Truth counts in a relationship!

Title: Beautiful Lies

Year: 2010

Emilie (Audrey Tautou) runs a busy hairdressing salon, one day she receives an anonymous love letter, which she forwards on to her lonely mother Maddy (Nathalie Baye) thinking it will cheer her up. However, the sender is her maintenance-man Jean (Sami Bouajila), who sees Emilie screw up the letter and throw it away. Unbeknown to him, Emilie continues to write to her mother under the guise of an anonymous lover.

By the third letter it becomes known that Jean is in-fact a very intelligent linguist, and suddenly self concious, Emilie finds it almost impossible to be around him. Desperate to get him out of the salon for a while, she sends him to the mail. Sticking stamps on the letters he realises he's out of stamps with one letter left to post, Maddy's love letter. So he goes to post it by hand. Maddy, who is waiting with baited breath in her garden for the post snatches the letter, and follows Jean all the way back to the salon.

Emilie realises her 'good deed' has backfired, and so a line of well-meant lies are spun to avoid heartache. All the while Emilie has no idea that Jean is the sender of the original letter.

I won't spoil the ending, as I urge everyone to watch this film. In the first few scenes I was convinced it was going to be almost identical to Amelie, I mean you couldn't get two more similar names if you tried! And anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Amelie. Perhaps then it could be said I even wanted the two films to be similar. And yes, in a way they are, but Amelie and Emilie are two entirely different characters, and as usual Tautou lends herself perfectly to her role.

There were only two things that I picked up that drew me out of the action, one misspelled subtitle (sop instead of stop) and a silly shot where it looked like the camera man forgot to pan with Maddy's feet. Pedantic? Yes, undoubtedly, but that's what being on a film course does to you. It destroys the pleasure of watching a film and taking it at face value. Otherwise I felt completely rapt and immersed in the story, it had a carefree feel to it, like it was set in a blazing French summer in the 80's.

The title is very much the feel of the film, lots of lies between several very beautiful people. From the boyish femininity of Tautou (does that make any sense?) to the olive, dappled skin of Jean, and even Maddy possessed a certain mature beauty it is so easy to fall in love with this film. It has easily escalated to the top of my favourites list along with Amelie, Priceless and Angel-A. But then I've always been a fan of foreign films, and there's something to be said for the French language, it flows, a lot like Welsh, but if you'd have set this film in Cardiff and in Welsh it certainly wouldn't have the same feeling!

Another great thing about this film, is that it isn't soppy and it isn't completely far-fetched like a lot of love stories. A sign of a good film, to me at least, is the feeling of being a part of the story, an onlooker and forgetting that what you're watching has a bunch of equipment, a script and several people running around with coffee and props just yards away from the action on screen. This has as much to do with good acting as it does with a great story. It's only at the end, or during a desperate run to the bathroom that you remember you're sitting on a sofa, or in a dark room with lots of other people!

Fantastic film, a definite recommendation for any film lover. That is if you can put up with the subtitles! 10/10.

Apollo 1.....Zzzzzzz *snort* *jump* oh, sorry was I asleep?

Title: Apollo 18

Year: 2011
Synopsis: Crap.

I remember seeing the trailers for this way back when I was last at the cinema. During a trip down south just after Christmas I was in heaven....I mean HMV when Chris pointed it out. I'm a little iffy with some kinds of horrors, and I managed to miss seeing it in the cinema. THANK CHRIST! I rue anyone who had to spend the extortinate price of a cinema ticket on this piece of cinematic UBERTRASH.

Ok, so the cover is all 'based on real footage' and to be honest I was a little scared. The idea of being trapped somewhere in space where any number of things could go wrong and you would die a very lonely death is quite scary to me Anyway, I digress. There are these three blokes, I've forgotten their names but for ease I'll call them Bob, Achmed and Jib. They kiss their families goodbye for a mission they're not allowed to tell anyone they're actually going on. Cue alarm bells.

Achmed and Jib are destined for the moon while Bob keeps his beady eyes on them from the comfort of a shuttle orbiting the moon. Their mission is to collect some specimens (I think) of rock (whoooopydo!). Jib and Achmed make it to the moon fine, and around here it's ok to sleep for abour 43 minutes while shite all goes on.

