bluray « typingincolor.com

I’m on leave this week, and whilst I was doing the ironing (I lead such a rock’n'roll life), I decided to catch up on some late 70′s dystopian gang land movies. To this end, I chose the Warriors.

It tells the story of the Warriors, a New York gang, who are trying to make their way home to Coney Island following a meeting of all the gangs. At this meeting Cyrus, the leader of the Gramercy Griffs, attempts to get the gangs to join together to control the city. Cyrus is shot by the leader of the Rogues, but the Warriors are blamed. They are left stranded in the city and hunted down by the other gangs so the Griffs can have their revenge.

I really enjoyed the film, it is a bit silly and fairly dated but it’s good fun. It’s kind of like Shaft meets Homer’s Odyssey. The acting is over the top but you find yourself going with it.

If you find yourself ironing and want a bit of 70′s cheese, you can do a lot worse than the Warriors.

Rating:

In the Loop is a spin off of the TV series The Thick of It and satirises Anglo-American politics. Like the TV series is directed by Armando Iannucci.

The American President and British Prime Minister are trying to start a war in the Middle East and follows a number of government officials who are trying to either prevent or start the war.

It is a very “wordy” film. I have to admit I can a bit bored with it. There is some truly quality swearing and the script is well written. The cast put in solid performances, but I just didn’t really care what happened. It was good to see James Gandolfini, but thats because I love the Sopranos.

I think I was in the right mood I would have enjoyed it more, but I was looking for a laugh and swearing, no matter how top notch, didn’t really do it for me.

Rating:

I can remember playing the original Prince of Persia game on a 286 when I was a teenager, and I have to admit having heard various reviews I wasn’t really expecting all the much.

The film kind of reminded me a Pirates of the Caribbean, with the same level of silliness. The story doesn’t really make sense, but there are some good special effects. Ben Kingsley basically does the same performance as he did in Thunderbirds. Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton are OK, but the star of the show is Alfred Molina. Molina is good in pretty much everything he does and he is by far the best thing in the film. He plays the part of Sheik Amar, and has some very funny lines which he delivers really well.

If you learn anything from Prince of Persia it should be “Don’t trust a man wearing mascara”.

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

Léon tells the story of an Italian hitman (Jean Reno) who befriends Mathilda (Natalie Portman) after her family is killed by a rogue DEA agent (Gary Oldman). Mathilda persuades Léon to teach her how to “clean” so she can kill those responsible for her families death.

At the beginning of the film Léon is a loner whose only friend is a pot plant that he cares for but as the story progresses his relationship with Mathilda develops. Reno is excellent as Léon, and Portman does a good job in her first major role. Oldman is his usual excellent self, nobody can play a psychotic drug-crazed nutcase quite like Gary Oldman.

Léon is a good film and well worth a watch.

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

Having read the book I’ve been waiting for the movie to come out on DVD for a while.

Kick Ass tells the story of Dave (Aaron Johnson) and ordinary teenager who dreams of being a superhero. His first heroic intervention is less than successful, but he meets Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his lift becomes a lot more complex…

I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. The film is comic genius. From the entry of Hit Girl, to the inappropriate use of the Banana Splits theme tune it’s good fun from beginning to end. Even Nicolas Cage is funny, with his (hopefully deliberate) Adam West impression.

The film differs from the book in a number of ways but is one of the better comic book adaptations. The cast is excellent with good performances from all of them. There are scenes of ridiculous violence, but they are sooooo over the top that they’re not too disturbing. The soundtrack is also excellent. Any film with a soundtrack including the Banana Splits, Sparks and a bit of Ennio Morricone has got to be good.

Well worth a watch…

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

Inglorious Basterds tells the story of an American army unit made up of Jewish soldiers who are sent behind enemy lines to bring vengeance upon the Nazis. They are sworn to kill all Nazis they meet.

Wrapped up in all of this is the story of Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) who is allowed to escape by the evil SS Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz). She ends up running a cinema under an assumed name and plots to kill the entire German high command.

Brad Pitt plays the leader of the unit Lieutenant Aldo Raine and has the oddest American accent I’ve heard for a while. I don’t know how genuine it is, but it didn’t sound right…

Waltz does an excellent job playing Colonel Landa, moving from reasonable officer to extreme violence in a moment.

The film is very good in parts, but it suffers from being too long. There are long sequences where not a lot happens. The dialogue is to Tarantino’s usual high standard, there is just too much of it in places. The music in the film is very good though as you would expect.

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com

Lucky Number Slevin is an interesting film. You think it’s going in one direction, but it ends up going another way entirely. It’s kind of like an incredibly violent version of the Sting. It tells the story of “Slevin” who is mistaken for a degenerate gambler and ends up beholden to two gangsters played by Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. It looks like he’s going to get caught in the middle of both of them, but it becomes apparent that Slevin is not all that he seems.

I enjoyed the film, it is funny in places and very violent in others. The story was genuinely surprising, and I thought it worked very well.

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

Twilight is the first film based on the Twilight Saga novels by Stephenie Meyer. It tells the story of Bella who goes to stay with her father in a sleepy town in Washington state. Here she meets and falls in love with Edward who she later discovers is a vampire.

The story is all very atmospheric, moodily lit with lots of pale people. My wife thinks it was a great romantic film; I just thought it was tedious. Not very much happens for a lot of the film, and the one bit of excitement isn’t all that exciting really. I can’t wait to watch the second film, where I believe you can see some truly world class moping…

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

After Smurfahontas last night, I thought I should watch a proper grown ups film; and you don’t get much more grown up than a gritty French prison drama…

A Prophet follows Malik who is sentenced to a 6 year prison sentence for assault. He tries to keep himself to himself, but falls under the influence of the Corsican mafia who are controlling the guards. The Corsican’s don’t like him because he’s an Arab, but the other Arabic prisoners hate him because they think he is working for the Corsican’s.

Malik starts the film being unable to read, write or stand up for himself; it finishes with him working for himself and taking revenge on those that have wronged him.

After the snooze-fest of Avatar it was good to watch a film where there was never a dull moment. A Prophet is a long film (around 2hr 30), but a no point did it get boring. The performances from all the cast are excellent and the film is very well shot. It’s the best new film I’ve seen in a while.

Rating:

Buy now at thehut.com Rent from LoveFilm.com

Set in the future, where humans are mining the planet Pandora for unobtanium, a team of researchers use genetically engineered avatars to interact with the indigenous population.

I didn’t see Avatar in the cinema so rented a copy of it on bluray to see what all the fuss was about. The big disadvantage of this is you don’t get the 3D. Don’t get me wrong, it looks good on bluray but I can only assume that it is much better in 3D.

The story is ridiculous and, at just short of three hours, a good hour too long. Somebody needed to have a chat with James Cameron and told him to stop. It’s not Titanic bad, but it’s hard to believe that he directed both the Terminator and Alien films.

Rating:

Buy now from thehut.com

typingincolor.com

brought to you by Andrew Braithwaite

Tag Archives: bluray

The Warriors – Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, and David Patrick Kelly

In the Loop – Armando Iannucci, James Gandolfini, Steve Coogan, Peter Capaldi, Anna Chlumsky, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee and Chris Addison

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Richard Coyle and Alfred Molina

Léon – Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and Natalie Portman

Kick Ass – Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Mark Strong

Inglorious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth and Diane Kruger

Lucky Number Slevin – Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, and Lucy Liu

Twilight – Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

A Prophet – Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup and Adel Bencherif

Avatar – Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana & Sigourney Weaver