Dave, my mind is going... I can feel it.

Well it has finally happened. I was actually hoping it would happen, and with only a handful of movies left to go, I thought it may not happen, but it has.

This weeks movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Made in 1968, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick and winning an Oscar for best effects in 1969.

So what am I so excited about? This is the first movie I have reviewed that I am going to give a big fat zero. A duck egg, donut, nada, zilch, zip, nothing, nought. It is hands down one of the worst movies I have ever seen. After 10 minutes I thought I should turn it off and give it a score of one. I give it a zero because I really wish I had done just that. The first 5 minutes of the movie is just a black screen, the next 25 minutes is monkeys running around making monkey noises. Then we have 20 minutes of watching space ships. Then 20 minutes of normal movie happen, then it just gets weirder and weirder. I actually left the movie playing and went off and did other things several times, including writing this review. I felt like I needed to be on drugs to watch it but I wasn't sure which one I needed. Probably the same one Stanley Kubrick was on when he made this rubbish. The movie itself could be described in terms of being a drug. The first 3rd was a sedative which made me sleepy, the 2nd 3rd was valium and the last 3rd was LSD or acid. I had no idea what was going on.

The story is basically in real time, so when they are preparing to get into the pod to go out into space, we follow them down the hallway, down the stairs, get into the pod, buckle up, start the incredibly slow pod launching mechanism and then drift painfully slowly into space. This all takes 25 minutes. That is no joke. You think to your self -WHY?

Never at any stage, while watching this movie, did I think -

• this is a good movie
• I can't wait to see what happens next
• this story is building to something big

Ok, I will now look at the positives. The effects for the time (1968) are actually quite awesome. The space scenes, spacecraft and interiors would actually still hold up today in a movie. The screens and monitors in the movie would actually have been more advanced than they really were in the year 2001. So Stan had excellent foresight. Unfortunately those positives aren't even a spit in the ocean compared to the negatives.

The Rating -

2001: A Space Odyssey - zero gravity

You talkin' to me?...

Well it has been a while so I thought I'd have a go at writing another review. The movie I will review is Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, a very young Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd and directed by Martin Scorsese. The movie was released in 1976 and was nominated for 4 academy awards and didn't win any. It is about a taxi driver (no surprises there) played by De Niro who drives around and picks up people, takes them to where they want to go, and collects a fare for it. The End. So that is the simple plotline and really about as in depth as I will go with it. Apparently Travis Bickle (the taxi driver [played by De Niro]) is a Vietnam Vet and he suffers from loneliness and insomnia. The weird thing about this movie is that not a real lot happens but I never got bored. In fact I actually wanted the movie to go longer which is really weird for me. As it is it runs for just under 2 hours. I think the reason I liked it was because I kept on thinking to myself - "something is going to happen". The Travis Bickle character is a loose cannon and the chances were that he was going to do something interesting at some stage, other than drive a taxi. In the back of my mind was the fact that I fell for exactly the same thinking in the movie Citizen Kane where that "something" never eventuates. In Taxi Driver it does eventuate. I won't give anything away but it becomes violent at the end. I got the feeling that the movie was just getting interesting when it ended - that is why I wanted it to go longer.

In summing up, I think this movie is more likeable by people who look for depth in movies, in this case how a man struggles with loneliness and alienation. If you read some of the other reviews about it they go in depth about such things and how the movie contains hidden meanings and metaphors as a reflection on how a man can be lonely in one of the biggest cities in the World, blah blah blah.... For me I like a movie to be entertaining. If I have to think, I'm probably not being entertained. If I have to search for the hidden meaning in a movie then I pretty much definitely am not being entertained. However, this movie had enough in it for me to be entertained and I think it would probably be my favourite De Niro movie (other than Meet The Parents - a movie where I could leave my brain at the door when I watched it).

I read that De Niro is a "method actor", meaning he immerses himself in his character when he plays them. For this he apparently drove taxis 12 hours a day for a month to prepare for the role. Personally I think it was a waste of time (though he probably made some good pocket money). Though he does drive a taxi for a lot of the movie, it isn't what it is focussed on. The taxi driver character is just a metaphor for the struggles of man juxtaposed with the bright lights and hussle and bussle of .... blah blah blah. I think I'm becoming a real movie critic!

The Rating -
Taxi Driver: 7 taxis

note: ratings are becoming a little bit difficult now as I compare them with previous movies I watched. I was going to give this 6.5 but noticed I gave Casino a 7. I enjoyed this as much as that so that is why it gets a 7. I probably didn't enjoy it more than Casablanca, but as it was the first movie I reviewed perhaps it now deserves more than the 6.5 I gave it at the time.

Should I continue?

I will try to continue watching one movie per week but the reviews are taking too much of my time. If you want me to continue writing reviews let me know and it might motivate me to write a review every now and then.

We've got bush

I watched The Revenge of the Nerds. I liked it. I could relate.

The Rating-

Revenge of the Nerds : 7 pens in my shirt pocket

Who is Keyser Soze? ...

