We’ve watched some films lately. Here’s what I thought of them.

Kung-fu hustle: Overhyped and weird. It was interesting from the point of view that it wasn’t a hollywood blockbuster, and I had to read the subtitles. And it had a few twists on humour that made me laugh. But everyone – everyone – that I know absolutely raved about this movie. I was expecting a real experience, instead I got light entertainment. gerrod.com rating: 6/10.

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest: This movie is strange. But good! Actually, it’s very good! I can see why it won so many awards. Julian pointed out that the ending is blatantly ripped off by The Simpsons, which makes me thinks that the writers of The Simpsons are big fans of Jack Nichlaus Nicholson, as they seem to rip off quite a few of his movies – Chinatown, A Few Good Men, and The Shining spring to mind. gerrod.com rating: 9/10.

If you hadn’t noticed (or alternatively, don’t live in London), it’s been freezing of late. It’s the coldest winter ever recorded in London*, and as such we’ve been getting better value from our LoveFilm membership by ploughing through the movies.

Definitely, maybe: It’s a chick flick, so you can bet that it wasn’t me that picked it; but I’ll be honest and say it was far better than I had dared imagine. A charming tale where a Dad recounts his dating life to his curious daughter, but all the while changing the character names to make her try to guess which one was her Mom. A perfect background movie for the ladies to enjoy while you lads are beavering away on your laptop. gerrod.com rating: 7/10.

The Mad Detective: This one was Shelley’s pick, and she had much trouble selling it to us. Things weren’t looking up when the mad detective cut off his ear and handed it to his retiring boss as a present – and this was only about three minutes into the film! But, credit where credit’s due, it definitely picked up from there, and in the end I had to admit it was at the very least, “different”. Warning for those with low reading skills: it’s Cantonese, with English subtitles. gerrod.com rating: 6.5/10.

Little Fish: gerrod’s pick! I first wanted to see this film after Ben gave it an off the charts rating, but kind of forgot about it until recently (goodness knows what jogged my memory). Check out Michelle’s review for an excellent plot breakdown, and an article so well written I wish I’d have just cut-and-pasted it here to begin with. gerrod.com rating: 10/10.

* Facts may not be accurate.

It’s rare that a movie contains a single line which does a perfect job of describing itself; in fact, 300 might be the only movie ever made which has a line that does precisely that. Unfortunately, when the line is delivered, they’re not trying to describe the movie; it’s actually said by the evil councilor to the queen of Sparta, regarding her “payment” to get him to persuade the council to go to war:

This will not be over quickly, and you will not enjoy it.

No, we did not enjoy the movie. We should have clued up when Xerxes made his first appearance as pretty much the most camp king that ever existed; but what really pushed it from “scraping by” to “one of those regrettable life decisions” was when they brought out a donkey who could play a recorder. Yes, really.

Credit where credit’s due; some of the action sequences were ok. But overall, this movie was such a letdown! gerrod.com rating: 2/10 – only because of how much the recorder playing donkey made Julian and me laugh.

You know how gym’s make you buy memberships because they just know you won’t come often enough to get your money’s worth? (or is that just me?) Well the same seems to apply with DVD clubs. Our Love Film membership seems like great value except that we’re never home to watch them!

So last night team BBQ Chicken (Julian, Shelley, Gerrod and I) made a date to watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It’s a french film with English subtitles that tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle Magazine, who suffered a major stroke in 1995 and awoke from a coma completely paralysed. He suffers from locked-in syndrome but decides “to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren’t paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.” He uses those things, and the movement of his left eyelid to compose and dictate a novel about his life.

It’s an amazing film. It’s told from his perspective, with his thoughts as narration and, often, his limited field of vision as the camera angle. Early in the film, it’s all his perspective or his memories, so you imagine his appearance as he imagines it: healthy and handsome. When he catches a glimpse of himself in a reflection, and sees his fallen face and his shrunken body, you share in his surprise and sadness.

I’ll stop before I give too much away, because you’ve gotta see it. It’s surprising and unusual and beautiful and sad and even funny at times. gerrod.com rating: 8/10

After an extremely busy Saturday, we felt like doing little more than watching a movie on Saturday night; henceforth, that’s precisely what we did. Of the three movies that were lying around (thank goodness for LoveFilm), Racey (who was staying with us over the weekend) and Kristy picked In Bruges. I didn’t know anything about it, but judging a book by its cover – suffice to say I wasn’t excited.

