I'll be watching Attack of the Clones today some time

Oh - and here I was thinking you were implicitly conceding the connection I drew between the ewoks, JarJar and Lucas run wild.......

I am tempted to watch Attack of the Clones now...just to jump the gun but I am in the middle of book that I am having a schizophrenic break about (so to speak)..

043. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

8/10

Rather charming, clever and extremely inventive animated movie, that starts well and just gets better and better. I like some of the great ideas in here, like the clever girl having her own protective behaviours such as hiding her own smartness, and the fact some of the characters act against how they'd act if this movie traded in stereotypes.

One of the best animated movies I've seen for a while (for its inventiveness and weird moments, like people being chased by walking roast chickens). It plays to me like the weird lovechild of Tim Burton and David Lynch, sentenced to work at pixar together (maybe that's a little strong).

Beautiful.

044 Attack of the Clones

7/10

Well, I think whenever Annakin is on screen in dramatic parts, it feels quite poor and gets dragged down by his mopey teenager persona and poor acting, but there were two dramatic scenes I thought were decent featuring Annakin. The first, the death-scene of Shmi Skywalker, was actually very good, and the second, where Annakin reveals what he did to the Sand People to Padme, was reasonable. The action parts are mostly fine as long as Annakin isn't speaking.

On the other hand, I very much enjoyed the scenes where McGregor was present and not encumbered by the presence of Annie, as well as any scenes with Yoda, Mace Windu and Count Dooku. Particularly enjoyable parts were the fight between Obi-Wan and Django Fett, and the whole last act in fact (especially the fantastic fight between Dooku and Yoda).

Also good was Jar Jar was in this one much less than I remembered, thankfully.

I think, and I need to rewatch Revenge of the Sith to be sure, this is my favourite among the main prequel movies.

045. The Nutty Professor (1963)

Some rather fine comedy scenes, in particular the hangover scene, the first-person perspective of Buddy's first appearance in public, the first jeckyll-and-hide-like transformation scene, Buddy sharptalking the dean, and the parental family home flashback. Other bits didn't work so well, such as the mawkish public transformation of Buddy from himself back to Julius - Jerry Lewis doing 'feel sorry for me' schtick is often cringey, and this is very cringey.

Those college kids looked way too old to be there.

I think Jerry was working out some Dean Martin issues in this.

046. Groundhog Day

10/10

Beautifully constructed film that does three things nearly perfectly: entertains, enthrals, and enlightens.

The script is a million miles away from the A->Z scripts so often found in romantic comedies, and the turns taken keep you guessing, and you realise you're seeing something akin to growing wisdom with more and more experience.

When forced to live the same day over and over and over, we get Murray (beautifully playing his part) as the cynical weather reporter caught in a never ending loop of time. During this time, he gets depressed, bored, angry in turns, being even more nasty to those around him, or using this unique circumstance to find out about the people he has to interact with, and try and exploit this knowledge (to seduce women, for example). In fact, sometimes it may appear he is actually in some sort of hell of his own making.

Gradually he learns to accept what his happening, and tries to help people - but sometimes even this proves impossible (he helps an old tramp, spends some time with him, but before the day's out, the old fellow dies anyway).

He gradually stops doing superficial stuff, and starts to actually do something positive with all this time on his hands, and tries to use it in a less superficial or selfish way. He learns the piano for example after being charmed by a piano piece playing on the radio, and uses this new skill to entertain at a party. He takes time to help people, (stopping a kid hurting or even killing himself for example) knowing it's pointless anyway as the next day it all starts again. (how long is all this? 10 years? 100 years? 10,000 years?). Through all this, he comes to understand himself better, and release and enjoy the nice side of himself, falling in love (not just lust) with the leading lady.

A great story, great script and perfect comedy acting all rolled up. It's one of those films that transcends grouping - not just a comedy, not just a drama, not just a romance, and it works well on every level.

I'm glad that you like Groundhog Day. It's one of my favorite movies.

047 An American Werewolf in London

9/10

This movie holds up, and remains one of the great comedy-horror movies, for several reasons. The transformation scene, done entirely using practical effects, still looks pretty great (apart from some of the elongated hands moments, but I stress 'some'), the writing is done with wit and the acting of the minor characters feels pretty real, and overall the story zips along in an uncomplicated way. There's very little of that most common fault of horror movies -people have to act stupid at some point to drive the story (inadvertently leaving the road to go on the moors is something we'll ignore for the sake of the entire plot, rather than a contrivance to help drive the plot), and the central performance of Jenny Agutter, David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are wholly believable.

