OMG Time Travel!

It's that time again. Blog update time. You know those times when you find a film and you have no idea what to expect. You haven't heard anything about it, it's not a friend who told you about it and you didn't see a trailer or catch one of the actors talking about it on TV. This is a film that has, to my knowledge, completely passed under the radar.

Well this is one of those films. And I still have no idea howcome we decided to watch it, but we did. You might be wondering what film this is then, and here goes!

Looper (2012)

First of I have to say, that the poster doesn't really do the film justice. Sure Bruce Willis with a bloody big gun will sell films. Classics as the Die Hard films are, (I have been trying to make Aim watch them all with me, so far I've only managed the two first ones!) and I do like them, Bruce isn't really the highlight in this film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does really have a bigger roll, even though that's not quite true but that is a bit complicated to explain and it would ruin the film a little bit for you so I won't tell you!

Anyway, I don't really think that JGL should be on the poster either, even though he gives a brilliant performance as usual. There's another actor and he really should have been nominated for an Oscar, I was really blown away. I'll be brutally honest, this film is quite far from Oscar quality but his performance really is. He's seven years old, seven! I really can't describe his perfomance, there's not enough superlatives for me to describe it. This little kids name is Pierce Gagnon. I really look forward to seeing him in many more films to come.

Well enough of the acting, even though that's probably the high point of the film for many people. It was for me to but, being a Sci-fi/time travel nutter, the story was really good. They missed a bit, they introduce a thing in the beginning of the film and it's like "Meh, why are they showing us this? Because they can?". This little thing however dissappears from the film completely until the very end, when it turns out that this is actually a very big part of the plot. The film would have benefited from a little bit more of that throughout the film. Apart from that and a sometimes randomly über-violent Bruce I think it's a film that is indeed worth a watch. I enjoyed it very much, Aim on the other hand wasn't quite as impressed, but you can't agree on everything.

Watch it if you're a Sci-fi/time travel nutter, you like Bruce/JGL or you would like to see a star performance by Pierce Gagnon.

~Chris

First film in a cinema in Sweden!

Before I saw this in the delightful owl cinema of Halmstad, I read a review that this film failed somewhat in that it didn't seem to know who its audience was, mixing juevenile plot, humour and romance and characters with dark dark dark stuff, violence and disturbing imagery.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Let's face it, who would have gone to see this if Kristen Stewart hadn't been cast in the main role? Kind of a weird paradox that she draws a crowd for being famously unexpressive and sucky.

She's predictably lame throughout, showing all the emotionality of a goldfish, but the cameras gaze (aka Rupert's gaze) clearly adores her. Boring-old badly scripted scenes with her are imbued with this incredible intimacy with intense closeups and sweeping pans of her body, her face. Knowing what you know now; her affair with director Rupert Sanders, a genuinely sad perspective couldn't be avoided throughout my viewing with all this obsessive worshipful lingering.

Almost every other cast member was superb (apart from the dwarves. Sorry fake dwarves, Tyrion you aint.)  the special effects were amazing, particularly in the forest scenes with the fairies and creatures. Charlize Theron is terrifying and intensely convincing as the evil queen.

I didn't agree that the filmakers couldn't seem to decide on an audience but I did find it unbalanced. For example juxtaposing poo jokes with the sombrely played out narratives and character motivations on beauty, power, guilt, death etc.

And for me, the most interesting aspect was the unintended glimpse into the Rupert/Kristen 'scandal.'

It was on tv I'd probably watch it again. But I wouldn't be happy about my value for money after paying the £11+ Swedish cinema price! But then again I didn't pay. And there was popcorn. And it was such a nice cinema with shell lamps and unstained carpets.

~Aim

Superbad was Super Awesome!

I've found I'm a sucker for teen comedies with funk soundtracks and gushing bromance.

Superbad (2007)

We ended up watching this as the word superbad had gradually entered my vocabularly somewhere along the line (super-anything really) and then Chris helpfully remembered that it was a film.

Even watching it at 1am on a worknight, this was the most enjoyable films I've seen in ages. Even the opening credits were awesome. 