Suffice also to say that I’ve never been more wrong with a first impression. The movie is excellent! Absolutely excellent. A word of warning – it’s very graphic in some parts – but you always see these parts coming, so don’t be dissuaded!

This is one of those movies where it’s hard to talk about the plot too much without giving it away, but the basic premise of the story is – a hitman makes a “bad hit” on a job in Lonodon, and needs to escape the city. As such, his boss sends him and his hitman friend to Bruges to lay low for a while. The movie picks up shortly after their arrival, and follows what they get up to whilst they are there.

Yes, I’m sure you’re now seeing why I wasn’t super excited when I first saw the movie, but you really have to trust me on this one, it’s great. Go and hire it, now! gerrod.com rating: 9.5/10.

I think I need to see The Godfather again.

See, last night started on the right food – we had Al and Becks over for a feast of dim sum (entree), and pasta with garlic bread (main). Yes, I know that doesn’t sound like two meals that go together, but you’d be awful surprised how good it was!

Afterwards, the plan was to watch The Godfather. Going in to the movie, I was well aware that it would last for three hours, so I insisted we start early; unfortunately that turned out to be about 9:30 PM. Since I’ve lately got into the habit of waking up rather early (around 6:30 AM; not so much on weekends, they’re more like 7:30 AM – total drag, but you’d be surprised how much extra you get done!), this also means I get sleepy early. Like around 11 PM. Yes folks, I didn’t make it all the way through the movie without my attention levels succumbing to the lure of “quickly resting my eyes” at least a few times.

Consequently, I didn’t find the movie quite as good as perhaps it really is. Sure, it was enjoyable, but some of the minor details – like character names, and who was working for which family – completely escaped me. But, overall, I think it was interesting enough to interest me in seeing it again – but only when I can guarantee that I’ll last the whole way through.

We’ve had a bit of a pile-up of films from LoveFilm for a while, so last week when we finally had a few nights free, we watched a few of them. First on the list was Dan in Real Life, which IMDB sums up simply, but effectively:

A widower finds out the woman he fell in love with is his brother’s girlfriend.

Yes, it’s definitely more of a Kristy film, but there were some genuine laugh-out-loud moments for me as well. The story line is somewhat predictable, but solid acting from the cast members ensures that it’s well executed.

I found the ending a bit strange though – it kind-of seemed to just stop, all of a sudden. It almost like they ran out of money, or they got sick of filming, or something like that. Still, it didn’t take away from what was otherwise a solid film. gerrod.com rating: 7.5/10.

It’s been a busy, social week!

Pat was in town for one night on Monday, so we had dinner with him at Wahaca. It’s basically the Mexican version of tapas! My recommendation: steer clear of the beef, but definitely get the pork pibil (effectively pulled pork). Anyway – as with pretty much all Pat recommendations – it was top notch. Pat was on his way to a conference in Limerick, and as such, I thought it only fit that his next blog entry would be done as a Limerick. Good luck with that dude!

Tuesday was forecast to be the last full day of good weather, so Kristy and I made the most of it by heading to Hyde Park for a picnic after work. We were kept amused by the squirrels – so much so that we gave one of them a peanut M&M. He nibbled on it appreciatively.

Wednesday night we went for the original style of Tapas at El Metro in Fulham. We were joined by Penny, who I’ve known since I was about five! It was great to catch up with her, as we’ve only seen her one other time since moving to the UK. After dinner, we ended up in The Slug and Lettuce, where they were showing the State of Origin. Up the maroons!

Here’s a particularly bad photo of Penny and I at the pub. Now I know that I’m wearing a blue shirt, but it’s actually a poorly coloured Brisbane Broncos shirt. Had I have not been coming straight from work, I would have, in fact, been wearing my Broncos jersey. I know where my loyalties lie. Just to prove it, here’s a photo of my reaction when the maroons won.

Clearly – impressed.

