Movies I watched this weekend

It's an older film now but I watched Re-Animator last night. It made me laugh with the over-the-top gore and silly plot. As a fan of gore horror, I enjoyed it and the acting was brilliant.
I also watched Girl From Next Door which starred Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert. In honesty, it was a film I watched only to see Elisha Cuthbert. It turned out to be quite different from what I was expecting and not in a good way. As the film closed I just thought what a wasted opportunity it was to have such a good cast and still to end up with such indifferent fodder. The cast looking great is about the only thing it is worth watching for.

Wall-E

We took the children to watch this film today at the cinema. It was my wife's idea. There was a short animated film at the beginning about a magician and his rabbit. My 5 year old son absolutely loved it, laughed his head off he did! That was great. The main attraction was Wall-E. I've been aware of the hype recently, everywhere I go or every advert I watch seems to have the robot depicted somewhere. I had only read one brief review of the film before watching it but I think my wife was more exposed to it than I. The story is about man filling Earth up with junk and blasting off into space for a massive exodus vacation while the Wall-E robots clean the Earth up and make it habitable once more. However, as time goes by the vacation turns out to be much, much longer - like 700 years! By then, everyone's bones have gotten smaller since they just sit around on hover chairs constantly watching their personal screens infront of their noses. They get their daily nutrition from big drink cartons that robots are only to happy to supply after the slightest request. Meanwhile, Wall-E has been on Earth keeping it clean as the sole robot of his type. He has made a home for himself and a cockroach. His world is changed when he falls in love with another robot dropped off on Earth to check for signs of vegetation capable of sustaining human life. This other robot is super-sophisticated compared to Wall-E but somehow they fall in love and have to save humanity from the comfort and sloth of life on board the big pleasure cruiser. I thought the best part of the film was the scale of the worlds created by the animators. The detail was incredible, always is with Pixar, but on such a scale it was fascinated viewing. Particularly the first half hour on Earth which was mainly just Wall-E without talking. To keep the audience engaged for such a length of time without any dialogue in the script, was truly a magnificent feat in itself. My wife had read a review talking about it being the best film ever made (or words to that effect). It's certainly not that, but I thought it was a very enjoyable film and one for both adults and children to enjoy.

Britain's Eurovision Song Entry

Well, the die has been cast now - on Saturday evening the public voted for the British Eurovision song entry for 2008. It was a choice of two songs:

• Woo Hoo Yeah (You Make Me) by Michelle Gayle (I'm not sure if this is the correct title but you get the idea)
• Even If by Andy Abraham

 

Last year's entry was chosen entirely by the public and it was bad, even by Eurovision standards. This year they did things slightly differently and had some studio judges choosing the shortlist of 2 for the public vote out of a total of 4 acts. Well, it was only ever a choice of 2 wasn't it? Love Shy and The Revelations had catchy enough tunes but performance-wise it helps, I think, if you can actually sing!

So we have Andy Abraham representing Britain. He's got a great voice and is a lovely man I'm sure. He's clearly the most able vocalist out of the bunch and he wrote the song himself. I hope he wins it - he deserves the success. I preferred the song out of all of them and I don't have any reservations about packing him off to Serbia or wherever the competition is this year. However, I must confess to a strong feeling I have that none of the shortlisted songs I heard this week are competition winners: we just don't make 'em like we used to.

Night of the Living Dead

I don't think I've sat through all of this film before. It's always called a horror classic. I've seen lots of "zombie" films and they all unnerve me in some ways. However, with so many references to zombies in TV adverts, music videos, videogames and the like, my emotions are a bit dulled. However, I can still partially see through my preconceptions enough to understand that this film didn't explain the flesh eating living dead as zombies and at the time the film was made the idea was probably new and groundbreaking. A failed satellite probe from Venus has spread a new and powerful type of radiation that causes the recently deceased to get up and start craving for living flesh. There is no more real explanation in the film but the TV and radio footage shown is believable because even the authorities are unable to explain the phenomenon. Even when you hope events are over at the end of the film there is a shock, a bleak end to what is even now in today's world a bleak film. I don't care to analyse the film anymore and I'm sure others have put many interpretations on it. But the timing is perfect, the pace is wonderful and the acting is superb. How much better it would have been if it were shot in colour I can't say, maybe the black and white even adds to the films power. It's a horror classic and deserves a place high on the all time best list.

Run Fat Boy Run

I rented this DVD last week and enjoyed it. David Schwimmer directed it and did a good job at keeping the pacing right - it never feels laboured or slow and there are a good number of laughs evenly spaced throughout. Simon Pegg is his usual lovely self as the anti-romantic romantic lead and the whole cast was brilliantly recruited - each adding a little something of their own special quality to their parts. The story might not appeal if you were to read a synopsis and as a story you could read many levels of interpretation into it but the light-hearted interpretation the cast and director want you to understand shines through pulling this film up into the good category. Worthy of a watch if you feel like a light film that will make you chuckle.

The Nanny (1965)

I watched another of the films in my Hammer Horror films box collection on Saturday night. It was a film from 1965 called The Nanny. There is something terrifying about stern old ladies. I don't know quite what it is. Perhaps its that I expect old ladies to be kind hearted and good spirited. And at first in this film you start to associate the stern facade of Bette Davis' nanny with a strict and proper authoritarian. During the film you come to think of the family she lives with as completely dysfunctional but towards the end a different thread emerges. I think its riveting stuff. The film has a few twists without any great surprises. The acting between Bette Davis and William Dix (who plays 10 year old Joey) is a large part of what makes this film so great. The film leaves you feeling disturbed rather than terrified. That's just about right for the period in which this film was made. The black and white also adds something to the film, not that you can tell by this image I found.