Achmed and Jib have a few cameras and snazzy VHS tapes to record every tiny detail, presumably so they can show their mates back on earth and get all the renown for being giant cocks. Which they are. Anyway, they have their oh-so-important rocks all good to go when something goes wrong on take off back to the shuttle.

So, you're in space, and there's something wrong with your spacepod thingy. What do you do? Well, in real life you'd probably be half way home to earth, but in a 'horror' film one of you goes outside to investigate without a torch or any kind of weapon and it spells disaster. And oh-dear-god is it disastrous! Achmed the fool, goes outside and while Jib is pretending to be intelligent you hear screams of pain and anguish coming from outside.

'It'sinmysuit!!!!!' is all you hear for a few seconds while Achmed looks like he's wrestling an invisible crocodile. Oh! What was that!?!?!

A spider runs across his face........................................................................................................................................................................................................urght

sorry I fell asleep just remembering it.

Yes, a spider. Anyway, Jib makes some kind of heroic movements in Achmed's direction and drags him back inside. Like a traumatised infant, Achmed is convinced nothing happened till Jib realises he's pointing his camera at the ceiling and says.

'Buuuuuuuuut Aaaaaaachmeeeed yoooooooouuuuu'reeeeeeee bleeeeeeeeding!' In a derpy voice. Some impromptu surgery later, and Jib pulls out a shard of spacerock from Achmed's chest. He deteriorates quickly, muttering to himself, getting all bloodshot eyes and for some reason stands above Jib filming him while he sleeps. Weird.

During a moment of calm prior to the spider incident, Jib and Achmed go on a lovely walk over some moon-dunes and find another spaceship. A Russian one. I guess they wanted a lovely moon tea-party but were somewhat disappointed to find a fresh corpse lying near to the spaceship. Uhoh, there are those alarm bells again. Achmed and Jib hotfoot it back to their pod and demand to know if Houston knew about the Russians.

'Us? Nope we know nothing about the Russian spaceship that was sent to the moon and never came back because both cosmonaughts got eaten alive by space spiders. And no, this really isn't a suicide mission for your guys, which also has nothing to do with why you weren't allowed to tell your loved ones where you were going.'

A lot of face-palming and derps later, Achmed is losing the plot and Jib is running out of oxygen, when their moon buggy crashes and Achmed throws himself down a hole at the mother spider Jib makes a run for it to the Russian space craft in the hope of escape. By this point neither Houston nor Bob have made contact with Achmed and Jib.

Jib makes it to the Russian craft and manages to make it work, he reaches Bob who instructs him to try and take off and get near the shuttle to do a little space-walk to safety. Just then, Achmed turns up looking a little worse for wear and tries to break his way in with a hammer. Jesus Achmed, all you had to do was knock, but sadly, the spiders eat his face, he must not taste very nice though, as lots of blood ends up on the window.

I thought for a moment he'd make it, but as Jib takes off, those pesky rocks float up, and well, he gets eaten alive by hungry and apparently very territorial spiders. It's ok though, cause you see the tell-tale blood shot eyes and he's infected. Houston gets wind of their plans and tells Bob to abort or else!

Bob does not abort but Jib can't stop the pod from crashing into the shuttle. So they all die.

It pretty much ends there, apart from a few little lines about how Houston told their families they died in training exercises. Gah.

There is someone out there who is responsible for the trailer to this film. That person either needs a medal for piecing together the only coherent parts of the film, or shooting for being part of the biggest film cover-up in history. I remain undecided.

Today's lesson is: never pay full price for a new dvd. It just isn't worth it. Never again please.

-6.9/10

Horrible Bosses

Happy new year! It has been an awful long time since I posted anything but I've been quite busy with uni, Xmas, New Year and getting a puppy!

Horrible Bosses is a film I've been wanting to catch for a while. It looked good from the trailers and since Anison is one of my favourite actresses (yes, I know she's hardly Hopkins but I've liked her since Friends so shhhh :P)

There isn't much to say about this film, it was enjoyable and had a few funny moments, a couple were laugh-out-loud moments too. Three friends are plagued by their awful bosses, one is a tyrant who likes nothing more than belittling his staff, the other is a coke-head hell bent on squeezing every cent out of his late father's chemical company and the third (Aniston) is a complete nympho who crossed the line of sexual harassment long, long ago.

