365 Days. 365 Films.

Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star in this romantic comedy about Abby (Heigl) a TV producer who is reluctantly taught about love by Mike (Butler). Although Mike's idea of love is somewhat disappointing to Abby she lets him into her love life to set her up with her neighbour. Of course you can guess who really gets the girl...

This is what I would call a "fluffy film", as in, it's a load of fluff. Sure, it's enjoyable and there are a few laughs but at the end of the day you could take it or leave it. It's not memorable, it's not an award winner and it's never going to be a favourite.

In comparison to the great romantic comedies like His Girl Friday, When Harry Met Sally or Annie Hall, both comedy and romance are kept to a minimum and it's often a little uncomfortable to watch the obvious struggle for laughs. As a stand alone film however, it's not bad. Better to watch on a Friday night in with the girls since you don't really have to concentrate on it. In fact, it's probably better you don't...

Rowan Atkinson is back as Johnny English in this sequel to the 2003 spy comedy. Not a lot was promised for this film by the distribution company, and rightfully so. It’s just as disappointing and slightly below average as the first, but maybe with a better cast this time round.
 
I don’t know what it is about Johnny English that I don’t really like. Perhaps it’s the style of comedy that only young teens would find funny with today’s standards. The reason I wanted to watch this film was because I found the first film funny… When I was 13! Watching it at the age of 22 was sorely disappointing.
I laughed a few times, mostly at the shame I felt for watching such a terrible film, and on that basis I will say that it’s vaguely entertaining. But unless you’re 13 or on drugs, don’t bother.

Based on the novel by Stephen King, Thinner is about an obese lawyer who accidentally runs over an old gypsy woman while receiving a blow job in his car. He is then cursed by the gypsy’s father to lose weight, which doesn’t sound like such a bad curse, until he realises that he cannot stop the weight loss no matter how much he eats and that it will eventually kill him. He is then forced to ask for assistance from a friend in the mafia to find the gypsy’s father and get him to lift the curse.

I did not know the premise of the film before I sat down and watched this, but about halfway through it dawned on me that Stephen King can actually create a story out of the simplest and sometimes weak ideas. I am not trying to criticise Stephen King – I think that he is a brilliant writer and the novel is probably a hell of a lot better than the film, but let’s face it – he doesn’t really need a great idea to write a great novel, which is something that perhaps makes him stand out from the crowd. This film, however, is unfortunately not as good as King’s writing. It is bordering on bad/average – I didn’t exactly hate it and on a very shallow level I guess I kind of enjoyed it.
It’s not a film I would recommend because it’s a roller coaster of okay and bad bits, but simply for the weak storyline – sorry, Stephen – I’m only giving it 2 stars.

The first Cars movie was a hit with children all over the world, but probably the lowest rated Pixar film among adults. This second instalment focuses on Mater as he is mistaken for a secret agent by two British spies, and it is even more boring than the first.

I didn’t mind the first film, a lot of people told me that they really didn’t like it, but I thought it was okay – not half as funny as any other Pixar film, but I could see why the kids loved it. This one, on the other hand, is so dull that I couldn’t possibly concentrate on the details of the film and so I don’t think that children, who typically have a lower attention span than adults, will be able to focus on it either.
It isn’t a terrible film, the animation is still as stunning as ever and it’s generally better than some other animations that come out these days, but it’s definitely not up to scratch when you consider the best of Pixar.
I sincerely hope that this is the last Cars movie, the first was average, this was bland and so if they make a third, it will inevitably be terrible.

Cameron Diaz (Joy) and Ashton Kutcher (Jack) star in Tom Vaughan’s ‘The Hangover’ style comedy in which Joy goes to Vegas with her friend to get over a bad break-up, and Jack goes with his friend to mourn the loss of his job. They accidentally get booked into the same room and end up going for a drink which gets a little out of hand. While inebriated they get married, but before they can arrange an annulment, Jack wins $3 million on the slots using Joy’s quarter, and suddenly marriage doesn’t seem such a bad idea.

In court they each attempt to claim the money, but the judge sentences them to six months marriage with counselling before they can rightfully split it as marital assets in the divorce. Joy then moves in with Jack and it becomes a game of who will crack first as they attempt to live together, each finding the other intolerable.

It’s not a great movie and considering the amount of good romantic comedies there have been in recent years (most of which star Diaz), it is a little disappointing, even still it isn’t surprising either considering the amount of trash that has come out too. This isn’t trash, neither is it a film you should or would watch more than once, it’s more of a film that you really shouldn’t like, but it’s better than you thought it would be – better than you thought, but still mind-numbing – easy to write, easy to watch, but not a great film.