I feel a bad moon rising.

I guess I am just a horror movie philistine.

048 Star:Wars Clone Wars 2-D animated series Volumes 1 and 2.

8/10

This is fun, exciting and fresh, and the best Star Wars since the original trilogy.

Originally broadcast in 4 or 5 minute segments, this still works wonderfully as a single cut-together entity, almost entirely due to the canny filmmakers who wisely used cliffhanger devices between segments, thus providing the dramatic glue to allow the cut-together version to work well.

The animation is simple but very effective, the action is well choreographed and exciting (in Volume 1, there's a battle between Mace Windu and, well, a droid army, that's just fantastic), and it never flags. We get some important insight into Annakin's journey, Yoda's powers, and how General Grievous got where he got.

Thoroughly recommended, the crowning achievement to date of Star Wars since Return of the Jedi.

I feel with the current story trend in SW's... it belongs in the "animated" realm of movie making.

now that someone else is making a "dark night" version, that may change.

049 Revenge of the Sith

7/10

Rather enjoyable conclusion to the prequel trilogy, with some gaping flaws (Annakin turns to the dark side on some really dodgy-sounding arguments from Palpatine - I think the rationales used are fine, but the dialogue is weak), but some rather great bits too. The entire last two acts contain some great action and fight sequences, and is extremely dark (and the darkness of Annakin's actions seem way too extreme a change for the weak-ish arguments used to change him to the dark side).

The last act does feel like a headlong rush to tick all the boxes of known Star Wars lore (Vader's disfigurements caused by burning up in lava? Check. Obi Wan watching Luke from afar? check. etc etc), but it still works well - any slower would have been frustrating to watch.

I think I still enjoy Attack of the Clones more, but this was fun.

I think you may be right.

However, I have enjoyed the two Star Wars prequels I watched recently, and really, really enjoyed the animated Clone Wars.

I think I might try the Star Wars TV series of Clone Wars next, to see how it is.

I think Lucas needs to build out the interiority of Annakin for the conversion to be believable.
A device say, similiar to that used in Empire, where Luke gets visited by visions of Obi in the snow in the start of Empire....I think a series of more dream sequences with the death of his mother, his brutal genocide of the village + palapatine urging...might connect Annakin;s conversion more effectively.
Basically a boy who has had effectively no family, suffers big trauma, acts more and more erratically - seeks solace with father figure Palaptine

I also think the compression of the events temporally makes it less believable. You are correct they are ticking too many boxes and the impact is that the audience finds it hard to buy into the transformation and fall of Annakin because it is too much to digest without enough focus upon him during the transformation hence the feeling of superficiality towards the reasons for him throwing in his soul so completely to the Emperor.

I agree, it needed a much more talented director to (a) make us understand Annakin's inner turmoil and see why the path he took would work, and (b) make this work in the compressed time required for this movie.

50. Julia's Eyes

6/10

This thriller has a pretty great central performance, and like others have noted, owes more to the legacy of Italian giallo movies like Deep Red that Spanish horror. However, it is very engaging, and really keeps you tense for the first act and most of the second, but when you get a concrete idea of what exactly is going on, the logical flaws and ideas raised in the first act feel a little dishonest and inconsistent with the last act.

Given this, I don't think the movie has a high level of rewatchability, but I did enjoy it enough, but felt a little disappointed in the last act, when what was going on became clear.

Didn't work for me because of it, but as I said, the main central performance was terrific, despite this.

51. Eyes Without a Face

7/10

There is an odd mix of poetic and delicate sensibility and gore in this movie. It has some quite haunting and striking imagery - and this, I think, is the thing that will stay with me above all else - but also quite jarring and wincey graphic surgery (oh, how they must have dropped their jaws in the 50s to this).

Its pedigree is obvious I think - It reminds me of both Cocteau (particularly La Belle et La Bete) in its lyrical bits, and Clouzot in its more graphic parts (I'm thinking of Les Diaboliques).

Still, with all this, it seems a little overrated to be on so many 'top X horror movies of all time' lists. It's definitely one to see, and I'm glad I've seen it, but I don't think it's quite as good as it's sold.

Alida Valli was rather good I think (I know her from The Third Man at a young age, and Suspiria at an older age), and really stands out as one of the main players.

