I went to see Avengers Assemble with my sister recently. I have not really been keeping up to date with all the comic book movies so I was probably missing some of the back story to it, or at least it felt like that at times. But otherwise I rather enjoyed it.

I watched the original version of The Wicker Man followed by the more recent American remake starring Nicolas Cage. I had not seen either version before, but I was roughly familiar with the plot. I thought the original one was really good, very creepy in a weird way. The remake however is just unbelievably bad, and made even worse by watching it immediately after the first film. Not the bees!

I went to the cinema to see a film that I had been highly anticipating for some time, The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists. The film is based on the book of the same name, which I previously reviewed; the screenplay was written by the author, Gideon Defoe, but the film is only a loose adaptation, with some major differences in plot. The movie features Charles Darwin, a dodo, an evil Queen Victoria and various pirates. I really enjoyed the movie, which was really fun. It was a good adaptation of the book, whilst also having some good original features too. I also really liked the stop-motion animation style, which was done by Aardman Animations (which does pretty much guarantee quality, I suppose). Overall, it was a good film and I am glad I got the chance to see it.

Following on from my earlier posts about Harry Potter, I am now finished the first four books and about to start on book five. I have also just obtained this boxset of all the movies. Obviously I will read each book before watching the corresponding film. But the question is, should I wait until I’ve finished all the books, or start watching the films now?

So I went to see The Hunger Games at the cinema. I enjoyed the books when I read them last year, especially the first part in the trilogy which is covered by this film, so I was quite excited to see the movie. But I had also tried to avoid too much hype about it, so I wasn’t sure whether it would be good or not. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but I do think it was a good adaptation of the book, and it stuck very closely to the plot and feel of the novel. I’m not sure that it was a fantastic film on its own, but as a fan of the books I did enjoy it a lot.

I haven’t been to the cinema for ages, but I am extremely excited to go to see The Hunger Games later today. Earlier in the week when I was online booking my ticket for that, I noticed that the cinema was also showing 21 Jump Street. The trailer looked reasonable so in a rare moment of spontaneity I decided to go see that as well. The movie is a remake of some 80s television show which starred Johnny Depp, except I’d not heard of it before because apparently it was never really popular over here. The premise is that two rookie cops are sent undercover to a high school to infiltrate a drug dealing ring. I was expecting a kind of comedy-action buddy cop movie, which is exactly what I got, albeit a rather good one. It was by no means fantastic or anything, but it was entertaining and funny, and I enjoyed watching it. Admittedly I did not have really high expectations for it, but it was better than I had been anticipating, so I will give it credit for being pleasantly surprising. (And that is why I will never be a movie critic, damnit, I just don’t know how to write these things…)

I really like the movie Stardust and I think it is one of those rare films which manages to be better than the book upon which it is based. I have read and liked the book (before I saw the film!) and I consider Neil Gaiman to be an excellent author in general and American Gods is one of my favourite books. But there is just something about the film which works better; I can’t really properly explain it, but the film is just more fun, it just feels more right. Having seen it a few times now, I seem to like it more every time I watch it. If you want an entertaining, enjoyable, and clever fantasy adventure movie, then you could do a lot worse than this one. It only has two flaws that I can see: 1) Ricky Gervais is in it, albeit a mercifully brief appearance, and 2) an appallingly bad song over the end credits. Other than that it’s great, and I really recommend it.

I have made no secret of my great love for the films made by Pixar. Ratatouille is a good one, but one that I always ranked slightly below some of the others. At least until I rewatched it again this weekend and I changed my opinion: actually it is a great one, and well up there with my favourites.

The main character is Remy, a rat with a great sense of smell and a love of cooking. After being split up from his family he finds his way to Paris and to the restaurant that used to belong to his now-dead favourite chef. Guided by the image of this chef, he breaks into the kitchen and ends up forming a partnership with Linguini, a young man who works in the kitchen but cannot cook at all.

The movie does everything that most Pixar movies do so well: it is well-written with a great plot, it is funny and warm, the main characters (rat and human alike) are well-developed and brought to life brilliantly, and the animation looks fantastic too. Overall I just loved it and I am glad that I saw it again and was able to reappraise it and give it the credit that it deserves.

