fantastic four

 

2 january 2009

at home – tv

 

hooray, the fantastic four!

 

i saw this at the movies and loved. i enjoyed it just as much the second time round. i just asked p what she thought and she said “i enjoyed it”. when i asked “anything else?” she shook her head. so, i think it basically passed the time for her.

she did get into it, though. she was moved by the thing’s tragedy and wanted mr. fantastic and susan storm to get together.

blood diamond

 

 

27 dec 2008

at home – dvd

 

leonardo dicaprio is a kind of bad guy who decides to be a sort of good guy in a diamond smuggling story

 

i really didn’t think i’d like this but in the end i did. charlotte enjoyed it too. ilse also watched it with us – this was one of her many strange dvds which are always lying in that rucksack of hers.

the main thing i didn’t expect to like about this was the high and mighty politics of it all but they didn’t overdo all of that stuff, so it was quite enjoyable. that said, though, it did feel a little imbalanced – the director seemed to be too-ing and fro-ing between making the film political and making it fun. still, as i said, all in all i enjoyed it – and i guess that was thanks to enough fun moments in the film.

leonardo is also fun to watch and djimon was pretty good too. i was also quite impressed by his south african (or was it meant to be zimbabwean?) accent – it’s a very hard accent to do.

 

cast:

leo

djimon honsou

jennifer connelly

i am legend

 

sunday 17 may 2009
at home – dvd, lovefilm

 

will smith is alone in the world with his dog and everyone has turned into feral, sub-human, vampires

 

this was pretty good. i’d been dreading watching it because i couldn’t deal with the thing about the dog. but it looked pretty decent so eventually i worked up enough courage and then popped it onto our lovefilm list.

not that we were expecting it to arrive! lovefilm have been a bit rubbish lately. not only are they not giving us our high priority choices but they’re not even giving us our medium choices anymore! so we were a bit surprised when this came – which was the same with hancock.

hancock

 

thursday 14 may 2009
at home – dvd, lovefilm

 

will smith is a bit of a crap superhero who doesn’t care and breaks things

 

haha! i didn’t really fancy seeing this. i just couldn’t believe squeeky-clean will smith as a bloke who didn’t care and was all irresponsible. but charlotte suggested we put it in, so i did.

then, when it came, charlotte kept on putting off watching it and eventually admitted that she didn’t really want to watch it and just suggested we put it in ’cause she thought i’d like it!

i offered to send it back but eventually we decided to watch it.

nacho libre

friday 17 april 2009

at home – tv, channel 4

jack black is a priest in mexico who secretly becomes a wrestler

this was okay. it had its moments but it was also a bit dull at times. charlotte fell asleep.

i think if i’d watched it with kids i would’ve enjoyed it more. like a bunch of 10 year olds or something. you have to be in that silly mood to enjoy it. or perhaps if we’d seen it on the big screen we would’ve enjoyed it more. we watched it in bed on the small tv and i think ol’ jack needs his space to do his thing.

still, i don’t think it can be too much better. it was just a bit… well, a bit luke warm really.

it did have a bit of a story, though. so that was nice.

cast:

jack black

(the rest don’t really matter)

superbad

sunday 12 april
at home – dvd, lovefilm

hmmm… well, its about teenage boys, who are a bit nerdy and sex-obsessed, who go to a party

poor old charlotte – this really wasn’t her thing. she likes seth rogen and jason segel, she can handle ben stiller, and she can even watch will ferrel sometimes, but a juvinile sex comedy is just too much to ask!

she did well, though. she managed to rather enjoy it in the beginning but towards the end it all rather got a bit much for her…

thanks p for watching it with me!

ghost town

saturday 11 april
at home – sky box office

during a routine operation ricky gervais dies for 7 minutes and afterwards he can see dead people

we like old ricky. this was fun.

i was a bit worried in the beginning, ’cause it wasn’t that funny. then it became clear that it was actually a romantic comedy (they didn’t quite make that clear in the advertising) and from then onwards i really enjoyed it.

tea leoni was the love interest and she was very good. she connected well with ricky and he played well off her and had some of his best moments with her.

greg kinnear was also in it and was very good too. i don’t really like him, but, like with ben affleck the other day, he proved me wrong (although, my hatred for ben doesn’t compare to my simple dislike for greg).

this was a very cute movie and we had fun watching it.

cast:

ricky gervais

tea leoni

greg kinnear

changing lanes

friday 10 april 2009

at home – tv, film four

ben affleck and sam jackson get in an accident and old ben leaves sam in the lurch, which starts a big old feud between the two of them

i hate ben affleck. i hate hate hate him. and when i saw this advertised at the movies i thought i was definitely not going to see this. but friday night rolled around and charlotte fancied a movie and innocently tuned the channel to this. i know how much she needs a film on a friday night so i decided to bite my tongue and give it a go!

ironically halfway through charlotte ended up getting up and going to bed whereas i stayed behind and watched it to the end – i was so into it! and in the end i really enjoyed it. i couldn’t believe it!

the ringer

 

friday 3 april 2009

at home – tv

jonny knoxville pretends to be mentally challenged in order to win the special olympics

 

this was quite fun actually. i rather like jonny knoxville so i would’ve been more tolerant if it were absolute crap. charlotte had thankfully forgotten who he was and it was only when we were halfway through it that she realised he was that guy from jackass. by then she was already into the film and there was no backing out!

while the ringer is pretty okay, one thing it did make me realise is quite how slick and well-made a lot of these apatow movies are. the ringer was quite a bit emptier (if one can say that of a comedy!) and clunkier.  if one judged it purely for its comedic merits then this would be rather poor, with just the odd moment of funnyness,  but the special people from the special olympics were just so cute! “special people”? that sounds a bit vague, but,  well, what else do i call them? i can’t really call them anything else!

along came polly

sunday 18 january 2009

at home – tv, itv

ben stiller is this seriously anal guy who meets polly who’s afraid to commit to anything (hmm, that doesn’t sound funny. let me then just say that they’re opposites. that still doesn’t sound funny. okay, just read the review then!)

we were watching this and then halfway through we realised we’d already seen it! or, at least, we’d seen the second half of it before.

we both like jennifer aniston and charlotte is liking ben stiller more and more. his films are some of the ones of which she always says “i never used to like these films before i met you! but i quite like them now”.

we didn’t plan to watch this, actually. (probably didn’t plan to watch it the first time either!) we’d finished watching whatever we were watching (wild at heart?) and were about to go to bed.  we were doing that zombie stare at the tv as we were waiting to go upstairs and along came polly just happened to be what was on. as often happens we got a bit sucked into the film and so we carried on watching it when we went upstairs.

it was quite funny. ben stiller is really anal in this and afraid. and he plays that sort of thing very well.

cast:

ben stiller

jennifer aniston

philip seymour hoffman