When will Hollywood learn? When it comes to character driven multiple narrative flicks, the Brits do it better. They always have, and if things keep going the way they are, they're not in danger of losing their crown any time soon.

First there was Valentine's Day, an overcomplicated mish mash of narratives and Hollywood pseudo-stars colliding in a decidedly beige romantic comedy that tried to be Love Actually but fell way short. Now, from the folks that brought you Valentines Day (surprise surprise) comes New Years eve. And guess what? They don't seem to have learnt anything much between takes.

Like Valentines Day, NYE features a series of vignettes all centred on the revelry around December 31 and is overloaded to bursting point with name-brand celebrities. Hilary Swank is vice president of the Times Square Alliance and is trying to finalise preparations for the midnight ball drop. Nearby, Michelle Pffiefer has a near death experience and decides to quit her dead end job and try to cross off everything on her life's to-do list before midnight. She enlists the help of Zac Efron. As you do. Zac Efron's sister, Sarah Jessica Parker, is feeling a little down as her teen daughter, Abigail Breslin, is growing up and no longer wants to spend New Year's with her mum. Zac Efron's roommate, Ashton Kutcher (of course) is the New Year's version of the Grinch and sets about bah-humbugging all over the place. He gets caught in an elevator with Glee's Lea Michelle, who is running late to sing back-up for Jon Bon Jovi (whose character is actually called Jensen but is pretty much Jon Bon Jovi). Bon Jovi is still in love with Katherine Heigl, who he left a year ago. Heigl is still pissed and repeatedly tells her sous chef, Sophia Vergara, as much. At a nearby hospital, Robert De Niro is dying and asks Halle Berry to let him see the Times Square ball drop. (Incidentally Cary Elwes and Alyssa Milano also work at the hospital too, but they have about 30 seconds screen time). Then on the other side of the hospital, Jessica Biel and Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers are trying to have their baby as close as they can to midnight so they can win some money for having the first New Years' baby. And while all this is happening, Josh Duhamel is trying to get back to New York so he can make a speech at a party.

Is your head spinning yet? The filmmakers crammed so much into this that if you actually separate the vignettes, Im pretty sure each story would only get about 10 minutes of screen time. Yes, it's fun to see so many stars flash before our eyes, but it gets old very quickly. With so many people, it's far too difficult to get invested in any of the stories. I wanted to care about them, I really did, but by the time they actually introduced all of the characters and cycled around to the first story again, I had forgotten about what originally started it all. I felt like it was Valentines Day all over again.

Character driven multiple narrative films are amazing when done well, but Hollywood needs to learn that less is more.

There is a real temptation with a film such as Bridesmaids to shout “girl power” from the rooftops. To talk about how it’s so great that after years of comedies with men in the driver’s seat, women are finally getting the last laugh. About how it’s proof that women really can be funny too. The truth is, women have always been funny but rarely have we seen them take the lead in that hallmark of blokey genre flicks: the gross-out comedy.

Bridesmaids sees Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig as Annie; unlucky in love, work, life and just about every other facet of existence you could possibly think of. She’s sleeping with (and perhaps a little bit in love with) a chauvinistic ladies man who treats her like crap (a deliciously douchey Don Draper… erm I mean Jon Hamm), her cupcake business was a casualty of the financial crisis, she can’t pay her rent and her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) has just announced that she is leaving the world of the single ladies and getting hitched and wants Annie as maid of honour. But also on the bridal party is the rich, glamorous and perfectly coiffed Helen (Rose Byrne), who will stop at nothing to be the perfect bridesmaid, even if it means tripping Annie up the aisle. Cue an increasingly hilarious set of shenanigans and games of one-upmanship that spiral very quickly out of control.

Bridesmaids is a film that lets it all hang out. All of that “secret women’s business” is thrust into centre stage. Yes we can be bitchy, yes we can be neurotic, yes we vomit, yes we burp, yes we fart and yes, it is actually impossible to come up looking, or smelling, like roses when you’ve been brutally felled by a nasty bout of food poisoning. But don’t be fooled; the “gross out” part of this flick doesn’t overwhelm the narrative. Director Paul Fieg (with definite undertones from producer Judd Apatow) makes sure the balance between comedy, romance and crassness is delicately balanced (if you can describe transitioning from a wedding dress fitting to a spew-fest as ‘delicate’). There’s enough sugar coating that the disgusting bits never seem to cross the line and enough laughs that the romance is never treacle-sweet.

