bbq_an_ewok's Reviews

Hot Fuzz (2007)

10/10

16 February 2007

Warning: Spoilers

What is there to say about "Hot Fuzz" when comparing to "Shaun of the Dead" or "Spaced".

Firstly, it's a little slow in the beginning, but I liked this. I liked the build up and the character introductions. It's your typical "fish out of water" set up. Think John McClane arrives in Dibley. When Nicholas Angel is promoted and transfered to Sandford, it's your typical Wiltshire/Somerset village, complete with all the village life that you would expect. You're introduced to all manner of characters. There's the underage drinker tolerant pub owners, Simon Skinner, the sinister manager of Somerfield (played and hammed up by the wonderful Timothy Dalton), Jim Broadbent's Detective Inspector Frank Butterman, who gives the impression wanting a quiet life, Neighbourhood Watch chief Tom Weaver who is all about preserving the idyllic mirage that is the village, played by none other than Edward Woodward, and (of course) Nick Frost's PC Danny Butterman, who's extremely eager to be just like his Hollywood heroes.

However, not is all it appears in Sandford and there are a spate of gruesome deaths, with all the gore and humour that you'd expect from the Shaun creators. Angel begins to suspect that Skinner is responsible, as he seems to make all kinds of suggestive comments. And after an uneasy start, Danny Butterman and Nicholas Angel investigate, despite the assurances that all is well and "accidents happen".

Without giving too much away about the subsequent plot, it is safe to say that it picks up and the violence and humour is relentless once it starts. There are great homages to Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hollywood in general that only Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright can pull off. Spaced fans can watch for the nod to the paint-ball episode! I loved this film... Whilst not quite as consistent as Shaun, it still did not fail to deliver and I would recommend this to anyone!!!

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Doctor Who (2005–2022)

Fan-Tardis

28 March 2005

What a great opener for a new season... Explosions, corridors, evil plastic dummies, a new, improved Tardis interior (which you could see when The Doctor opened the door of the Tardis), a companion who was very pleasing on the eyes and a new Doctor who captured the mystery of Hartnell, vulnerability of Davidson, madcap humour of Tom Baker, buffoonery of Troughton and action hero of Pertwee. All in all, I don't think the BBC could have done much better. It's a great introduction to for the 21st Century...

I hope they do a retrospective regeneration scene just so we get to see the wonderful Paul McGann in the Doctor guise one last time (or perhaps a 2 Doctor adventure) as I really feel that he wasn't given a fair crack of the whip, but at the moment I am perfectly happy with Mr. Eccleston in the role. Bravo to him, Billie and the BBC!

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Joey (2004–2006)

Stop Comparing Joey to Friends

14 February 2005

Did people keep comparing Frasier to Cheers? Of course not. It was a completely different show. I saw the first two episodes last night and was impressed. I like Gina and Michael and I especially like his agent, Bobbie, played with gusto but the ever talented Jennifer Coolidge.

Out of all the characters, Joey stands the best chance of making it alone and I really think people need to let the show move through the natural teething problems that it will have. It's NOT Friends, just the same as Mork and Mindy was NOT Happy Days. To compare the two is asinine. Will it be better than Friends, who knows. Remember that Friends had it's own teething problems in the early days and was not necessarily the greatest show on the planet. Star Trek: The Next Generation was absolutely lousy in the first season. That moved on to spawn one of TV's greatest shows. Hell, The Simpsons was not great in it's first season. However, a show will never work if all people can say is "This is not Friends"!!! Give it a chance. It's worked for Angel from "Buffy"!

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Team America: World Police (2004)

10/10

Team America: The Most Intellectual Movie of the Year

26 January 2005

Warning: Spoilers

It took a while, but Team America finally made it over here. I could waffle on about the effects, puppets, dialogue... (Matt Damon), but instead I would like to focus on two things...

