Title=Grizzly Man
Score=4
Summary= A difficult documentary to watch. Timothy Treadwell’s lack of cognitive thought processes will both bother you and fill you with wonder. There are moments in this picture which could never be captured on film if it wasn’t for this simple minded hippy. Poor interviews, with the exception of a few intelligent people who save this movie from being the largest collection of dim wits ever assembled.
Title=Broken Flowers Soundtrack
Score=8
Summary= A great mix of Western Jazz, Classical, Caribbean and Indie Rock which will impress the artistic, intelligent and Don Juan’s alike. Smooth listening from start to finish.
Title=Jimi Hendrix: Deluxe Edition
Score=7
Summary=A good purchase for the performances, and in particular the acoustic performance, but add the interviews and the making of featurette, and you have a classic DVD for the fan. If you’re neither a fan of Hendrix or the guitar, then this is definitely not for you.
Title=Wolf Creek
Score=8
Summary=True horror, suspense and terror unflinchingly shown onscreen. Some rough dialogue early on can jar you out of the movie, but this has some truly terrifying moments. Natural performances, with a stunning turn from the actor playing the psychopath. The “true story” aspect really does hurt the movie and causes more problems at the end, if this had been left out the movie would have scored higher.
Title=Broken Flowers
Score=6
Summary= An impressive display by Bill Murray playing an over the hill Don Juan searching for his son. An artistic driven film which starts out slow but soon picks up and is very enjoyable. Slightly lacking in performance chemistry and affective dialogue. Good performances by Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange and Bill Murray.
Title=Crash
Score=9
Summary=An uncompromising story, hard hitting, uncomfortable, but very meaty and enjoyable. With strong performances from a huge cast, and excellent writing, this makes for a very good movie. Watch out for some leads playing unexpected roles both excellently and not so. Well worth a watch for some thinking material and real entertainment.
Title=The Transporter 2
Score=6
Summary=Snagging my demographic isn’t really all that hard. Show some amazing stunts, lots of fights with decent martial arts, and finally add in a hot chick with guns in her hands and you can pretty much guarantee a huge male audience will show up to see your film.
Title=A Sound Of Thunder
Score=2
Summary=A Sci-Fi film can be goofy and dumb and yet still be fun at the same time. But A Sound Of Thunder fails at every level that you can think of. Nothing works in this movie and I can easily predict that this movie will be making my “10 worst movies of 2005” at the end of the year.
Title=The Constant Gardener
Score=5
Summary=A movie that I SHOULD have liked, with good people in front of and behind the camera that ground itself to a halt almsot from the very begining and failed to ever get me to care about the people in the film or the issues they were struggling with.
Title=Dominion: A Prequel to The Exorcist
Score=9
Summary=A strong and subtle story, building heavily on the characters and in particular Merrin. Providing a lot more focus on his crisis of faith, the person he is, and his slow realisation on his first meeting with a Demon. A much better movie than the other Exorcist film. Also includes a short discussion of the Paul Schrader Q&A session afterwards.
Title=MirrorMask
Score=4
Summary=A very weak story which develops little throughout, this movie is a visually driven film heavy with effects and many scenes with no real connection to the initial story. Good performances from the leads, but little enjoyment from the story.
Title=The Dark
Score=6
Summary=A by the numbers scare movie for the first half, then the second turns into a creepy psychological horror that just doesn’t quite hit the mark. The sheep are really not that scary, but Bean is superb once again with Bello providing an equally good performance, together they have a good onscreen chemistry. These two, and the last twenty minutes, really do bring the movie back from the brink.