The only reason I wanted to watch this film is because, as a child, I was a huge Yogi fan. In fact, my parents actually still call me Boo Boo because I loved it so much. I can now say that my childhood dreams have been shattered with a lower than average standard film. The second reason I wanted to watch this is because of the voice actors; Dan Aykroyd playing Yogi and Justin Timberlake playing Boo Boo. I can, thankfully, say that the voice actors had gotten it spot on – they were perfect.

What I didn’t like about the film was the decision to make it live action – Yogi looked particularly terrifying as a CGI character in a real world – and this decision also left an opening for Anna Farris. Something I did like about the film was the odd hint of a good sense of humour for both kids and adults and also the film seems to be a mash up of movie homages which is, I think, the only way they could force people to relate and remain interested.

Overall it’s terribly directed and very cheaply made considering their ambitious use of CGI. It appears they made their expensive seeming bed and then refused to lie in it when they realised how much it would cost. Instead they try to ruin children’s minds with a terrifying Yogi bear, and fool them with poorly shot sequences. It’s a sad day for Brevig when someone like me watches his film and decides that they could have actually directed it better.

After watching Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and enjoying it much more than I probably should have, I decided to watch this. The plot is about a zookeeper who is dumped by a beautiful woman, and then, as he tries to win her back by abandoning all that he is, he finds true love where he least expected it.

It’s a very predictable plot as the woman he asks to be his fake girlfriend actually ends up falling for him etc. But the twist in the story is that the zoo animals can talk to him, and they try to help him win his ex back. To call it a twist makes it sound like a good element of the plot – it is not. It’s unexpected and rather belongs in a kids’ film than an adult comedy (which it clearly is based on the jokes and the genre).

There are a few amusing moments, but not enough to redeem itself. It’s very watchable but not quite so enjoyable, and all that was going through my mind was “why?”.

I was not at all pleased to hear about this film’s release since, although the first was quite funny, the second barely got away with it. In this third instalment of the cringe-comedy following Meet the Parents, Gregg and Pam have young twins; a boy and a girl. The story is mostly about father-in-law, Jack, being suspicious over Gregg’s apparent affair with drugs rep, Andi.

The story isn’t bad and it does follow on nicely from where we were left after Meet the Fockers, but it is a pointless film, made only for money. In my opinion, they shouldn’t have even made the second film because it does slightly degrade the first. I’m going to let this one slide though because it’s not half as bad as you may imagine. It’s not as funny as the first or even the second film, and it’s more likely to make you smirk than actually laugh at any point, but it doesn’t completely destroy the comedy and characters that we know from the first.

It’s existence is pointless and it’s really not worth watching, they have effectively drained all the jokes that they could make out of their silly names and it’s generally a bit weak.

Like a lot of people, I imagine, I wanted to watch this film after hearing a lot about it in the TV series, Friends. It’s an old live action Disney classic about a mother and her two young boys who adopt a stray dog that they name Old Yeller. The dog takes a particular liking to the family and helps to defend them from the wild creatures of the forest. One day, however, Old Yeller gets attacked by a ravenous wolf and begins to show signs of the disease himself.
 
I was a little let down by this film – I’m sure it’s magical and moving if you watch it as a small child, and it’s not that I’ve died inside since childhood, but I was far too bored of the film to be moved by it at all. I knew what was going to happen at the end and therefore wasn’t shocked by it, although the execution of it (excuse the pun) was just as you would expect which is a good thing.

It’s not a bad film but it’s probably lost some of it’s charm since it’s original release. Well made and a classic for children, but far too boring to actually enjoy.

The second and last silent Hitchcock for now is Easy Virtue, a story about a woman involved in a divorce case who remarries and tries to keep her past a secret from her new husband.

I have to admit that I thought that this film was a little more than disappointing after watching Downhill. By synopsis, this seems to have more of a plot, but when watching both, Downhill seems to have been better crafted all together. The plot is, in theory, as weak as Downhill, but a lot more seems to happen in that film or at least the characterisation is better and you therefore care more about what happens.

The direction however is, again, stunning. There are a lot of aspects of the cinematography that even today’s best directors couldn’t get away with, and in my opinion, cinematography is the most important aspect to silent films. Overall though, not really a very interesting film to watch, and if you want to educate yourself about film or Hitchcock specifically, you’re better off watching Downhill or one of his other (and better) movies.

I watched this teeny chick flick on the plane on my way to New York and as soon as the credits rolled, my hopes were high, simply for seeing Catherine Tate’s name. After seeing her name I assumed this would be a comedy… It is not… Monte Carlo is the story of three tweeny girls who go on holiday and one of them gets mistaken for an heiress celebrity. The girls decide to go along with it and, pretending to be the heiress, they get into a bit of trouble.

