unexpected incident she starts another relationship. It's humourous, oit features some pleasant background music and I really liked the central theme which is about challenges our lookist and judgmental culture. 82%

Shaftesbury Avenue 20:40 Friday 20 April 2012
I took a gamble on this film not being part of the slasher horror genre I try to avoid, and was pleased that it was a suspenseful thriller. The setting is Portland, Oregon, a place I'm only familiar with from a handful of interesting films and which I've travelled through on the Pacific Starlight train. I didn't know that on the western side of the city is a 5000 acre urban park: it looks huge and empty but in this film Forest Park holds an ominous secret. Amanda Seyfried stars as Jill, a feisty woman recovering from depression who suffers from flashbacks after being abducted and hidden in a remote hole by a Silence of the Lambs style killer.  It reminded me of a real-life crime programme I once saw about an awful kidnapping that didn't have a happy resolution in Staffordshire in the mid-seventies.

When Jill's sister, Molly goes missing, she assumes the worst, but in't able to convince the police, who don't trust her because of her mental health history. When she starts her own investigation, she sets in train a gripping cat and mouse chase across the city, relying on her wit, her creative ability to think on her feet and concoct plausible stories. It enjoyable labyrinth of twists through city, forest and dialogue. 86%

Haymarket Cineworld 21:15 Monday 16 April 2012
A thoroughly gripping Norwegian action film. Roger Brown is a art thief who uses his supposed profession as a front to inveigle unwitting victims. By interviewing prospective employees he harvests the relevant information to burgle their homes and steal their precious artefacts. In the opening narrative he explains that sooner or later he would stumble upon a painting so valuable that he could retire. Alternatively, he would get caught, and for this reasons he is exteremly surreptitious. Neverthless, one day his wife introduces him to a detective who is investigating the sp[ate of thefts. I did not find him a particularly sympathetic character, and felt he would deserve everything coming, but the nasty behaviour of other characters and his ability to deal with a full on assault of a different kind of high tech headhunting helped to change my perspective. It's a creative and original adrenaline-fuelled story that held my attention throughout. 90%

Wood Green Cineworld 20:30 Sunday 15 April 2012
Continuing the watery theme after Titanic I went to see the special effects fest that is Battleship. I was pleasantly surprised as I'm not a huge fan of CGI, especially the amount that appears in this type of films but I liked it more than I expected. The story may not be entirely plausible as it follows two brothers, Stone and Alex Hopper. Alex, the younger one who is a probably considered a loser by the Stone: he's celebrating his birthday in a bar at the start of the film and takes desperate measures to attract the attention of a beautiful woman. The stunt goes wrong, and although it's daring enough to make an impression on her, it turns out she is the daughter of Stone's boss in the Navy. Somehow Alex makes it into the Navy himself, and ut's during exercises in Hawaii at 'RIMPAC' that extra-terrestials strike. Despite, or perhaps because of his flaws, Alex's character is quite likeable: he's capable of the hard work required but lost and easily distracted in terms of motivation. The alien enemy have responded to signals sent by humankind and it looks like they will play Columbus's colonialising role on Earth with fearsome tank-track fireball shaped smart weapons and Exocet style missiles. It's a battle that requires team work by various groups of characters. Entertaining enough - and I noted the director's name Berg seemed appropriate as a follow-on to seeing the Titanic. 76% 

Wood Green Cineworld 16:45 Sunday 15 April 2012
I didn't see this when it was first released in the cinemas but watched in on television about 10 or 11 years ago. I'm not sure how films at retrofitted into 3D but James Cameron's decision to do so provided me with the opportunity to see Titanic exactly one hundred years ago to the day of the sinking. I'd forgotten much of the story but it does provide strong emotive hooks to capture the audience. There is plenty of human drama and tension leading up to the collision with the iceberg as Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet get to know each other. As usual I've become way too accustomed to 3D to notice how much it enhances the existing special effects but I was engrossed in the fight for survival between the wealthy and poor. Moreover, I had plenty of thoughts about the unfairnesses described when the economic equivalent of the Titanic hit its iceberg in the 'Inside Job' is applied on the calm starry waters of the North Atlantic 95 years earlier. 82%