Fed up with their jobs and unable to find another position they drunkenly decide that hiring a hitman and killing them is their only option. Sober, the idea evolves to see them entering a shady bar in the rough end of town and meeting 'motherf*cker Jones' (so called as he stole money from his mother - just to clarify!) who diddles them for $5k to become their 'murder consultant'.

During plans to commit the murders themselves (by each murdering someone else's boss) they get caught in a tangled web of silly mistakes which eventually ends up working in their favour without anyone killing anyone else...much.

Hardly an edge of the seat experience, but those are rare for me these days at the best of times. I'd definitely recommend it for Sunday afternoon viewing as it suits most (bar young children of course).

6.9/10

First of my mini Halloween reviews.

Welcome to the first of my mini Halloween series. No expectations here please, there's dark comedy, gore, and just plain terror depending on what I choose to watch. First up is Super (2011), a dark comedy. It's another film from this recent spate of alt films, Juno, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Easy A, Whip It, to name but a few. It's refreshing to have characters who have just that, a personality.

Frank (RainnWilson) is a spineless, miserable everyday man. The two defining points of his life so far is marrying his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), and pointing a police officer in the direction of a robber. When his former-junkie wife leaves him for her boss Frank tries in vain to get her back. After an epiphany, Frank is touched by the finger of God, and decides to turn himself into a masked crusader and fight crime.

Along the way he picks up Libby (Ellen Page), an excitable comic book store clerk who figures out Frank has become the Crimson Bolt. After wearing him down, she becomes Bolty, his kid sidekick, and together they work through the thong of bad guys, drug dealers, thieves, child molesterers of the city before turning their attention to Jacques and his cronies.

This film has a few shocks, and quite a lot more gore than I had expected. Bolty's untimely demise is certainly one of them, along with some unexpected twists and turns in the plot. I was thoroughly gripped from start to finish and the film has definitely shot into my most-loved list. Great if you want a bit of gore this Halloween but are looking for a plot.

This is what Kick-Ass would look like in real life. 9/10.

The strangest sense of deja-vu!

Title: Something Borrowed

Year: 2011

Synopsis: It's a chick flick, therefore plot is fairly predictable. Friends Darcy and Rachel are like totally bffs and share everything, including Darcy's fiancee Dex who happens to be Rachel's friend from law school and someone she's been completely in love with for ever. Includes hangers on Marcus (the kid-at-heart who travels round on a skateboard and leeches onto the laydees with a pathetic story about nursing a chipmunk back to health) and Rachel's other bestie Ethan who is totally in love with Rachel too. Complicated? Not as much as it sounds.

Why are you writing a review of this terribly predictable love fest I hear you groan? Well, it's because it is an actual almost-perfect clone to the 2009 hit 'Bride Wars' it even has two of the same actors. Kate Hudson who plays Darcy, and Steve Howey who plays Marcus. Kate actually ends up with Marcus in the film, and married Steve in Bride Wars also.

The majority of the film is also based around Darcy's wedding, and she is by far the most dominant of the two friends just like BWs. Rachel, just like Emma in BWs is a pushover, who takes so much BS from Darcy/Liv until at last they both pop which results in friendships being ended over wedding issues, and of course men.

I've recently been introduced to a new concept for watching movies. It's called the Bechdel test, and it's truly eye opening, this is a woman who will only watch a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements.

1. There are at least two named female characters who,

2. talk to each other about

3. something other than a man.

This pretty much narrows it down to a handful of films, and to be perfectly honest, I break the rules with most films I watch but it certainly makes you think.

So, back to Something Borrowed. Not that there's much else to say, Darcy admits to Rachel she's cheating on Dex, who happens to be in Rachel's apartment at the same time. Sees Dex's coat on the side, finally puts two and two together and the jig is up. No wedding, Darcy is pregnant by Marcus (with whom she has been cheating) Rachel and Dex get together and poor old Ethan, (remember him? The poor bestie who is in love with Rachel - well he gets shot down) is left alone in London to dwell on the fact that he supported Rachel in her decision to pursue her dream to be with Dex.

Phew, soap opera drama or what?! Still I have to admit, if you're looking for something to pass the time, some noise in the background, or a Saturday morning flick to watch in your fleecy PJs with a bag of imported milk chocolate pretzel flips (no, of course that's not how I just watched it...) then this is probably the film for you.

A paltry and predictable love-fest, and not forgetting Kate's manic "I HATE YOU" eyes. 5/10.

