Got round to watching Astro Boy yesterday and thought it was excellent.

Superbly animated and a decent story, loosely based on the 1950s manga. Well worth a watch, me and my daughter were completely absorbed.

*** SPOILERS contained in this post regarding the film 'RABBIT HOLE' ***





Tonight's film was 'Rabbit Hole' - specifically dealing with a couple mourning the loss of a child and attempting to start to move on with their lives, but it basically covers all the bases of 'loss' on a conceptual basis, the five recognised stages of grief (Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0935075/



Resonated with me on two fundamental levels, firstly the divorce of my parents at an age when I was just about 'aware', (I was four, my brother was two, he can't remember it, I can). Throughout most of my life I've had a deep and terrible sense of loss and quite frankly destructive rage at the gap in myself where I was expecting a mum to be. The divorce of my parents was fairly 'civilised' as far as these things go, but nothing can change the fact that the earliest memories of life I have are of shouting and violence and seeing my mum slammed into the kitchen cabinets and of howling and screaming and then abandonment, even though I understand now that she had to get out, and that my dad wasn't evil, he was just of his generation and situation.

And then again more recently coming to terms with our daughter being disabled, it's pretty widely recognised that parents in this situation effectively have to come to terms with the 'death' of the child they imagined they'd have, all the things they thought they'd do together, all those dreams and aspirations chucked into a hole in the ground and set on fire.

And from that bonfire you start to put it all back together and work out a different plan, work out a way forward that's hugely different from the one you had in mind, but a way forward nonetheless.

Rabbit Hole worked on a more analogous level for the first point, but more literally for the second, in the closing scenes where the main characters discuss how they'll deal with 'the subject' of their son's death coming up at a barbeque is very close to how me and Mrs AE have considered how we'll talk about AE Jnr and the fact she's quite clearly disabled compared to all the other children, because sooner or later 'it's going to come up'.

It's an effective film when it comes to exploring loss and grief, it's not helped by Nicole Kidman as a woman of 44 trying to look like a woman of 24, it honestly looks like her face has been grafted on by a computer, why can't a woman just be her age and be beautiful, why try to deny time itself? Anyway, she's still a very good actress and the rest of the cast (Aaron Eckhart is superb) are top drawer as well.

It doesn't feel the need the tack on some daft Hollywood ending, but it does offer hope and it does so in an honest fashion.

Very well written, superbly acted, and really quite moving.

Overall, recommended - 8/10.

'Does it ever go away?'

'No. I don't think it does. It hasn't for me and it's been eleven years. It changes though, the weight of it I guess, at some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under, and you can carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you even forget it for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason, and there it is, oh great.... that. Which is awful. But not all the time, it's kinda.... not that you like it exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son, so you carry it around. And it doesn't go away, which is.... fine, actually......'

Just watched Limitless. It's a high "meh", or a low "good".
Full of holes. And not in the good way.

Just watched 'Perrier's Bounty'. It's basically a vehicle for Brendan Gleeson's character that he played in 'In Bruges'. Which is by far the better film.
I liked Jodie Whittaker in this though, and it's quite funny.

Cowbores and Aliehohums.

Watched "trust" the other day. Really good film directed by Ross from friends. Not a very nice subject, internet pedophiles, but still a good film.

Anyone seen Paris, Texas? Seems like the sorta film I should watch. Hmm.

Oh, you most definitely should!

I watched that aaaaaaages ago, due a rewatchening now.

Saw some stills of it online in an Americana image search, thought - "Wow, that photographer knows his stuff. The framing, the loneliness, the wide open... wait, is that Dean Stockwell?"

No, it's Harry Dean Stanton.

s.Darko is BAD.

Pretty sure they're both in it, Dean Stockwell plays his brother I think.

Just seen the trailer for Apollo 18. Looks like Paranormal Activity meets Blair Witch meets Alien. Opens 2 September.

Might be interesting.

Yes Mark.

I think i've have found the contender for film of the year!

Inbetweeners is good!

Your Highness is brilliant.
Watch it quickly.

Watch it at normal speed for the full effect.

Oh my. You certainly have!

I'll let you two see that one...

I watched the original Prom Night last night. Slow, horrible internal monologues and enlivened only by quirky direction and editing (one scene was bizarrely reminiscent of Peter Greenaway).

Last night's film was IDIOCRACY - written and directed by Mike Judge, of King Of The Hill and Beavis & Butthead fame.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

It starts off in absolutely stunning form, with an opening 'bite' that pretty much took my breath away. The basic premise of the film is also an absolute cracker, from there on in it doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions, but nonetheless it's a very competent and effective satire, with plenty of really good laughs along the way.

