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When I saw the trailer to Fred Claus, I was excited, this seemed like a fun Christmas movie that would have tons of good laughs and had a great plot. Now I waited ’till the weekend after this film opened, and I heard nothing but terrible reviews about it, so I was very scared to see it. But the way I looked at it was some people have different opinions, nothing to worry about. So I saw it tonite with my boyfriend, and I have to say that honestly, for what it was, this was just a fun Christmas movie. True, it’s cheesy and the jokes are a little dumb at times, but it was all in good fun.

Fred Claus is the older brother of Santa Claus, quite frankly he’s getting a bit tired of all the attention Nicholas(Santa) gets. It’s tough being the brother of a saint. But when he gets into a bit of trouble with the cops, he asks Nic for help and Nic gives it to him, but Fred wants more money, Nic tells him alright, if he comes up to the North Pole to help him out with the work. Fred comes up and decides to shake things up in the North Pole with the elves, but it couldn’t come at a worse time when Santa is being examined for his business and could possibly be shut down.

Fred Claus was a cute holiday movie, like I said, it’s nothing special, but I thought it was fun.

(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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A biopic about a drug dealer starring Washington, Crowe, and Scott. It is wonderful seeing two actors with such brilliance and a good director to guide them through their material.

The movie suffers a little from having two such big movie stars in one film. This is mostly Frank Lucas’s story, and I didn’t really get to know him as much as I would have liked. Russel Crowe plays a police officer who seems to have a crummy family life just to give him a fatal flaw. Russel Crowe is the right man to play him, injecting a good deal of street sense intelligence into him and making him gruff enough to counter his role as the purer-than-driven-snow cop.

Without giving too much away, I will say that the most effective scene in the movie is when the two meet for the first time. This scene left me shaking with emotion, not because the scene hasn’t been played out in thousands of gangster/caper movies, or because of the soundtrack which has played in thousands more. Seeing these two characters for the first time is so well shot that there is a potency and mystery in simply these two men just staring at each other.

The movie is not without flaws though. One key part of the story is the corrupt nature of the NYPD Special Narcotics Unit. However, the point-man for this part of the story seems strangely insulated from the rest of the story. He does a lot of generally sleazy things and makes a few hazy threats at Denzel and Crowe, but doesn’t inject himself in enough to make the payoff entirely satisfying. Also, while the courtroom scenes involving the Crowe character’s divorce are brief, my suspicion is they would have been more interesting on the cutting room floor, especially if they had made room for more scenes involving Lucas’s rough edges. My guess is even the most stylish gangster in Harlem wouldn’t be as smooth as Mr. Washington.

(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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Sometimes there is a movie that goes unheard of, ignored by most, sometimes pounded by negative critics and suddenly, some years later, it turns into a classic for some reason. Fantasy movies are usually on top of that list. Think of Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal. Stardust will probably find itself along with those titles in the upcoming years for many reasons.

First of, the movie, overall, is not taken seriously in many different ways. The actors all seem to be having fun and an aura of global simplicity surrounds the movie from beginning to end. There’s a lot of cheezy stuff in Stardust, but just enough so it can’t be considered as a boring parody. It involves old fairy tales with contemporary humor, pretty much like Shrek did with brilliance. Although it is not funny as in laughable, the movie makes us smile not because of some joke or the facial expressions of some actor, but because we find each and every character charmingly naive and totally focused on one single idea. The fact that their personality is so simple makes them likable very soon after we encounter them for the first time.

The most intriguing part is, without a doubt, Robert De Niro’s role as cross dressing pirate. His part is played with great acting and he is seen just enough so his character doesn’t turn into a cliché. He is an enlightenment to the movie and almost makes us forget about some boring scenes. The brothers killing each other for the throne also fill up some good moments. The main actor ( Charlie Cox ) playing the hero is doing his best but the whole scenario was too much of a ” loser turning into a winner “, he is still not experienced enough to play a leading role. He was mostly overshadowed by the other characters ( especially Lamia ( Pfeiffer ), Septimus ( Mark Strong ) and Captain Shakespeare ( De Niro )). Claire Danes was okay. I wished Jason Flemyng would’ve played a bigger part as Primus. I liked his over-the-top prince charming looks and personality compared to the Severus Snape/Aragorn look-a-like in Septimus who was not enough of a villain. Wearing black does not really make you evil. Michelle Pfeiffer was all right but I think her character also was built on “evil looks” and she is not that terrifying although the “inn scene” was great.

