Just a quickie to mention the films I caught on my recent trip to the states. Will do reviews when I have half a second (it’s a mad time for me right now), but at least if they’re listed I might be around to it one day!
So, in full and in no particular order:
Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life
Terminator 3
Pirates of the Caribean
Two Week’s Notice
Down with Love
Agent Cody Banks
X2
Tortilla Soup
Part of my lack of time has been contributed to by a couple of new games – Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness and SOCOM: Navy Seals, the latter of which also happens to be an online game!! But more about that in the games section
This is a really fun play/musical about 6 college friends who form an impromtu barber-shop type vocal group on the roof of their student digs. There is a plot, of sorts, about their relationships and life choices, but the main appeal is the songs. Heavily based on Motown numbers, and just fantastic singing (but I’m a fan of acapella anyway) – a really good night out, and well worth the effort.
Gym update. Went last Tuesday and this morning. Last week I did the treadmill – changed speed a bit, but probably averaged out to about 15 minutes at 8.5 kph.
This morning did the ergo – 3k in 14.05 minutes, followed by 3 minutes on the treadmill @ 9 kph, before it hurt to much to continue! :)#
A great action film about a super secret agent who forgets his identity and has to try and work it out, while being tracked down by the very agency which created him.
I have to say I was a little disappointed by this film. I’d seen all the best bits in the trailers, and I felt like Will Smith was struggling to hold the film on his own. Tommy Lee Jones is once again the man – his comic timing is faultless, and he plays off the other characters so well. The baddie was also just great this time. … but it was just lacking something. The freshness of the original film wasn’t there, and although many of the old characters were back, somehow the magic wasn’t.
Another Jack Ryan number – just as good, just as worth seeing! Manages to keep up the tension and excitement throughout, and it’s nice to see the familiar characters doing their piece again.
This is a fantastic film – raises lots of interesting questions about human rights and free-will, but is ultimately an action movie, with a heavy dose of intrigue/thrill. I enjoyed it hugely – the Speilberg/Cruise partnership has paid dividends. Seen at Ster Century, Leeds.
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells’ classic story of a man thrown into the future, where the human race has split in two.
I have to say that this is actually a fairly good adaptation. The suspension of disblief is very easy – aided considerably by some of the best special effects I’ve seen for a while – but yet it manages to keep hold of it’s B-rate sci-fi origins (and I mean that as a complement!) The whole moon destruction thing was a work of genius, as is the holographic librarian – very nice plot devices to explain the storyline, and to help our hero make sense of it all!
I did end up seeing it twice, and it certainly survives two viewings (it was actually on the second viewing that I figured out that the time machine is storing up time, and when it explodes at the end a billion year bubble of time passage is released in an instant). Worth catching on video.
