A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman - A Review

4 Stars - Interesting

This is a somewhat unusual film, created from audio recordings of Graham Chapman reading his Liar's Autobiography and animated around them with the other members of Monty Python providing voices of the incidental characters, except for Eric Idle who is inexplicably absent.

I like this film, there is a lot of funny stuff and it isn't afraid to go into surreal and dark territory with its sections.

The animation is odd, with different sections having different style of animation. For the most part however it is good, with a couple of sections here and there being very hard on the eyes and difficult to make out exactly what was happening.

Oh and they do 'Sit On My Face' as a giant production number...

In short, an interesting film, maybe worth a watch by Python fans, and certainly deserves to find a cult audience if nothing else.

Iron Man 3 - A Review

3.5 Stars - Kind of disappointing

The Marvel Cinematic universe has returned in the shape of Iron Man 3, so naturally I was hyped to go see it, sadly it wasn't as good as I was hoping.

While there is a lot of stuff that works, principally the comedy aspects, this is a pretty funny film. However I feel as though a lot of the best action was spoiled in the trailer and there's something about Iron Man's suit that he wears for most of the film that's just kind of distracting... I think it's got too much gold and not enough red. Colour balance matters people.

Ultimately I'd say there are three major crimes of this film, 1) An awful villain, sadly I can't go into this much without delving into spoiler territory. 2) No appearances by characters from the other Avengers films, I'm not asking for much here, just that a fair bit of the film makes you wonder why aren't S.H.I.E.L.D. doing anything about this? (slight correction, Mark Ruffalo does have a cameo as Bruce Banner, but I didn't even realise while I was watching it) 3) No AC/DC.

You have no idea how disappointed you'll be by him...

In short, just not able to match up to the Avengers. Still you're all going to see it anyway, so what does it matter what I think?

Olympus Has Fallen - A Review

4 Stars - Entertaining

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and the one... unless that one is the President of the United States of America... in which case we will risk World War III to make sure he isn't killed by terrorists...

This film is essentially Die Hard in the White House with Gerard Butler as the John McClane proxy. It does a damn sight better at being a Die Hard film than the most recent Die Hard film...

The action is competent and well filmed, you can always tell what's happening and it feels plenty real and brutal, very well played out.

Performance wise it is pretty strong too, Gerard Butler, while no Bruce Willis, is a likable and entertaining hero; Aaron Eckhart is very good as the POTUS; Morgan Freeman is... Morgan Freeman and Rick Yune makes a decent villain.

Well at least he has more hair than Bruce Willis...

In short, a good action film, well worth a watch.

Oblivion - A Review

4 Stars - Good

Isn't it wonderful how these world ending disasters leave all the instantly recognisable landmarks to survive so we can recognise them in scenic vistas?

Oblivion is a highly competent Sci-Fi film with good characters, gorgeous visuals and an interesting story.

The plot takes a while to get going... in fact it is about an hour before things really start to take shape, and that is a long hour and would be fairly hard to sit through if it weren't for all the shots of the desolated earth and moon, which are just absolutely stunning to look at and make it much more bearable.

Performance wise everyone does a good job, Tom Cruise is his usual stoic hero, Andrea Riseborough brings a lot of sympathy to her character, Morgan Freeman is... Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko plays her part nicely and Melissa Leo is creepily cheerful. Also Jaime Lannister is in it. Bonus.

Doesn't this just sell you on the film?

In short, a good film, that gets a lot better in the second half.

Spring Breakers - A Review

0 Stars - Horrendous

Few films have no good qualities at all. Few films are so atrocious that you can find nothing to feel about it other than hatred. Few films make you question the validity of cinema as an art form. This is one of those few films.

A film with terrible characters, awful acting, distracting editing, no story and nothing about it that is remotely good.

This film feels the need to flashback to stuff we've seen five minutes ago, and flash forward to stuff we'll see five minutes from now while the dialogue in the scene we're meant to be watching is continuing over it. This might be a vaguely interesting thing for one scene, but it is the entire film. The. Entire. Fucking. Film.

James Franco in this film, gives a performance of a white guy who thinks he is gangsta. He is so white that he makes Badger and Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad look like Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell from The Wire in comparison.

If you want to make an art film, with unusual editing and moral ambiguity then that's fine, but I don't think it counts when your idea of art is girls shaking their breasts at the camera in slow motion. Fuck this film.

I have never hated people this much

In short, don't just give this film a miss, if you feel the want to see this film have yourself committed to some sort of institution for the mentally unstable.