These kind of movies must not be expected to be as gigantic and dramatic as The Lord of The Rings which is the prime example. It is not a work of art, just an enjoyable family friendly film. It has to be taken lightly but really is worth a watch.

(4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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Well, I have to say that I wasn’t at all impressed when I found out that the Weinstein’s had decided to chop ‘Grindhouse’ in half for the UK release, and at one point I wasn’t even going to make a trip to the cinema to see each individual part…but then Death Proof got it’s release and I ended up having to be there. It’s always been clear that Tarantino is a fan of seventies Grindhouse, and he does an excellent job here of setting the scene and putting the movie squarely in the seventies…well, he would have done if it wasn’t for the mobile phones shots and characters who mention the internet and CGI. Anyway, the plot is typical seventies B-movie trash, and focuses on a stuntman named Mike who gets his kicks by meeting and chatting up hot young women, before brutally smashing them to pieces in his specialised ‘death proof’ stunt car. We are introduced to a trio of hot young ladies early on in the film, and it’s not long before Stuntman Mike sets his sights on the group and has his fun with them…

One of the major problems with the extended cut that I saw is the fact that it’s too long! Quentin Tarantino obviously values dialogue, but there’s just too much of it and it’s not as interesting as the chit chat in the likes of Reservoir Dogs. However, I did find out after seeing the film that the ‘missing reel’ in the American release was actually the lap dance scene in this version - and since it’s the best part of the movie, I think I can stand a bit of boring dialogue! Tarantino lovingly implements many of the problems with cheap seventies exploitation flicks - stuff like bad editing and glitches, as well as a scene that suddenly switches into black and white…it’s well done. Death Proof is a film of two halves, the first half being the far better of the two, though it never completely grinds to a halt and the second half of the film features an excellent car chase. The cast is one of the most interesting things about the film - I was extremely excited to see Kurt Russell back on the big screen after far too long, and he makes the best of his role as the deranged psycho at the centre of the film. There’s no shortage of eye candy either - with ladies including Vanessa Ferlito, Rose McGowan and Sydney Poitier (that’s Sydney with a ‘y’!) providing the film with enough highlights! Overall, this is not a film without problems - but it’s highly entertaining stuff, and fans of seventies Grindhouse flicks will no doubt enjoy it!

In recent years, vampire movies have transformed the undead into urbane clothes horses and pouting cannon fodder for roided-up alpha humans. Now, “30 Days of Night” takes vampires closer to their mythological roots than they have been in years. The bloodsuckers in this film are vicious, bestial, and ugly. Though humanoid in appearance, they truly seem monstrous. Their descent on the remote town of Barrow, Alaska has the sole aim of allowing them to feast on all the inhabitants as quickly and as brutally as possible. Barrow is so far north that in winter the sun does not rise for thirty straight days. As a result, a small group of survivors led by Josh Hartnett have to evade and fight off the vampire horde for what seems like an eternal night.

Director David Slade creates an atmosphere of tense foreboding, peppered with unanticipated shocks for the audience. The audience is drawn into a merciless, frozen world where the only thing that matters to either side is simple survival. Though the action scenes are expertly staged and plentiful, there are none of the completely OTT set-pieces that have contaminated the horror genre in recent years.

The vampires are allowed to be mysterious and menacing. We are not given any back story as to where they came from -though we see a derelict freighter in one of the opening shots, and they seem to speak some Slavic dialect. They are deliberately left as a terrifying enigma. Unfortunately, the human characters are really rather dull and it is difficult to care deeply for any of them.

To wrap up, this is the best vampire movie in years. It lingers in the mind and offers ample quantities of gore, suspense, and thrills. There are a number of solid plot twists, and the script resists the temptation to offer any easy answers to the dilemma facing the ever-more overwhelmed townsfolk. By any standards this is a gruesome, chilling, Halloween treat for horror fans of all sorts.

(5 votes, average: 4.8 out of 5)

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