Watched film on DVD
Packed with information from the get-go, this film analysis the circumstances that led to the on-going financial crisis of the last five years. Although it ends on a note of possible hope - that we need to find a way of fighting the problem it's overwhelmingly disturbing, like the crisis itself. It's a cautionary tale about levels of corruption that large companies and the powerful, wealthy  people who run them, are able to create the rules and lean heavily on anyone who dares to challenge them. One crucial element was preditory lending and the way investment banks organisied many loans into Collateralised Debt Obligations which were rated as AAA by the credit ratings agencies. The film explains how, in the late 1990s, Brooksley Born, then chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) attempted to pass legislation to regulate derivatives but these were opposed by other financiasl regulators who eventually got their way, passing legislation that prevented regulation. The film is split into five parts, explaining the history of post-war American economics, in particular from the deregulation of the 1980s, through the presidencial eras of Clinton and Bush when it everything really got out of hand. The same names crop up over and over: the prime movers who appear to have brought the financial system crashing down around our ears. The story starts in Iceland and is focused on the USA perspective and I think it would be interesting to see what has been happening in Europe as successive nation states, especially  Greece, Italy, Spain on what is known as the periphery of the Eurozone, have lost their previous good credit status and face great uncertainties and increasingly swingeing cuts. 85%

Bexleyheath Cineworld 20:50 Friday 13 April 2012
Full of action, this film stars Henry Cavill as Will Shaw, the son of a CIA agent whose who family gets caught up in their father's intelligence manoeuvres whilst on a sailing trip off the Spanish coast. Shaw's father, played by Bruce Willis, has taken a briefcase containing valuable and embarrassing for the USA and so there is a conflict between authorities that lead to the usual action movie car chases and gun fights. The script is creative with elements in the story, such as the way Will falls from a great height that I thought were innovative: certain events and actions leads to clumsy and messy consequences and through this it feels more realistic and exciting. It is very violent though and I do wonder about the high tolerance of physical harm that characters take. I liked the setting of Spain: it's interesting to see various locations of the Spanish capital. 82%

Shaftesbury Avenue 21:10 Thursday 12 April 2012
When the cinemas screen family-orientated films at 9pm I assume they are designed to appeal as much to adults who aren't accompanying children. That certainly appears the case tonight when the auditorium was fairly full. It was an entertaining update of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Using Mark Kermode's rule of thumb in which a film that makes you laugh six times qualifies as a comedy, this films witty scripting certainly succeeded. I especially liked Prince Alcott puppy love scenes: Armie Hammer's spellbound portrayal had me in stitches. Plenty of light-hearted, creative fun. 76%.

Bexleyheath Cineworld 21:30 Tuesday 3 April 2012
Not mind kind of film, but the only one available at a time that suited my meeting up with a friend. The saga of warring Greek Gods continues from Clash of the Titans, with Sam Worthington's Perseus engaging in a battle to rescue his father Zeus. As humanity loses it's faith in the Gods and stop praying, the Gods lose their power, but Perseus' half-man, half-God status proves to be an advantage. There were a few too many special effects for my liking, with just a handful of them creating much of an impression for me. I find the hellish landscapes of collossal wars depressing to watch and only really worthwhile if there is a historical significance that I feel worth learning about. Especially as a Titans sequel, this was too much make-believe for me to care about enough. So, although this was filmed in interesting locations like Patagonia, El Teide on Tenerife and the Brecon Beacons this received a low mark from my friend at 4/10 and from me at 49%.

Haymarket Cineworld 18:45 Monday 2 April 2012
I'm not sure what to make of this film, except it left me feeling a little despondent. It is set in 1890, which I gather was in the middle of what was considered a special, wonderful time in Paris: La Belle Époque. Robert Pattison stars as an amibitious man who lands himself a job writing for a press journal about his experiences in the Algerian War. The spotlight is on his relationship with several women, and the striking double standards between the genders back then. Before long, the idea of it as a golden era has faded. 65%

Shaftesbury Avenue 21:25 Saturday 31 March 2012
I've seen a good handful of these dance films in recent years: I can remember a little about the final parts of the various franchises Streetdance 1, Step Up 1, 2 & 3 and Honey 1 & 2, but the stories blend into each other with their similar stories. Hunky guy meets beautiful girl and they struggles through adversity towards hopeful triumph in the showdown dance battle finale. I like the spectacular dancing and the pumping soundtracks, but during the quieter scenes I am aware of that some of the small audience is getting bored when they sigh and yawn. There are a few humourous, original scenes in this such as an Western style hot chilli eat-off, and, it had an exotic flavour when the American dancer (Falk Hentschel, whom I've read is German) who provides the introductory narrative, and who leads the street dancing posse meets a sassy Latin dancer Eva (Sofia Boutella) who teaches him Salsa. Also after starting in London, the film involves a recruitment travelling montage across Europe, and then the bulk of it is set in Paris. 71%