This is a picture of Walter Black...

Title: The Beaver

Year: 2011
Synopsis: Walter Black is hopelessly depressed, after pills, books and professionals fail to help him he loses hope and sleeps, a lot. When he is eventually thrown out by his long-suffering wife, Walter finds a beaver puppet in a dumpster and so begins a very strange relationship between a man and his puppet.

I'm still torn over this film, the first half was so absorbing that if it wasn't for the fact that film4od was streaming slower than a dead sloth then I might have forgotten I was even watching a film. Sadly the second half was not as interesting, and I felt that the story missed its true potential. However overall I think depression was portrayed very accurately sensitively. Walter had truly hit rock bottom once he was thrown out of his marital bed, and the family home by wife Meredith (Jodie Foster - who also directed). He tries to kill himself using his tie and the shower curtain and when that fails, tries to jump off the balcony, all the time wearing the puppet on his left arm.

It's only when the puppet speaks that Walter falls (conveniently backwards) and so begins the strange hold Beaver has over Walter. The Beaver has (imo) a great voice, it is of course Mel Gibson's who speaks in a gravelly British accent, there's an instant connection between the puppet and the audience.

Depression is an illness that affects not only the sufferer but his or her loved ones, and all those that share a close connection with them. The film showed this in Walter's wife who after losing her husband to his condition, engrossed herself in her engineering work, designing rollercoasters (strange yes, but there's a very befitting scene at the end where the family are on one). His oldest son, Porter (played by Anton Yelchin) is very articulate but desperate to become anyone but his father. He sticks post-it notes to his wall listing the similarities between his father and himself and aims to eradicate them one by one. We also learn that Porter struggles to deal with his father's issues, and has covered a rather large dent in his bedroom wall. I guess we all feel like banging our heads against a wall at some point.

Walter's youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) is an outcast at school, bullied and even missed by his mother (she drives past him each time she goes to collect him from school). Porter's relationship with his father is tenuous at best, and certainly doesn't get better when the Beaver shows up. However, Henry takes to him straight away, and when Meredith finds them hard at work in the garage making a memory box, puppet or no puppet, she believes she might finally get the man she fell in love with back once more.

It's around here that the story beings to falter, there are too many ups and downs with twists and turns that the plot doesn't really need. Even so, at first the Beaver becomes a massive help to Walter, he returns to work with a plan, and a successful one at that, spurred by a late night workshop session with his younger son. Things pick up with Meredith, and I was hoping that the Beaver would melt into surplus.

Sadly, things take another turn and nose-dive. Meredith, unable to bear the fact she's living with a man who has a puppet attached to him 24/7 causes a scene at their anniversary dinner culminating with Walter walking away and this time she leaves their home with the boys to live in a flat.

All through the film the story cuts to Porter and his school-life, he writes papers for people for $200 a pop, when he's approached by Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) to write the graduation speech for their year. Turns out Porter has had a crush on her for a long time, and jumps at the chance of spending time with her. She turns out to be quite deep, certainly more so than her character gives off at first and was arrested for tagging (graffiti) around the city (hardcore!). Her brother OD'd, and she doesn't tag any more because of that. It ties in quite nicely with the depression theme, and helps to solidify the story, and as she says in her speech at the end, a lot of people lie to you by saying 'everything is going to be ok'.

Porter takes Norah to a place he found with a huge wall just waiting to be tagged. When she refuses and Porter sprays RIP Brian (her dead brother) Norah gets really angry and they argue. Things don't get better when a cop shows up and they get arrested. Talk about history repeating itself!

With Norah no longer talking to him, and a father who only communicates through a puppet it's no huge surprise that Porter too becomes depressed, doing what his father did and sleeping much of the time.

By now, Walter has reached the pinnacle of the Beaver's use, despite doing a great job of pulling his company from the brink of collapse with a construction toy with the Beaver's visage that goes global. His TV appearance, and what happens next plunges the toy into a steep decline. Walter tries to escape him by calling Meredith. However he's caught red handed and is 'beaten up' by the Beaver. It's harrowing stuff really, but I couldn't help but laugh, the puppet is actually quite comical-looking. Anyway, post-beating Walter is in his shed, building nothing other than a puppet-sized coffin. What comes next really really shocked me, I was expecting him to wrench the puppet away, and maybe bury the coffin, perhaps even set it on fire. But no, instead, Walter actually cuts off his hand! The audience doesn't actually see it, but the screams area enough.