Wiig (who also co-wrote the film with her friend Annie Momolo) is perfect as the hapless Annie. She isn’t afraid to put everything on the line for a gag and doesn’t care if she looks like crap doing it. Byrne was similarly fabulous as Helen. There are some ridiculously funny scenes between these two (including a never-ending toast to the newly engaged couple featuring what I’m told were many improvised moments) that will have you crying with laughter. Chris O’Dowd plays awkward bumbling cop Rhodes, Annie’s potential love interest, with the kind of awkward Irish flair that fans of The IT Crowd have come to know and love. Wendi McLendon-Covey, Melissa McCarthy and Ellie Kemper round off the Bridesmaids and each brings something different in the funny stakes. The only criticism I really had was that the storylines of McLendon-Covey and Kemper just seemed to peter out midway through the movie. They were there, and then they sort of weren’t. They were still visible they just had nothing left to say, which seemed kind of odd. But it’s a very small gripe in what was a very enjoyable film.

And finally, to test the assertions that Bridesmaids was a chick flick guys would love, I made sure I took a male companion for a second opinion. After admitting the romance scenes that were making all the women in the audience coo didn’t really do much for him, my plus-one says he enjoyed it quite a bit. And that, in my book, is the real win for women-kind; a romantic, wedding-themed chick flick you can take a guy to, that won’t make him want to claw his eyes out with the spoon of his frozen coke straw.

What’s your favourite scary movie? Ask the people I was sitting in the cinema with for the Queensland premiere of Scream 4 and I’m pretty sure they’d all say Scream, judging by the people whispering quotes from the first movies under their breath, laughing at all the in-jokes and some even donning full Ghostface apparel. Being a fan of the original trilogy, I was pretty pumped to be seeing this instalment a decade after we last heard from Sidney Prescott and the gang. Sadly, due to the carelessness (or just downright mean-spiritedness) of one reviewer whom I shall not name, I went into the film knowing who the killer was, but that didn’t detract too much from the rest of the stab-happy, self-referential meta-madness that ensued.

Sidney (Neve Campbell) returns to her Woodsboro on the ten-year anniversary of the Ghostface murders (why Sidney? Why?) to promote her new self-help memoir. She’s staying with her Aunt Kate and her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), who knows Sidney by reputation only. Dewey (David Arquette) and Gail (Courteney Cox) are now married, but having marital issues as Gail needs ideas for a new book and wants to bust some criminal ass, but Dewey, now the sheriff, can’t help her with any information. Lo and behold, no sooner has Sidney hit town, but the bodies start to pile up.

It continues to amaze me that Sidney – after the THREE lots of serial killings she has survived – has not either a) fled the country, b) hired a bodyguard or c) invested in a gun. I mean, they’re legal in the US, right? Lord knows less needy people than her are gun-happy in the suburbs.

It also seems to me that Woodboro’s parental population seem to be among the most neglectful in the country, always disappearing the moment a serial killer comes to town and allowing their children to roam the streets knowing their child’s best friend has just been sliced and diced. While we are on the subject of weirdness, there also seems to be some sort of mystical force field making Woodboroian teens to stay put in the face of the brutal slayings, rather than, I dunno, hightailing it to Mexico. Then there is the fact that the small town is single-handedly keeping the window makers of the world in business, as every house seems to have vast expanses of glass through which to throw people. And, despite the lessons of the past, terrified teens (including SIDNEY for god’s sake) are still running up stairs instead of out front doors, still unlocking lock and slowly stepping outside to investigate a strange noise, still having HUGE parties when they know a killer is on the loose, and STILL answering their goddamn phones. Just ONCE I would like to see what would happen if Ghostface got put through to voicemail.

The film takes all that self-referential meta stuff it's known for to new crazy heights that almost border on Scary Movie ridiculousness (one of the cops is called Anthony Perkins), but pulls itself back before crossing the threshold (JUST). There are still some parts that are just too “clever” for their own good but in the end, Scream 4 actually has some surprisingly intelligent things to say about Gen Y.