1) Music... I have never laughed as much at a soundtrack as I did with this one. Picture the Top Gun soundtrack and insert Trey Parker's sick sense of humour... America (F*CK YEAH), I Miss You (like Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbour), We've Got AIDS (a must for anyone who is a fan of Rent), I'm Lonely and, my personal fave, You Need A Montage!!! It was clichéd beyond believe, but if you closed your eyes for a moment, you could have easily been watching The Rock or Top Gun!!!

2) Storyline... Yes... They attack everyone, but I believe with good reason. If you strip away the obvious spoofs on the Bruckheimer/Simpsonesq movies, I think there was important social commentary. As much as I love Michael Moore (who makes a great cameo), I think that, viewed with a certain level of intellect, Team America is more important that Farenheit 9/11. It shows that too much woolly thinking can be just as dangerous as warmongering. Team America, whilst an overly violent and destructive group, can been seen as a positive force. However, it needs to be tempered with common sense and a thought to consequence. Whilst Hollywood Stars raise valid points when they see war and beg governments to look for alternatives, sometimes there are no alternatives. Look at Hitler and his cronies... What would have happened to the world if we had continually sued for peace? Had Hitler existed now, (some say he does in GW, but that's another matter), would Hollywood all band together to speak out against the war? Just some food for thought.

I could be over-intellectualising the movie. I will say that it has been a long time since I laughed as hard in a movie for so long... 10/10...

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Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)

Don't Listen to the Ne'ersayers!

24 January 2005

Ignore those who are just slagging off this show because "It's not like the first." and "What's with the female Starbuck/Boomer?" This is a GREAT piece of sci-fi that shows you can remake something and have it work.

The acting is superb, with Katie Sackhoff and James Callis stealing a lot of the show. I must admit that I was not too keen on Jamie Bamber in the mini-series, but he has really come into his own as the series goes on.

A note must go out to the composer(s). The music is absolutely mesmerizing. It is a superbly pulled off show with all the right elements of suspense, drama, action and comedy.

Finally, to all those who keep saying "The original is better..." Go back and take a look at the original. The acting is sometimes so bad, it makes Brad Pitt in Troy look like Sir Lawrence Olivier. The special effects comprise of the same 3 shots of ships blowing up. Hell, the best part of the original was Dirk Benedict...

Kudoes to the New Battlestar Galactica.

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Alien vs. Predator (2004)

AVP Was not "that" bad!

25 October 2004

I don't get most of you people!!! What were you expecting? Shakespeare? Kubrick? This was supposed to be a fun action flick and it did exactly what it said on the tin. My only complaint was that there was not enough of the Alien/Predator fights... Those sequences were really well done and I was left wanting for more!!! The acting, whilst it was not Oscar worthy, was more than adequate for what the movie claimed to be! The special effects were great and it was nice to see the puppet work/animatronics instead of the usual CGI route. It made the creatures, IMHO, more realistic.

And it was far superior to Resident Evil!!!! I can't wait for AVP 2!

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Hex (2004–2005)

What's Buffy got that Hex Doesn't?

18 October 2004

What can I say about Hex that will be complimentary... The sets are nice. And, erm... I liked the sets. I admit that I had been looking forward to this. All the hints at a "British Buffy" and the like had me salivating. However, instead of a British Buffy, we got a hibred of Hollyoaks and Charmed, neither of which have much on the substance side of things. In "Welcome to the Hellmouth", we are left at the end with a good idea of who's who and why. There was practically zero character development. I was left at the end with an extreme sense of apathy. I really couldn't have cared less about a single character, because I knew very little about them. It almost seemed that they had jammed too much into the first episode without thinking that we, the audience, would only continue to watch if we felt any kind of association with the characters.

I will watch next week to give it a second chance, but I'll have to see a great improvement if they are to keep up with the likes of Buffy, Angel or even Tru Calling.