I think what I hated most about this film was the attachment that the director assumed the audience to have with the characters, when there was little to no characterization throughout. It was almost as if some egotistical director had cut out the introduction, claiming that the audience should be able to settle into the characters instantly – and I have never seen any of the main cast before!
The story is weak, the acting is cringey at best, the film made me angry for countless reasons… Don’t bother…

From the director of The Emperor’s New Groove comes a similarly disappointing film, Chicken Little. Although, Chicken Little has one distinct disadvantage when compared to The Emperor’s New Groove, and that is: plot.

They really were scraping the idea barrel when it came to making this! I realise it is based on a nursery rhyme or fable or something about a chicken who thinks that the sky is falling down, but Disney decided to introduce aliens into the mix to spice things up a bit. Ordinarily I would duly invite aliens into nursery rhymes with great anticipation and excitement, but this was just wrong… Sick and wrong!

There isn’t really anything to say about the film, since there is no plot and they clearly couldn’t be bothered to write a script for it either… Although I will say this: The animation is good – Disney are usually good at that…

This was a much more disappointing film about a group of cows who attempt to save their farm after their owner is forced to put it up for auction. In saving the farm they have to find money to pay back their owner’s loans and so come up with a way to seek revenge on a cow thief at the same time.

It isn’t funny and I don’t even think it would have been for small children, the only good thing about it was some of the animation and the characters, who were nicely crafted stereotypes of old women.

God only knows how they came up with this story – it makes very little sense and they must have been high to even come up with the concept of bounty hunting cows. I know Disney does come up with a load of (usually quality) bollocks every now and then, but this was just odd. I couldn’t even focus properly on the film for my mind wondering all of this.

The only enjoyment I could squeeze out of this film was the pigs’ faces… You’ll understand if you watch it, but I don’t recommend you do…

The title to this film sort of doubles as a synopsis; Steven Mills (Dan Aykroyd) is a lonely, single parent with a thirteen year old daughter, Jessie (Alyson Hannigan) who is amazed when an attractive and kooky young woman takes interest in him. Little do they know, she is an alien who is only interested in him because he accidentally sent a transmission to her home planet.

It doesn’t take a genius to write this kind of story and it wasn’t really thought out very well. In terms of the genre the film claims to be, i.e. science fiction, it is fraught with plot holes, in terms of the other genre; comedy, it just doesn’t even skim the surface. The acting, although it is full of good and recognizable faces, is dire. The technical ability is unimpressive although not terrible, especially not Silvestri’s score which sounds a lot like the Back to the Future 2 score!

Overall it’s not a complete train wreck in technical terms, it is bearable to watch for exactly how it was made, but the plot, comedy and writing is absolutely God-awful, so I’m going to meet in the middle with this one and give it two stars…

This film, with a cast and crew of unknowns, takes the “mockumentary” horror format to a new low. It establishes a conspiracy within the first five minutes that, contrary to actual fact, there was an Apollo 18 mission that landed on the moon. This top secret load of bollocks was to investigate extra-terrestrial life on the moon, but the astronauts were completely unaware of it until some moon rocks came and bit them on their arses.

I have never been a fan of modern day horror films, much less this Blair Witch format, yet I did enjoy The Fourth Kind which was an alien abduction “mockumentary” claiming to be real. What was annoying about this film was that The Blair Witch Project could have been real, The Fourth Kind could have been real, if you were deluded, even Paranormal Activity could have been real, but this is just crap! I have always thought about this specific genre as a sneaky way of hiding bad direction and this theory usually works since appropriate or clever cinematography requires no thought – it’s just like a home movie – however the terrible direction shone through with this film in the painstakingly obvious attempts to make a movie out of a nothing plot and shoddy concept. If it were a “home movie” as it pretended it was, most of what was caught on camera probably wouldn’t have been considering the circumstances within the film. For example, a man gets bitten by a rock (… I know…) and he is quite clearly rather ill, bleeding to death and going slowly insane, yet he has the good grace to get back on his feet, pick up the camcorder and continue filming.

The “aliens” are rocks, the concept is unbelievable at best, the direction is terrible, it’s so predictable and painful to watch the director attempt to build tension, when all he’s doing is making the audience bored!
I’m not even joking when I say that everyone ran out of the cinema – physically ran! Myself included… Do not go to see this film, it’s shockingly bad, and the only reason I’m giving it two stars instead of one is that Sharktopus is generally the benchmark for a one star movie, but at least a tiny bit of effort went into this film by raping an, albeit overused, but adored genre… Not any more…

Based on the once popular video game, Street Fighter tells the story of a dictator (Julia) and his evil plot to rule, while Jean-Claude Van Damme and his team of ass-kicking journalists attempt to stop him.