So sure, everyone in the film is an idiot and there are more self-referential jokes than you can point a stick (knife?) at, but this is still an enjoyable flick, if only to catch up with the gang and to marvel at the stupidity of others.

REVIEW BY SIMON FEENEY
Fast & Furious 5 is the latest installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise, with Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto and Jordanna Brewster as his sister, Mia, both returning for the third time, while Paul Walker returns as Bryan O’Conner for the fourth time.

Continuing straight on from the fourth, the fifth starts with the high octane prison break set up at the end of the fourth, the un-numbered “Fast and Furious” and then settles into some long drawn out, slowly paced scenes of character development and interaction in poorly lit slum conditions to let you know how poverty stricken parts of Rio De Janeiro are.

It’s not long after that they arrange to take part in a car heist to earn some money, but one of the cars has a special component that will see all three tangle with the biggest crime lord of Brazil. But only after they put a crew together.

Everyone in “the crew” has been involved in one of the previous films, one way or another. Ludacris and Tyresse Gibson were in the second film, Sung Kang was a main player in Tokyo Drift. Matt Schulze was in the first and the rest were in the fourth installment, so it feels like a nice homecoming, bringing them all together, for the first time. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appears as Federal agent Luke Hobb who has the job of hunting down the racers. He’s joined by Elsa Pataky, acting as his task force translator, who joined the Rio police after her husband was murdered. Elsa does a great job of relaying a sense of remorse and duty that works in making her an empathetic equal of Dominic.

The films greatest fault is that it swaps out the traditional imagery of the franchise (racing culture, music, fashion) for these lengthy interludes of touching human drama that manage to take the fast out and mute the furious.

In fact, even though there are plenty of action sequences through out the film, there’s only one scene where we get to see an actual race. We get given the promise of another but the actual race is completely removed, leaping to the obvious conclusion. It feels more like a kind of heist movie, mixed with a few nods to the previous films.

Justin Lin has, however, made a beautiful post card for Rio, not flinching from showing the poverty of the back streets, countered with the opulence of the city and beach life. It is, in many ways, an extended advert for visiting the city and it works.

In many ways it’s the script, by Chris Morgan, that lets it down, with unsatisfying situations and the kind of clichéd dialogue that you can speak along with the characters, as they say it, even through you’ve never seen it before.

Once the action starts up, Lin makes sure it’s well filmed, well paced and has a narrative flow that makes it easy to follow, no matter how over the top and impossible it may be.

For example, though out the movie, Dominic comes across as indestructible. He shrugs off blows from a crowbar, walks through a field of bullets, unscathed and knows how to drive a car so he can launch it through the air to take out his enemies. It could become difficult to invest concern for him, until he comes face to face with Luke Hobb, who, with his goatee, almost comes off as the evil parallel dimension version of Dom. As a special bonus for wrestling fans, he even manages to use a german suplex to defenestrate Vin Diesel during an impressive fight sequence.

It’s not necessary to see any of the previous films to enjoy “Fast Five” as all the characters fill their respective roles with such ease their interactions seamless give you the desire to like them but there are certain references and dialogue that make more sense if you’ve caught up with the fourth film, at the very least. There’s one section of dialogue and the special set up for the sixth film, after the credit animation but before the credit crawl.

Despite the pacing issues Fast Five is still an enjoyable movie and the action sequences do cry for the big screen to be enjoyed in full. Just be prepared for the slow and the sappy.

I love a good thriller. Especially one that sucks you in from the second the first name flashes across the screen in the credits. You feel immersed from the beginning and… if the thriller is a good one, it holds you in its grasp until the very last gasp. Limitless is not one of those films. But it's so bloody close that its equal parts fabulous and frustrating.

Based on the novel “The Dark Fields” by Alan Glynn, Limitless tells the story of Eddie Morra, (Bradley Cooper) a shabby looking slacker who has dwindled away an advance from a publishing company for a novel but not written a word. His girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) is leaving him because he's on a one way trip to nowhere and he's suffering from a mean case of writers' block. Then he discovers a new drug via ex-brother-in-law that unlocks the 80 per cent of our brains that we currently don't use. Pretty soon inspiration is dripping from the ceiling (literally), he's meeting deadlines and climbing the ladder in the financial world faster than you can say "addicted". Pretty soon financial bigwig Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) is seeking his advice. Then come the bad guys chasing him, the scary blackouts and the potentially deadly side effects.

