September 2007 Archives

The first Pirates movie was thoroughly enjoyable. I saw it on a plane to the USA and reveled in its silliness and Johnny Depp's hilarious performance. The second one was a dog - they piled on the twists and turns so you couldn't follow who was a goodie or baddie, it was far too long and the gore quotient meant that younger kids could no longer watch it.

And now we have number three which I believe was made back to back with number two. It's somewhere between the first two. More humour, less convoluted plot but still constant changing of allegiances to make it hard to follow. The action sequences are all well done but you had no idea who to cheer for at any point so you wait until the end of each one to have them explain it to you.

The CGI for Davy Jones remains one of my favourite of any recent movie. Beautifully done.

I'm not going to even attempt to explain the plot. Jack Sparrow still fun, Davy Jones still scary, the Brits still wankers, Will Turner still boring and Elizabeth Swann still pretty.

As with the second, it drags terribly in the middle but picks up towards the end. At least they have the decency to kill some of the main characters in this one.

If you watched the first two, you'll feel obliged to watch this. If you didn't, don't. 

He really is an oddball, Nicolas. To my mind he is a wonderful actor capable of great range and intensity but he seems to love doing these bubblegum movies. I'm not sure it's just for the money, I think he likes himself in the hero role since Con Air.

This is supposedly based on a Philip K Dick novel but I have no idea how close it sticks to the plot. Given that it is James Bond plus some sci-fi, I'm guessing not very closely.

The basic plot is that he is a Vegas magician who can see up to 1.5 minutes into his own future. This is the basis for his act but FBI agent Julianne Moore decides he is for real. I have to admit I cannot stand her as an actress. Every time I see her I think "oh there is Julianne playing a role" rather than ever suspending disbelief. 

She needs his help because, wait for it, some terrorists want to explode a nuclear bomb and he can help find them. C'mon, that's Series 2 of '24' isn't it? He immediately ends up in a bunch of trouble and dodges her. Separate from this, every day he goes to the same diner at the same time because he has forseen (far beyond the 1.5 mins) that the future love of his life walks through the door. Finally on this day she, played by Jessica Biel, does. 

The movie has plenty of humour and good one-liners. Many of them are used in the scene where he tries to introduce himself to her. Each attempt fails but they are in the future so he keeps working the angles until one scenario works out.

Biel is an interesting looking woman. She seems to change from frankly chunky to divine within the space of a few minutes. For someone who I think is hired mainly on looks, her acting is fine and she fits in well into the movie.

He gets a lift from her. The FBI follow and somehow magically the baddies find out who he is too and go in pursuit. They fall in love over the space of about ten minutes. Lots of action and tension follows and there is a very neat twist right at the end.

You'll enjoy this despite the risible plot which is riddled with gaping holes. The baddies aren't even cardboard cutouts, more like raffia paper.

One for DVD. 

So I expected this to be dreadful, I just had two hours to kill on a plane. I was pleasantly surprised to find an improvement over the second but writing that just did not come close to the original at all.

I can't believe I'm going to describe the plot, but here goes. The Frog King is dying and wants Shrek to take over. He doesn't want to. The King says that there is one other heir to the throne called Arthur. Shrek, Donkey and Puss head off to find him. Whilst they are gone, Prince Charming carries out a coup with all the villains from the famous fairy story (and the duplicitous Rapunzel).

It turns out that Arthur is a weakling nerd and needs to be convinced to take the job. They manage to shoe-horn in Merlin and a sub-story about Puss and Donkey swapping bodies (basically a variation of the storyline in Shrek 2).

Lots of excitement, plenty of reasonable one-liners and the movie actually cracked along nicely with only a small flat bit in the middle. Of course you can also play the "guess the voice" game. I spent ages trying to figure out who Merlin was. I guessed Eric Idle or Michael Palin and it turned out to be the former.

Kids will love this and you won't be too bored watching it. I think they can probably squeeze one more sequel out of it before calling it a day. 

I loved Ocean's Eleven, it was a wonderfully tight fun movie with great music and a simple plot. Twelve was an utter disaster with a mess of a plot, terrible pacing and pretty bad acting too. I wasn't expecting much from Thirteen.

You do have to wonder why Soderbergh keeps making these movies. It is totally formulaic, he is not pushing the style or the format forward one-inch. He seems to have forgotten why the first was so great.

Here I am five days after watching Thirteen and I'm having difficulty remembering what it was all about. Oh yes, Elliott Gould's character, Reuben Tishkoff is ripped off by nasty piece of work Willie Bank (played by Al Pacino). He suffers a heart attack. The Ocean team decide to get revenge and bring in Terry Benedict who they ripped off in a previous movie. 

Blah blah, twists and turns. Impossible, not impossible. Chunnel tunnelling machine. Ellen Barkin in the worst role she has ever had. Will they, won't they. Hurrah, they all lived happily ever after.

I lost interest after 45 minutes or so. The acting was flat, the music boring and there was no zing from it at all. But it was still less bad than the second one. Poor Elliot Gould couldn't even be bothered keep a consistent accent through the movie he was so bored.

Only watch if you are stuck on a plane with nothing else to do. 

My wife grabbed two NZ Sauvignon's in M&S the other day and we just tried this one. All in all, very impressed.

Own-brand anything is a very hit and miss affair with some products being wonderful bargains and others being barrel scraping. Even terms like "Finest" don't say very much.

This is one of those times when it works well. The wine is easily the match of a Montana or similar but for a lot less money. The classic crisp gooseberry taste is there in bucketfuls. None of the wishy washy nonsense of weaker Sauvignons.

As with all good Marlboroughs, this comes as a screw-cap. Drink it young and enjoy every mouthful.

 

Nobilo are a large wine producing company in NZ who I believe concentrate on the lower end of the market. Any company that sells wine with the title "New Zealand White Wine" with no other details is not exactly going after the Cloudy Bay contingent.

I was therefore surprised to see them selling a more premium product offering Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

The total lack of any "terroir" information on the bottle makes me think this is a blend made up of sell-offs of the Sauvignon spectrum from around Marlborough.

There was nothing wrong with the wine at all but it was an utterly forgettable average NZ Sauvignon. More like a South African than anything else.

Pay the extra few Euro for a Montana or Villa Maria, you won't regret it. 

I think we have had this bottle for a while. We prefer to drink Sauvignons very young and 2004 is getting on a bit!

At €11.99 it is very good value and comes with a rubber cork rather than the usual NZ screwcap.

The wine is of the softer end of the Marlborough spectrum which we are not huge fans of. We like the very sharp Montanas etc. So the usual Sauvignon Blanc aromas etc.

Very acceptable given the price and better than most South Africans or Chileans. 

I cannot believe Danny Boyle was executive producer of this garbage. I hope they paid him lots.

Gone are the cheekbones to be replaced by a Scottish accent. Entire movie in bullet form:

• People holed up in house during period of original 28 days
• Zombies break in
• Husband escapes leaving wife to grisly death
• Husband in safe zone in London
• 28 Weeks later, kids arrive from Spain
• Kids dodge out of safe zone to old house
• Guess who was there? Yup. She was immune
• But ooooohh nooooo, she's a carrier
• Kisses husband. Instant zombie. He kills her
• He rampages. Many zombies
• Lots of shooting by soldiers followed by firebombing and gassing
• Kids saved by kindly soldiers. They of course die. Boy bitten by dad before girl shoots dad.
• Kids rescued and brought to France
• Back to start of bullet points and repeat. 

 Utter utter utter rubbish.