Whilst practically all the main cast are excellent, it's Jonah Hill who pretty much makes this film as the obscene, rageful fatty Seth who comes up with the madcap plans to get alcohol and get laid dragging along Michael Cera's straight man and best friend - Evan.

Bear through the slightly dull first 10 minutes set in class and you're in for laugh after laugh as the action ratchets up. I was seriously impressed with the the creativity (and hilarity) of the situations they end up in and how they all end up back together after being split off.  The cops are slightly anoying at times, but it's ok as they're never really apart from Christopher Mintz-Plasse's Fogell (LOL at that actor's name) whose akward socially stunted nerd exterior may seem like a tired and overdone stock character at first, but is actually pure comedy gold. If you can cope with Seth's profanity (it gets endearing after a while!) it's actually prety touching and life-affirming. Yes, really.

My only criticism is that writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg seem incapable of developing any female characters whatsoever, or even giving just one of the cardboard cutout dull and uninteresting girls ONE DECENT line between them! The most you can look forward to in this respect is 'period girl'. Enough said. Hmph!

But watch it all the same.

~Aim

From Weeds to a film about weed

Not long ago Aim and I watched "Superbad" together, I had watched it a few times before but it was the first time for Aim, and she enjoyed it just as much as me. So we decided to look up a couple of similar films and we finally settled on...

Pineapple Express

This film is about a weed smoking guy and his dealer friend and their fight for survival while being chased by mafia weed growers/sellers. IMDB describes it as following "A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witness his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.".

The film involves a lot of comedy fighting, or what is supposed to be comedy fighting but just ends up as silly and quite dull. I wasn't too impressed by the storyline and the film in general but James Franco does a decent job as the constantly high weed dealer while Seth Rogan and the rest of the cast were on the verge of awful.

I just couldn't find myself getting attached to any of the characters and I just ended up being bored and drifting off not concentrating on the film. It seems like a lot of people find this film really good but I will just have to disagree there because it was just plain dull and silly at the best of times. Maybe you have to be in a special mood to enjoy it and not have your hopes up after watching "Superbad".

Should you watch it then?

~ Chris

Who got smoked?

Weeds Season 8

This is a The little filmblog special, once in a while we come across a TV-show that we enjoy so much that we have to see every episode of it. These TV-shows deserves a post once in a while and a season premier is one of those occassions, and today the eight and final season of Weeds premiers in America.

This is a show that we have thoroughly enjoyed from episode one. It has everything a good show needs and then some.

It seems like forever ago since season eight was announced and we have been waiting for the episodes ever since. We really can't wait to see more of Andy, Nancy, Shane, Silas and Doug!


 Should you watch it?

~ Chris

Three is the magic number...

or is it?

This time we watched a film that I have been looking at in the DVD bargain bins more times than I can count. Finally I got to watch it even after being on our backlog for months and months!

The Number 23 

This is a film with Jim Carrey, but it's not a comedy! It's a tense and densely plotted thriller and IMDB describes it like this "Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.". And that's quite a good summary. The style of the film reminds me a little bit of Sin City, a film I really can't say if I like or not, but it definitely worked in this film.

To see Jim Carrey in a film like this is quite surprising and you just expect him to throw off some weird line in the middle of the serious murderous plot, it never happens though. He's absolutely brilliant in the film and even though I liked him before we watched the film he's actually risen to be one of my favourite actors after watching it. It makes me want to go through his filmography and see what other serious roles he has done. The rest of the cast also pulls off a good performance but they're completely overshadowed by Mr. Carrey.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this film. After all those years of hesitating to watch it, the reason for that I will never now, it has become one of my favourite films of all time. And I'm a picky man when it comes to films, not many get past my radar as really good and even less become my favourites.

If you haven't already figured it out. Should you watch it?

~ Chris

Grand opening!

Since we're having a lot of fun writing on our Horror film blog we decided to start another for all the other films we watch. And here it is, first post and all! Now all we need do is find some theme for it, not doing tongues on this one!

We hope you will enjoy both blogs and that they will help you chose a film for the friday night cuddles!

~ Aim & Chris