Good Night, and Good Luck

• flawless acting
• a fascinating and true story
• George Clooney
• beautiful, considered film-making (well, I thought it looked very nice
• too many options to list

. . . somehow didn't manage to hold my attention like I thought it would. This may have something to do with me being preoccupied with work while I was watching. I should probably give it another go in the future, but I probably won't.

March of the Penguins

An amazing feat of endurance, filming and storytelling, about 60% ruined for me by Morgan Freeman's narration.

The original French version seems to have voices for each of the penguin "characters", so maybe it's better?

Donnie Brasco

I saw this ages ago, possibly at the movies, and remember really liking it.

This time round, it really didn't seem anywhere near as good. There's nothing outstandingly bad about it, but lots of it seemed a bit cliched.

The story's still a good one, though - based on reality, Johnny Depp plays an undercover FBI agent. He befriends Al Pacino's mobster, and gradually becomes more and more embroiled in the mafia world and lifestyle.

The best thing about the movie is Pacino's character. He shows us that mobsters aren't as cool as they're often portrayed, in fact, he's really a bit of a loser. He never seems to have any money, his crimes are often petty (breaking open parking meters), and just like lots of other working bozos, he can't get that promotion.

Not a terrible film, but not a great one either, I'm afraid.

I am a holiday

Actually, that's not true, but I did go on holiday earlier this year, it was great.

If you click on this text or the photo below:



you can look at some photos from it. Clicking on the photo gives you a lovely slideshow, but you miss out on my hilarious comments.

There would be more, but I took the wrong laptop with me and couldn't delete any from the camera.

The Machinist

WARNING WARNING, THIS IS NOT ABOUT A LITTLE OLD LADY RUNNING UP WEDDING DRESSES ON HER SEWING MACHINE. DO NOT BE MISLED.

Rather, the protagonist is a machine operator in a factory, operating machines that do various industrial things with big bits of metal. I'm reliably informed that it is correct to refer to such a person as a machinist.

Once you're past the disappointment at missing out on the workings of the mind of a sewist, this is quite a good film. It follows a man with chronic insomnia, which leads to all kinds of paranoia and hallucination, bringing him around full-circle to what caused the insomnia in the first place.

The plot's pretty cool, as is Christian Bale's mind-boggling anorexia. His extreme slimming is probably well-documented elsewhere, so I won't get into it here.

Also interesting is that the whole thing was financed by, and largely filmed in, Spain. Go the Spaniards.

Oldboy

On the face of it, this seems to be a typical Japanese kung-fu revenge flick - man is inexplicably locked away in a room by persons unknown for fifteen years, seeks retribution once released.

However, on the face of it, I'm an intelligent person - the truth can often be very different. This is, in fact, a Korean film (first one I've seen I think), and is highly recommended. I, it turns out, am a dumbarse.

The plot is pretty much as I outlined above, but with interesting twists here and there. This doesn't really sound that great, but this film stands out. To me, it seems that every part of the film has been created very deliberately.

I'm sorry I'm not writing this a bit closer to having watched it, or I'd go into more detail. Suffice to say, it's definitely worth a look, even if the plot or (broadly speaking) genre put you off.

Some parts are not for the squeamish, though.