I have my theories on that, but more later.
This week I review The Usual Suspects, made in 1995 and winner of 2 Academy Awards in 1996 - Kevin Spacey (best actor in a supporting role) and Christopher McQuarrie (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen).
First thing I have to say is that I really liked this movie. I also have to say that this was the first of my movies that I watched during the day. In fact, I watched it early in the morning so I wasn't tired and gave it my full attention. After watching it I immediately wanted to watch it again to see if I could pick up anything new or anything I might have missed in my first viewing. I am still thinking about that movie now, a day after I watched it.
The plot is a little bit complex for me to try to explain so I will give the basics - 5 men come together to do a few jobs together and are then ordered to do a hit by the almost chimerical Keyser Soze (now that is very basic). Nobody knows if Keyser Soze actually exists, but everyone fears him nonetheless.
I will now talk about some of my theories ... if you haven't seen this movie you should STOP READING this review now!! It will contain spoilers and will completely ruin the movie for you. But do watch it and come back ....


ok so only people who have seen the movie are now reading? ...



I will continue then.
There are quite a few discussions around about who Keyser Soze is, or if he is even real. My theory is that he is real and he is Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). The biggest clue to this is right at the very end when the fax image comes through and it looks like Kevin Spacey. We also find out that he is not really a cripple as he has made out, but fully able bodied. At some stages I thought that Keaton may be Keyser Soze but we know from the start that he gets killed by Keyser Soze (not that I remembered it was Keaton at the start).
My other thought was - did verbal Kint make up the whole story? We could never really know if his story is real or not as we are seeing it all through his eyes anyway - that is the way he wants the police to see it. But the thing that suggests to me that his story wasn't made up was the fact that Kobayashi picks him up in the car at the end. So we know that the Kobayashi character is real so it is safe to assume that the rest of his story was real or mostly real. But then again the cop who interviewed him notices that the names he gave him were all on labels on items in his office. He realises that the story he just heard was all made up and that he had been "outsmarted". Argh so much to think about, and that has been exactly what I have been looking for in these movies. Very well written, and even better without a clear conclusion so that I can analyse this movie until they put me in a mental home.
Would love to hear what everybody else thinks?

The Rating -

The Usual Suspects - 8 men in a police lineup

Another Bogey...

This week I review The Maltese Falcon, whose main star is Humphrey Bogart. I had heard of this movie before I started doing my reviews, but I didn't know who was in it and wondered who would play the role of Mario Fenech. I just realised that most people who read my reviews probably wouldn't get that little joke ... Mario Fenech is a former rugby league player who comes from Malta. His nickname is "The Maltese Falcon" or "Falcon". The movie was made in 1941 and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and came away with nought. The plot is rather complex and I probably still don't completely understand it so I won't even bother to try to explain it. It is one of the things I didn't like about this movie, but only one. Humphrey Bogart, to me wasn't a very good actor. It seems to me that he is like Hugh Grant and Matthew Perry when they act, they don't actually act, they are just themselves. Bogey talks tough, acts tough and smokes cigarrettes - just like he did in Casablanca. There is no acting here. Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade who is based on Humphrey Bogart. The pace of the story is too fast for my liking, the sets are forgettable and the characters are just ok. The female in the movie is talked about as a glamour girl, so shouldn't they casted one for the role? Mary Astor, to me, is nothing special to look at at all. The amusing thing for me in both Humphrey Bogart movies I have seen is that if he has a love interest you hardly know it. You know how much Bogey loves a woman by how much he hits her. If he only hits her a few times then you know he's found a keeper.

Maybe I should watch these movies in the morning because even though I started watching this movie just after 8.30pm I was fighting off the sleep by 9. Even at the end, when I thought there may be a plot twist or something exciting happen, my eyelids gave in on me and I had one of those micro sleeps. Maybe I did miss something exciting but I don't think so. The only good thing about this movie was that it only goes for 90 minutes. The bad thing is that even that was too long for me.

To the ratings -
The Maltese Falcon : 3 falcon statues

Nobody's perfect...

This time I review the movie, Some Like It Hot, starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. Made in 1959 and winner of 1 Academy Award (Best Costume Design, Black-and-White) and nominated for 5 others, it is a comedy and rates quite well on IMDB.

This is the first time I have watched a movie that starred Marilyn Monroe and from what I read she was a real menace while making this movie. Always at least 2 hours late and getting even her most basic lines wrong. Apparently it took her 59 takes to get the line "where's the bourbon?" right.

The plot is about 2 men (Curtis and Lemmon) who are witness to a mob killing. They dress as women and tour with all female band, partly for the money and partly to hide from the gangsters. There are some genuinely funny moments in this movie. I found the funniest parts when Curtis dressed up as a millionaire oil tycoon to win the affection of Marilyn Monroes character.

There are some silly things that happen in the movie but because it is so lighthearted I was prepared to let them go and just enjoy the movie for what it is - and that is a bit of fun.

The ending was short, a little silly, but at the same time it made me laugh and wasn't a let down. It is also where I got the title for this blog post.

The Rating -

Some Like It Hot: 7 female band members