Earlier this week I skived off studying for an afternoon and went to see The Muppets which was just released here in the UK last week. I may regret taking that time off later when I am behind on all my essays, but for the moment I think it was totally worth it.

The film is about a muppet called Walter, who lives with his human brother Gary. They go on a trip to LA along with Gary’s girlfriend Mary. Walter is a huge fan of the Muppets but when they go to visit the old studio they learn about a plan for an evil oil company to tear down the studio unless the Muppets get the $10 million required to buy it back. So they track down Kermit and persuade him to get the Muppets back together and put on a show to raise the money.

It was a really fun movie with great music and overall just really entertaining. I went to see it on a day when the schools were out and so the place was mobbed, absolutely full with lots of kids. Usually I would avoid the cinema like the plague on a day like that, but it actually gave it a great atmosphere with everyone laughing and enjoying the film. I think it did a great job of being a modern take on the Muppets while also remaining true to the original (plus it is great to see real proper muppets and not CGI for example). Overall I really liked it and I would definitely recommend it.

It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

Continuing my recent trend of rewatching some of my favourite movies, I just saw The Blues Brothers again for the first time in years. This is such a fabulous movie, and it is one of the rare exceptions to my general opinion that musicals suck (probably because it is not really a musical, but you know what I mean). It is just a brilliant comedy and on top of that the music is great. I’m not going to go into details because I don’t think I could adequately sum up how great this film is. If you haven’t seen it, just watch it.

O Brother Where Art Thou? was the first Coen Brothers film that I saw, in the cinema with my parents, when I was about 13 years old. Since then I’ve seen all of their other movies and I consider them to be high on the list of my favourite film makers, but I think this is still my favourite of their films. Maybe not the best objectively, but the one I enjoy the most. I don’t have much to say about it really, but I just wanted to mention it because I watched it recently and it made me really happy. It had been far too long since I last watched it, and seeing it again was great. I am still convinced that it is brilliant.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a movie that was not particularly well received, and I know quite a few people who are massive fans of the books and absolutely hate this movie. I don’t think it is a fantastic film by any means, but I do think it is fun and enjoyable nonetheless, and it has a great cast. (In fact I may have watched it at this present time just because I needed a Martin Freeman fix after Sherlock…) Anyway, while it may not satisfy the purists, I like the movie and since science fiction comedy is a pretty rare genre to find done well, I do think it is worthy of praise and worth watching.

It has been ages since I really reviewed any movies, and indeed last year I somewhat fell out of the habit of regularly watching films altogether, both going to the cinema and watching DVDs. My cinema attendance is unlikely to increase any time soon (I can’t afford to go regularly) but I decided that I should try get back into film a little bit by rewatching many of the great movies that I still own on DVD.

I am not very good at reviewing films (even worst than my book reviews!) so while you can expect a few film-related posts over the next few weeks, don’t be surprised if they are all along the lines of ‘yeah, I saw this movie before and I liked it and then I watched it again and I still like it/I like it more/I no longer like it and it is good/not good, yeah’. Here is the first one:

Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy film about a dysfunctional family who go on a road trip to take their young daughter to a beauty pageant. Along for the trip are the overworked mother; the father who is failing to publish a self help book about how to be a success; the heroin-snorting grandfather who was kicked out of his retirement home; the teenage boy who is refusing to talk; and the suicidal uncle.

I first saw this movie in the cinema when it was released; I went with my Mum and my sister and I remember being embarrassed by my Mum’s ridiculously loud laughing, until the point where I was laughing that loudly myself. There are some really funny moments in the film, but it is also quite dark at times. The theme is basically failure, and all of the characters have their own moments of losing, of loss.

But I think it is incredibly well done. The cast is all brilliant and managed to bring these characters to life is a very understated but very real way. The darker moments still have their comedy and the finale is just brilliant (that is when I had my laughing-so-hard-my-sides-hurt moment in the cinema, which I haven’t really repeated watching it again, but it is still fantastic). Overall, I really do love this film and I am glad that I watched it again.

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t really write film reviews.)

This is the trailer for The Pirates! Band of Misfits. It looks like it is going to be brilliant!