I can’t remember whether or not I played the game when I was younger, but either way I can’t imagine that this is anything like the games were, although, admittedly, it probably would have been a worse film if it had been. It is a little confusing since I initially thought it was going to be another bad action film, and then when I first saw Julia’s performance, probably because he is a brilliant and underrated actor, it seemed like it was going to be quite a serious film (on a shallow level), yet certain lines in the film from the rest of the cast told me it was a comedy. The genre swaps and changes throughout, it’s never quite a comedy yet never quite an action film either, and therefore a little unsettling to watch. The plot itself is basic, I can tell not much thought went into either the plot or the dialogue, and the overall direction is lazy and makes the film less enjoyable.

It is bearable as long as you switch your brain off or have a lobotomy but, medical taboos aside, it really is not worth it.

Super Mario Bros. is obviously based on the game of the same name, starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi. The plot follows the plumbers as they rescue Princess Daisy (Mathis) from a strange reptile world and their dictator.
Having never played the games I was a little confused by the plot and the entire concept. I’m not an alien, I have heard of the game and I know the basics, but what the hell was this all about? As a film it’s God-awful, as a kid’s film it’s fairly awful, but if you’re five years old you would probably be glued to the screen, although, granted, five year olds probably don’t play Super Mario…

From the very beginning I wanted this to end, it unnecessarily has about five endings, which presumes tension among the audience – well there wasn’t any in this audience! Four directors is overkill too – and probably why it echoed four contradicting styles throughout – very messy.

Not worth watching, but if you do or have, it’s forgivable for the obvious affection the actors have either for their roles, or for the kids they’re playing to.

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts star in this romantic comedy about a reporter writing a story about a woman who is famous locally for leaving three men at the alter on her wedding days.

This film is a little less than average as it’s predictable and lacks the charm that makes romantic comedies bearable, and in some cases, thoroughly enjoyable. The idea is not a million miles away from what we usually find in this kind of movie, and it was a fairly unique plot for the time, but the dialogue seems to echo the writers’ laziness with a string of clichés and corny one-liners.

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are as you would expect – convincing yet annoying, and neither are brilliant actors. It also seems that they too, could not be bothered with this film and their performances are not as good as they have been. Joan Cusack, on the other hand, is funny and delightful in this, as she is in everything else, but overall the film was doomed to fail, and not even casting Robert De Niro could have changed that…

The Blue Bird is a sickeningly sweet film about a young girl and her brother who go on a quest to find a blue bird with a cat-woman, a dog-man and a woman who claims to be the personification of light. The film features the equally sickening Shirley Temple yodelling and what I assume to be dancing, and generally being a spoilt little brat through a maze of cardboard sets.

One of the most annoying things about this film is the kids’ names – Myltyl and Tyltyl… Who in their right mind would call their children that unless they wanted them to get punched in the face daily? Another annoying thing is the fact that everyone is so bloody happy all the time – it actually made me angry and quite upset.

The plot is not exactly complicated, but they keep going into different dimensions such as ‘luxury land’ and this place where there are a lot of grown children who claim that they haven’t been born yet. The direction is hardly inspiring either!

I’m sure this would have been a magical experience as a small child in the 1940s, but it’s just lost so much in time I guess. It’s just gross…

Before I say anything about this film I would like to explain why I’ve been watching a lot of older and somewhat less familiar Disney films – I have been reaffirming my love for Disney since I recently watched Tangled, and decided to get my hands of some of the other Disney films that I had never seen, and my attention was drawn to some of the much earlier films…

Anyway, what I did know about this film, that everyone should probably have in mind before watching it, is that it’s basically a 75 minute long music video. It is basically an attempt to relive Fantasia, which was made approximately six years prior to this, only in some parts the animation seems a little lazy and rushed for what I’m used to with Disney, and they’re not nearly as creative or quirky with the sequences. The overall quality is a huge step down since Fantasia too, and the lack of classical music (instead they used jazz/40s music) sort of takes a lot of enjoyment away from the animation too in this context.

Not Disney’s best work by far on the whole as it’s quite boring and sometimes poorly done. What I did like about this film, in particular, was the Peter and the Wolf segment, as I had another version of that tale on video when I was younger, so it did take me back. Once again, small children should get a lot of enjoyment out of this, but I can’t even imagine it captivating the youngest of audiences who may have already seen Fantasia.