Continuing with the social theme, we caught up with Jaimee and Damien on Thurdsay night, at Michelle’s favourite restaurant (claims may not be valid) – The Gate, at Hammersmith. It’s vegetarian! Both couples arrived early and waited for each other in completely seperate places – unfortunately for us, Team Jaimien were the ones who cleverly decided to wait inside, where the wine was being served. D’oh!

Anyway, as usual, the meals were awesome. I had a tofu laksa with mushroom dumplings, Kristy had vegetable tortillas, and Jaimee had an aubergine teriyaki concoction. We all had meal envy though, as Damien’s risotto was clearly the winner. To be fair, I usually have the pasta of the day (and it’s usually brilliant), but unfortunately they only do that at lunch times now. Hmph!

So last night, the pinnacle of the week – we watched a movie at home. It was Into the wild – a story about a kid who graduates from college, decides that the working life isn’t for him, and just hits the road. It wasn’t bad – actually on reflection I quite enjoyed it – though perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea. gerrod.com rating: 8/10 – with a bonus point since the soundtrack was by Eddie Vedder.

We spent about six hours on Sunday just cleaning the house. It was the first weekend that we’ve been “home” (in quotes not because this isn’t home, but because I wasn’t home all of Saturday) for two weeks, plus the weeks in between had been awful busy as well. As such, the house was a complete wreck!

Anyway, as I’m sure you can imagine, it was very satisfying to finally get things done – lots of paperwork got sorted, scanned and shredded, the floors got cleaned, the kitchen and bathrooms got a complete work over, etc etc. And the results are spectacular – I can hardly believe this is the same house!

Stacey also left the shores of Chiswick on Sunday to head to Blackheath, where she’ll spend the remainder of her London days with Nick and Michelle. Since it was her last night here on Saturday, we chilled out at home, played boggle, and ate some terrible, terrible indian (which gave us all trouble the next day).

Last night I went to see Iron Man with Tim and Todd, over at Shepherds Bush (or “Shay-bu” to the locals). (As an aside, the 148 bus which stops directly outside our building at work terminates at Shay-bu; the 237 takes me from Shay-bu to the high road stop at the end of our street! One day I might see what the door-to-door time is, as it could be a viable alternative to the tube!).

I really enjoyed Iron Man! I’d heard lots of people comment on it, with the most common one being that it was too long. I didn’t find that at all; I enjoyed it from start to end. The only thing I found weird was that I couldn’t stop thinking that Jeff Bridges was actually Kevin Costner. It was only when the credits rolled that I discovered his true identity! Anyway, definitely a flick best seen on the big screen (or at least a big TV) – and one that I think anyone would enjoy! gerrod.com rating: 8/10.

Entertainment in the cold weather often involves watching movies, simply to stay warm! Here’s a couple that we’ve seen in the last week.

I Am Legend: We saw this one at Shepard’s Bush with Ben last Wednesday night. The film is about a virus outbreak which originates in New York, and wipes out practically the entire human population. Note here that “wipes out” actually means, “turns into zombies”. However, one person who is immune (Will Smith) is also one of the scienticians that worked on the virus to begin with; hence the film follows his life, living alone as the last human in New York, and his struggle to find a cure.

The cinematography was fantastic – a deserted Manhattan in which mother nature has started taking over. We were lucky enough to actually see part of the filming of this movie whilst we were coming out of Grand Central one day. Not knowing the premise of the movie though, we didn’t understand why they were making such an effort to try and keep people out of the background!

I wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone easily scared, since it has a few rather tense moments (Kristy probably spent about 50% of the film with her eyes closed). But overall, it was certainly decent entertainment when it was freezing outside. gerrod.com rating: 7.5/10.

Fast Food Nation: Kristy and I both started watching this film thinking that it was a Michael Moore documentary (or similar). Boy were we wrong! It’s actually a film which comments on issues surrounding the fast food culture in the United States – everything from the poor quality of the meat, to illegal immigrants working in the meat processing factories. And a big warning here – this film is graphic! I guarantee, it will really makes you consider becoming a vegetarian.

Needless to say, we both didn’t particularly enjoy this one. Sure, it was different, unique… but way too extreme for our liking. Those scenes in the factories are just horrendous. Still, Avril Lavigne plays a minor role, so at least we had the, “hey, isn’t that Avril?” factor to take away from it. gerrod.com rating: 5/10.