At 84 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome either.

7/10 - Recommended.

Ahhh the intro is on YouTube - you have to admit it's a daring opening gambit for a film.

FOX absolutely buried this film, they sat on it for ages and then released it in the deadest film period of the calendar with no marketing whatsoever.

No surprise really, considering it's basically calling the type of person who would enjoy FOX's programming out as the ignorant pig-headed fuckwits that they are.

Idiocracy is indeed a highly entertaining film.

I remember the premise, I remember that I have watched the film, but I don't actually remember what happens!

My one word review for Idiocracy? Forgettable

It does flounder a little bit, even at a tidy 84 minutes running time (less than that if you subtract the end credits), and it obviously had a budget of less than I've taken out of a fruit machine in the pub on a good night.

However, it had far more hits than misses, and as the credits rolled I had that nice glow of 'That was a good film' about me.

The ending is actually pretty dark, and kind of leaves off where the film started out (taken from imdb):

I thought Idiocracy was a better idea than film. Especially as I have friends banging on about drinking electrolyte drinks. But yeah, kinda got the feeling it wasn't very good while I was watching it. That was partly the Luke Wilson effect, but partly it just not being as good as it thought it was. In terms of 90s cartoon dudes making films I preferred BASEketball, even if the sociological message wasn't there.

Bloody Hell, The Matrix 3 is bad.

The what?

They only ever made 1 matrix film dude, everyone knows that.

If ever there was a (hhhngh) 'franchise' where you just needed to stop at the first film, this is it.

Yeah, no shit. Everything about it bad.

I finally done watched the Life Aquatic the other night. I thought it was brilliant. I was put off by some mouthbreather years ago who said it was "shit". I knew better than to trust his opinions of, well, anything, but for some reason it still put me off mustering up the will to watch it for two hours. Glad I did. I love all of Wes Anderson's other stuff, so I've no idea why it took me so long to get around to it.

I'd go along with this review. I think it kinda ran out of jokes/ideas about half way through, though. The concept was much greater than the execution. Still, decent comedy film.

The second one was fine. Part one was about action scenes and woefully shit cod-philosophy. The second film upped the action (car chase > fight room scene) and the shit cod-philosophy. It got broken when it turned out Neo was god, and nothing could create peril. But, you know, that was the logical conclusion of the concept. So if part 2 was bad, so was part 1.

I just watched Inception for the second time. Knocked it from a 4/5 to a 5/5 for me. I was surprised how much more satisfying it was. My mum was ready to give up two thirds of the way through but stuck with it, and was really pleased how it all came together in the last third and quite enjoyed it by the end.

I have never seen a film so ill suited to having sequels as The Matrix. I almost wanted to find the brothers and bust them in the chops for the bare-faced lie that they always intended it to be a trilogy.

I quite enjoyed the second film purely on an action film basis but the third one was pretty dire. When I went back a couple of years ago to the first one, it really hadn't aged very well and I couldn't really imagine why I liked it in the first place.

I watched Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl. For the first 20 minutes or so, it was the worst film I had ever seen. Things picked up with the arrival of the mental scientist (Kyoshiro Senryo, pretty much) and his psychotic nurse. Not to mention the absurdly pretty Japanese girls.

Apart from those things, and the masterful Frankenstein Girl, it was just racist and unfunny. With the worst soundtrack not featuring Snow Patrol songs.

You seem to have completely misunderstood that quote, then

Which was lies, by the way.

I have only ever seen The matrix

X-men First Class was OK. Only OK though.

American : The Bill Hicks Story, on the iplayer for another week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... cks_Story/

Absolute legend.

I thought Thor was great. 4/5 stars from me.

Quite funny, rather fast, some great action and different enough from the rest of the comic book hero films we've had over the last few years to stick out a bit.

I do like a fish out of water story.

Oh goodness. I don't normally comment on things like this because I massively respect everyone gets different enjoyment out of different things, but the only good thing about this film was when the gatekeeper allowed them access and just walked off saying something like "knock yourself out".

The rest was generic.

Yeah, the gatekeeper was badass (no surprises there, twas played by Stringer Bell).

Did you not think the dialogue was funny? I loved how Thor spoke.

Also:

Safe for work even if the theme of the movie may not be



http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/h ... railer.php

Looking forward to that - looks like a laugh.