That central performance by wraith-ish daughter is really elegant and ghostly though.

052. Return of the Jedi

8/10

Fun to watch, and better than I remember it. I guess how much you enjoy this one may hinge on how much the ewoks grate on you. I like them. I find them charming, I like the tribal shennanegins and their primitive tech used to take down the empire forces (let's ignore the hang-gliders though).

This really is a great movie, with the opening rescue taking the first act as a self-contained episode, setting up the finale as the main meat of the movie. But it's a great first act.

The rest of the movie is in turns moving (Yoda's finale scene as the ancient Jedi in his little hut), exciting (wow the speeder bike chase is great) and then splits into three threads of action that cuts together really well, though I think the emperor/luke/vader thread is the most enthralling one.

I do miss the old end music (why change it?), I thought Hamill in particular really delivered a great performance in this.

053. God Bless America

8/10



This is the only liberal revenge fantasy movie I know of. It turns the usual vigilante/justified killer genre movie on its head by changing the target of the anger-fuelled killings from the usual right-wing demons like foreigners, lefties and the underclass into liberal hate-figures like reality show judges, those horrible right-wing commentators who are always loathsome to any decent person, and so on. And feels satisfying for it.

This was terrific. I thought the direction was clean and elegant without being showy, the story was smart, the dialogue was a little Tarantino-esque and Diablo Cody-esque (which I think Goldthwaite lampooned himself, by lifting dialogue from Jackie Brown and directly referencing Juno) but in a good, fun way, and the last act was quite ferocious. the opening scene bothered me a little, as it was just too ferocious for my taste.

Joel Murray in particular was terrific.

You have to see this, it is currently streaming on Netflix US.

054. Yojimbo
9/10

Wonderful Eastern, with Tishuro Mifune spending the first 3rd of the movie munching rice, meat and other assorted goodies, drinking sake and killing tough-talking bandit types, whilst nonchalantly bringing the town to a boiling tension as he plays one gang against the other in assorted ways.

The bombastic jangling sound design, Mifune's charismatic killer, the silly gurning faces of the heavies, and Kurosawa's wonderful eye for composing shots and letting the camera enjoy the movement all adds up to a real treat and highmark of samurai genre movies.

The daddy of Lone Wolf and Cub movies, and the partial granddaddy of the impressive recent 13 Assassins.

Recommended.

055 Get the Gringo

6/10

Yep, we have Mel Gibson doing what he's good at, which is excessively violent action genre movies. This one's quite unusual and not what I expected, as he spends most of the time in a Mexican prison, but it's fun, it's cool that this action guy is seen planning and thinking through how to get what he wants, with a touch of the conman thrown in. Fun.

056 The Cabin in the Woods

7/10

This is a fun watch. I particularly like the Lovecraftian element that runs through it, and spotting which monsters are actually monsters we all know and love. I particularly enjoyed seeing the modified versions of Pinhead and Pennywise, but wished for a Freddy and Jason knock-off too.

I enjoyed the meta-nature of the story, but was surprised the whole underground surveillance and modification deal was shown so early - that could have come later, as a complete surprise - however, the guys in the bunker were a lot of fun to watch.

Rather enjoyable, lightweight, decently written, non-scary but otherwise very engaging horror tinged with ironic comedy.

057. Sanjuro



Whilst not as thoroughly engaging or immersed in a coherent story as the similar Yojimbo (and there's debate as to whether this is a sequel, or different character), this is still a lot of fun. With very little dialogue, we have characters who reveal their true nature by their words and actions (the mother is extremely wise, as is the father, who we only see at the end), and it's very enjoyable to see Mifune cut and chop his way through hordes of guards like they were shop dummies.

It's Mifune being magnificent that really makes this movie, and its fun to see this mighty warrior have to think a bit more than fight, at the mother's request to avoid violence. There's also some other really nice touches, like a guard that's been captured who, so taken with the mother's naïve trust, acts with respect and honour to her, and does exactly what he's told, and is genuinely happy for the men who support her when things go their way.

Fun, fine and will put a smile on your face for much of the time.

Have you ever seen the TV show Shintaro?
My father in his mid 60s always talks about it being a really cool tv sho. And he is definitely not a TV guy.

I've never heard of Shintaro. I'm more a Monkey and Water Margin guy for TV martial arts. And even the old Kung Fu show.