Post surgery, Walter has a new bionic hand, and Porter has an epiphany. The end of the film centres around the poignant speech that Norah delivers, even admitting that she did not write it. Porter and his father plant the first seeds of a relationship and the film ends with them on a roller coaster.

"This is a picture of Walter Black, who had to become The Beaver, who had to become a father, so that one day this might just become a picture of Walter Black."

Very poignant stuff! And despite your opinion of Mel Gibson and recent reports, no one can fault his ability. So, despite a great start and a bit of a wobbly finish it's a bold and brave insight into the perils and dark corners of depression, and I urge anyone who wants to actually watch something different to give it a try.

A well deserved 8/10.

I laugh in the face of danger, ha ha ha haaaa!

Title: The Lion King
Year: 1994
Synopsis: Everyone knows the Lion King and Simba's story... for any of you that don't Simba is a young lion cub set to take his father's place as king of Pride Rock. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when Mufasa is murdered. Blamed for his father's death and cast out by his scheming uncle Scar, Simba flees. Out in the wilderness he meets the smelly hog Pumba, and the fast talking, enigmating Timone. Together they spend their time singing and eating bugs, but Simba is always haunted by his past. Will he ever find the courage to return to Pride Rock, face his uncle and his dirty secret?

Most have seen The Lion King, and although they won't admit it, probably know most of the songs word for word too. I know I do, but then I was borne of the generation to be brought up by Disney classics such as this. It comes as no surprise to most that I collect the classics as they're very cleverly drip-fed to us by Disney.

When I found out that TLK was being brought back to cinemas for a limited time I was pretty stoked. Given, it was in 3D and I'm not really interested in this new wave of 3D films as they do little for me, but just like Avatar, some films are worth paying for to see in 3D. And pay I did, for the two of us I got very little back out of £20. When you add in the extortionate cost of ice cream into that, the cinema has definitely become a treat instead of an option for something to do on a rainy day!

A couple of interesting points have been brought to my attention regarding this film, for an example, when Simba, Timone and Pumba are talking about what they think stars are, and Simba walks away, he slumps into the dust and sends a cloud into the air. The rumour goes that the cloud of dust spells out the word 'sex' when in actual fact it spells 'sfx' and that it was put there in purpose by the special effects team. A caged Zazu (voiced by none other than Rowan Atkinson) sings 'It's a small world after all' to which Scar yells 'NO! Anything but that!'. If you've ever visited DisneyWorld or DisneyLand Paris, and been on the very same ride, or heard the song you can understand why. It's a definite ear worm, once it's in there it doesn't go away for a very very long time.

The opening song, 'The Circle of Life' was never intended for the opening credits. Instead, the producers wanted a very heavy, but quiet narrative. But when they heard Hanz Zimmer's extended version of the song, they decided to use it instead. Great choice if you ask me! Mickey Mouse makes two appearences in the film, once as a pair of ears on a grub that Timone pulls out of the log when they're eating, and again later in a pattern of stars as Timone, Pumba and Simba are watching the stars. And talking of stars, when Simba explains he believes the stars are the Gods of the past, you can also see the constellation of Leo the lion.

When Rafiki sings 'Asante sana Squash banana, wewe nugu mimi hapana' he's actually singing 'thank you very much, squash banana, you're a baboon and I'm not'. So when Simba asks what it means and Rafiki says 'it means you're a baboon and I'm not' he's not lying!

It was the amount of research that was deemed necessary that shocked me. Animators were taken on safari to study lions in prides and they even tied a long rope to the Jeep to study cubs who would run after the slow moving vehicle to swat at the rope just like cats do. This was now the young Simba and Nala were born! While back in the studio a lion, vulture and a baboon were brought in so artists could learn how they moved, the baboon was given a staff so the animators could see how Rafiki might have moved.

I could go on all day about the interesting facts I picked up on looking into this film. But I think the fact that The Lion King was the highest grossing movie of 1994 and it still holds the record for the highest grossing traditionally animated film of all time speaks for itself. It's suitable for all ages, and never fails to get a few tears out of most.

It's one of my favourite Disney films of all time, and well deserves a solid 10/10.

Until next time, film fans.