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Troy (2004)

The "Joey Tribbiani" school of acting

23 May 2004

Just saw Troy. I was advised that I would enjoy it and, for the most part, I did. I thought the costuming was fantastic, the fight scenes were terrific, especially the Achilles/Hector dual, and some of the acting... namely Peter O'Toole, Eric Bana and Brian Cox... was superb. Unfortunately, the movie's "star" Brad Pitt left a hell of a lot to be desired. Don't get me wrong. I am a great admirer of Mr. Pitt and find him to be one of Hollywood's most underrated performers. His work in movies like Se7en and Fight Club was phenomenal. However, in Troy he looked like he had been to the "Joey Tribbiani School of Acting" as seen in an episode of "Friends". Joey explains how he gets his facial expressions, and a couple that he explain are the "can you smell a fart" and "trying to divide 13 into 597" (or something like that). Basically Brad's facial expressions looked like a really bad American soap opera actor.

Also, some of the dialogue was bad to the point of banal. You really wonder how they came up with this drivel. I've read the Iliad and the Odyssey and I don't remember the dialogue being that awful.

What is truly a shame is that there were parts of the film that showed that Wolfgang Peterson was on the right tracks. Then some threw a switch and derailed it. What a shame.

Still, I guess that Joey Tribbiani will be happy that Brad not only graduated from his class, but is putting it to multi-million dollar use!

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Absolutely Awful

8 March 2004

My girlfriend and I rented this with the firm belief that no Sean Connery movie could be that bad. I have managed to sit my way through Presidio and Highlander 2. This, however, made them look like The Godfather...

We turned it off after 45 minutes. The effects were childlike, dialogue inane and banal and the acting was like watching a school play.

Also, the editing during some of the fight scenes made one nauseous. This a movie that I would only recommend to someone who was interested in becoming bulimic!

Probably one of the worst movies that I have ever seen...

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

10/10

My Precious CGI...

19 December 2002

FINALLY!!! Peter Jackson has proven that it is indeed possible to CGI a character and it look 100% realistic. Unlike Yoda in Attack of the Clones, which was well done, but still obviously CGI, Gollum is spookily real. There have been rumours of Andy Serkis being up for an Oscar. I say YES!

I saw The Two Towers last night full of the same kind of anticipation that I had for Star Wars Episode One. I walked away from this movie feeling breathless.

The story starts right where Fellowship ended and splices the stories of the members of the Fellowship flawlessly. Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor when they meet Gollum. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas tracking the kidnapped Merry and Pippin where they meet and "old friend". They end up with the Rohan. From this point on it is non stop action. The battle of Helm Deep is breathtaking. CGI where needed, everything else, good old fashioned battle scenes. Merry and Pippin have their own story with the Ents that is humouring and moving.

Everything climaxes to a point that leaves you screaming at the credits. Three hours? Pah, I could have sat there for another three hours. December 2003 cannot happen soon enough.

Lucas take note before directing Episode 3. Sit down with Peter Jackson. He might teach you a thing or two about making a PHENOMINAL movie!!!

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28 Days Later (2002)

Horror/Thriller as it is meant to be!

12 November 2002

Too often we see horror movies that rely on special effects, big stars, predictable teens, cheesy music and unoriginal storylines. 28 Days later does not suffer from this affliction. Instead it takes the audience through a whirlwind of suspence, blood, paranoia and pure unadulterated horror. We start with a virus called RAGE that has been engineered and deliberately administered to chimps. Unfortunately, animal rights activists release one of the chimps. Cut to 28 Days Later...

We are taken through the story through the eyes of Jim, a courier rider who was in a coma when something happened. He awakes to find London deserted (an eerie homage to John Wyndham) and wondering what has happened. After being attacked, he is rescued by Mark and Selena who tell him the truth. England has been overrun by "the infected". From there it turns into a battle of survival, taking Jim and his new found friends (including Frank and Hannah, a father and daughter) up to Manchester where they believe salvation lies in the form of a military unit led by Major Henry West (play superbly by Christopher Eccleston). However, all is not as it seems.

What makes 28 Days Later so phenominal is the fact that it plays on our fears and uses minimal special effects, instead going for a George Romero style of real actors in minimal make up. Deserted London is spooky in it's sparcity and the actors more than meet the challenge, especially Brendon Gleeson in his best role since Hamish in Braveheart. He is your everyman and someone that we all know.