Shaftesbury Avenue 21:00 Thursday 29 March 2012
I heard second-hand that this had poor reviews, so wasn't in a great hurry to watch it, but with sufficiently lowered expectations I was pleasantly surprised. The plot is not lame, it is suitably intricate without being so over complicated it's hard to follow. Mark Wahlberg plays a former smuggler, Chris Farraday,, who is co-erced back into the game when his brother in-law botches a job and finds himself in deep trouble with a drug-smuggling thug. Extricating his whole family from the threats is no mean feat, and he takes on a daring task of bringing a large amount of cash from Panana. There are some exciting twists and turns as the suspicious captain of the container ship his team travel on doesn't trust Farraday at all. Don't expect anything to high brow, but it's a thrilling ride with a fair few skin of the teeth developments that kept the atmosphere tense and left me guessing on possible outcomes. 73%

Wood Green Cineworld 20:30 Monday 26 March 2012
I wasn't fond of the pre-release hype but I really liked the actual film. I wasn't particularly impressed by the trailer which I first saw screened before Christmas. It seemed a strange concept, an unpleasant dystopian future which reminded me of 'Never Let Me Go' and' Tomorrow When the War Began'. Jennifer Lawrence stars as a young woman called Katniss Everdeen, who is a curiously similar situation to Ree in Winter's Bone: Katniss has largely taken over a mother role because her mum is weak & ineffective, and she is fiercely protective in looking after her younger sister. America has become part of the tyrannical "Panem" in which, annually, all the young people of its twelve districts are herded into a live lottery event in which a boy & girl are selected to fight against each other. Like 'In Time', we are first introduced to District 12, which is considered a resource-rich underdog region, where poor people work in mines to produce the wealth that the rich survive on. I started feeling the story shows only a slightly more extreme version of what happens in the real world we live in: the huge divides created by our money system and market capitalism.

Only one survives death in the horrific gladiator event which takes places in a large heavily forested arena, which is sadistically computer controlled. The adults who run the events are demonic and have a very strange sense of style. Meanwhile Katniss and some, but not all of her opponents are normal looking and very likeable characters. However, they find themselves in an invidious position, where they need to fight for survival and it's like an extreme version of reality television: Big Brother meets I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here with elements of The Apprentice and the X Factor thrown in. I'm aware it's based on a book which I'm sure is likely to be even more rewarding to read but the film itself is tense, thrilling, spectacular and very enjoyable. 91%

Fulham Road Cineworld 21:00 Sunday 25 March 2012
This was fun in a light-hearted, typically British way. A group of pensioners, played by the likes of Judi Dench and Bill Nighy, are offered the opportunity to live in a  in the Indian city of Jaipur where an ambitious, but disorganised young man, Sonny, has dreams of outsourcing retirement from Blighty to Rajasthan by creating a home that seniors would thrive in. There are teething troubles, indeed many obstacles in the way of a smooth start to the project. There's Sonny's overbearing mother who wants to steer him away from the girl he loves for someone else she's arranged for him. There's xenophobic Muriel (Maggie Smith) who only takes up the officer because there's a 6-month waiting list for hip-replacements back home. There are at least a couple of people who fancy their chances with others but things, of course don't turn out how they expect. There are many other hiccups that provide the  humour, which, from my point fo view was hit and miss, a little predicatable but enjoyable enough overall. It's has elements of Love Actually blended with Slumdog Millionnaire, but I thought it just about had enough originality. 75%

Shaftesbury Avenue Cineworld 21:10 Friday 24 March 2012
Another amazing film, a fictionalised account of the work of US Navy Seal's who are engaged in various missions that require a lot of courage. Before the film starts there is a short clip in which the filmmakers explain why they chose to cast real life members of the Sea Air & Land Teams. In short, not doing so would make the whole process feel false. It was exhilarating, educational and disturbing as there are people who want to cause as much mayhem and destruction as they can, and the Seals engage in combat against them. It's interesting to see compare real-life tactics with those in many political dramas and thrillers. After absorbing the content of this film it does feel like it thrives on a combination of fear and adrenaline. The fear comes from wondering how the technological arms race is forever escalating and how the phrase 'peace time' is a misnomer: the world is an incredibly violent place. Afterwards, I thought a lot about the climatic showdown depicted within tunnels close to the US-Mexican border at Mexicali. I do admire the bravery of the men and women involved, but wonder whether the human race can ever calm down a little. 90%