Movie Picks

This blog will hopefully be an online extension of the email and face to face chats I have with people about various films. It won't just be reviews, I'll probably stick in links to interesting articles/sites about upcoming movies, gossip etc. I hope that the guest authors will too! :-)

Films that I really want to see at the moment are -

Bad Santa - Or is it too late in the festive period to see this one?

"Bad Santa" is a demented, twisted, unreasonably funny work of comic kamikaze style, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Santa in a performance that's defiantly uncouth. His character is named Willie T. Soke; W.C. Fields would have liked that. He's a foul-mouthed, unkempt, drunken louse at the beginning of the movie and sticks to that theme all the way through. You expect a happy ending, but the ending is happy in the same sense that a man's doctors tell him he lost his legs but they were able to save his shoes.

Read more from Roger Ebert.

American Splendour - Will the life of a comic book writer be as interesting as comic book creations? I think so.

If comic book writer Harvey Pekar's life is worth a movie, anybody's life is worth a movie. Yet that's precisely what makes "American Splendor," a dramatized recounting of Pekar's life, a special and worthwhile film. It's a humane and witty treatment of an average life that, incidentally, speaks to the worth and inherent drama of average lives.

Read more from Mick LaSalle

Lost in Translation - You might be confused by the trailer but this looks so good! :-)

...with "Lost in Translation," her gorgeous second film, Sofia Coppola forever retires her reputation as a lightweight feeding off the milk of nepotism. A delicate, beautifully observed study of impossible romance, "Lost in Translation" is one of the best films this year -- and a thrilling promise of things to come from an indisputably gifted director.

Read more from Edward Guthmann.

Spider-Man 2 - No review as yet of course, but from the trailer it looks amazing!

Films I really don't want to see

..so far

Stuck on You

Another thin, thought-free comedy from the makers of There's Something About Mary, Stuck On You has been criticised for dissing the disabled, but its biggest offence is that it's not funny.

Read more from Nev Pierce.

Comments

[hetty]

I definitely don't want to see Stuck On You either. Ugh. But I do want to see American Splendor and Lost in Translation. Although after yesterday's CD spree, we won't be seeing anything for awhile. :( tsk tsk That Andy is a bad influence. :)

Hadn't heard of the other ones. Will wait and see what you say. :)