11 out of 10 for the first real original horror movie since the original 1968 Return of the Living Dead.

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Men in Black II (2002)

2/10

Waste of Money

28 August 2002

When the talking dog outshines Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith there is a problem. The special effects were good, but done before. The plot was less than substandard and it seemed the actors were there for their paychecks, nothing more, nothing less. Save your money and re-watch the original MIB.

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Wing Commander (1999)

Use your sense of Direction Luke

28 March 2002

Utterly abismal. I was in a theatre that was half full. 100% of the crowd was there for the Star Wars trailer and we should have left there. The plot and acting in the games was far superior to the movie, which had fine actors in it (David Suchet, David Warner to name but a few) The "action" was yawn inducing and the "drama" borderlined on adult film acting, it was that bad. This is not a movie for watching. This is a movie for torture or inducing labour...

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Cabin Boy (1994)

1/10

Was this an Accident?

26 March 2002

I have to say that without a doubt, this was by far the worst piece of tripe I have ever had the mispleasure of viewing. I would rather guage my eyes out with cloak pins and disembowel myself with a rusty spoon than ever have to see this movie again. This movie should come with a warning label on it. I think that it is really sad when unsuspecting movie renters may inadvertently rent this (as I did) and be scarred for life.

Do yourselves a favour. STAY AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY...

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24 (2001–2010)

Great Show So Far

18 March 2002

I have to say, after leaving the US in January, one of my fears was that I would not be able to watch "24" in the UK. Then, when I saw that it was being exported over to the UK, I was really excited. I think the format in original. The acting is superb and the tension gripping. It is a top notch drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of cerebral drama, as opposed to the usual mindless trash that seems to be on the TV days.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

10/10

Why have people not liked this movie

20 December 2001

I have some of the comments on here about Jackson ruining LOTR. I think nothing could be further from the truth. This movie is in my personal top five, along with Braveheart, Schindler's List and Star Wars. It may not have been perfection, but it came real close. A definite Oscar Winner in the technical areas and I believe should receive Best Picture and Director. It was phenomenal to the Nth Degree. The parts left out were not necessary to the plot. The parts left in were shot beautifully and concisely. Bravo to Mr. Jackson and the cast and crew. I cannot wait for Christmas 2002.

Ahhh 2002. 2 Episode 2s to look forward to.

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Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Phenominal

2 September 2001

WOW... Saw it opening night and wanted to wait to see what others thought before posting. To all those who hated it... You all need to unwind and relax. What were you expecting from this. Gone with the Winds? Schindler's List? No!!! This, from the get go, was supposed to be a homage to the funniest recurring duo since Abbot and Costello. It was also a thank-you to all the View Askew fans by giving them references to all 4 previous movies. I started laughing in the opening credits and stopped after seeing "That Woman". My roommates have even started calling their cat "Boo Boo kitty f***"

This movie is profane. It is rude, base, disgusting, etc. It is everything you expect from Jay and Silent Bob. To those who claim to be Kevin Smith fans and hated it, you obviously do not understand what he was trying to accomplish.

If you want fine art, go rent Ghandi. If you want to laugh you arse off for 2 hours, go so Jay and Silent Bob Strike back!

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The Mists of Avalon (2001)

8/10

Interesting, but not the true Mists of Avalon

16 July 2001

I found this vesion of the Arthurian tale interesting. I have been a fan of the book and looked forward to this story with some anticipation and it started strongly. I liked the casting choices for the most part (Hans Matheson as Mordred was superb, but then again I liked him in Still Crazy as well). I was disappointed in the major changes made to the storyline. The exclusion of some the tales (Ban and Bors, the betrayal by Accalon, Gareth and Mordred, etc) was confusing and left one wondering if it was ever going to return to the book's storyline at anytime. Sadly, it didn't. Instead, it chose to take a completely different direction which was a little bland and predictable. The film seemed rushed and thrown together. It could have had another 2 hours and been a lot more faithful to the book. It is going to disappoint Marion Zimmer Bradley fans everywhere.

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