This film starts in the middle of the action and completely takes flight, taking the audience with it. It's exciting, it's intriguing and it's compelling. Sadly, the dizzying heights and exhilarating pace can not be sustained. The stakes aren't high enough at points where they need to be. Major plot points are explained away in a sentence and others that are meant to be a clue to be remembered later are signposted with a big, lurid pink neon flashing sign. Having said all that, these are all conclusions I came to after the film, when I was analysing it. While I was watching it, I was still totally absorbed and happy to suspend my disbelief as it really is a fun ride to go on. Which I guess makes it all the more frustrating. What's worse, a film that is way off base or one that is so close to being totally freaking awesome that that it's ridiculous?

Performance wise, Cooper is a revelation. He well and truly earns his leading man stars and stripes and I think we will be seeing a lot more of him in similar roles in the future. He demands attention and the audience give it to him in spades. Cornish, on the other hand, delivers a rigid and wooden performance. No matter what situation she finds herself in, and how high the stakes are, her eyes remain completely dead. Harsh? Perhaps, but I like my onscreen relationship chemistry to be believable. De Niro plays the head honcho CEO with an experience and clout that mirrors his standing as a true screen legend. He knows he's good, he doesn't have to prove it anymore (as Little Fockers proved earlier this year.)

When it really comes down to it, I can't help but to compare this film to a bucket of popcorn. While you're at the movies its totally what you feel like and completely satisfying, but in the end, you still go home a little hungry.

Cringe movies bring in the big bucks at the cinema. Who knows whether its the squirming anticipation or the enjoyment at the payoff but the box-office figures prove time and time again that schadenfreude sells. Case in point was the first Meet the Parents movie. From the word go, you know almost every single thing under the sun is going to go wrong. But through all the seat shifting and peeking through your hands, there is still some level of enjoyment as you wait for the moment when everything is going to come good again.

Meet the Fockers on the other hand didn’t work so well. It was a rare slip for Dustin Hoffman and even Barbra Streisand couldn’t lift the spirits of a film that got a little too cocky at it’s own success. Somehow all the jokes that worked so well in the first film didn’t quite cut the mustard this time around. The enjoyable jitters just became a series of uncomfortable moments that jarred. But among all the cheese and schmaltz there was still a smidgen of the charm that made the first film a hit. So where does that leave the third film? In a bit of a trilogy wasteland to be perfectly honest.

Gaylord (Greg) and Pam Focker (Ben Stiller and Teri Polo) have settled firmly into domesticity and have two children – twins, apparently, even though they look like they're about two or three years apart (this is “explained” but I didn’t buy it). Family patriarch Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) is furious after golden boy Dr Bob (the sister’s fiancé from the first film) has divorced his precious little girl. Obsessed with geneology, and suffering from occasional heart palpitations, Jack is worried that no one will be able to lead the family in the way that he has for so long. He reluctantly turns to Greg, telling him to step up and become the “Godfocker”.

Yep. The. God. Focker. Cue Stiller acting like Don Corleone.

And the Focker jokes roll thick and fast from here. Over and over. I was pretty Focking tired of it by the end. See what I did there? Not really funny, was it? Now film it, repeat it, and make a movie out of it.

The delicious squirmyness of the first film has disappeared and is replaced by jokes so badly telegraphed I knew they were coming before I even bought my popcorn combo. You know the second they introduce a lizard, and Jack explains he just happens to be afraid of lizards because one laid eggs in his ears in ‘Nam (or whatever) that “madness” will ensue. The Boy even counted down to one of the jokes with such amazing accuracy that I had to ask myself if he’d seen it before. There are enough poop and fart and “ooh he almost said a naughty word but he really didn’t 'cause it's a play on words” moments that it feels like this film has been made for children or teens, rather than the adult audience that the first film courted.

The utterly perplexing thing is that there are SO many stars in this film: De Niro, Stiller, Polo, Streisand, Hoffman, Owen Wilson, Blyth Danner, Jessica Alba, Harvey Keitel, Laura Dern … They all do their job adequately but they have nothing important to do.

It's like there is a house full of stars and nobody's home.

Tron: Legacy continues on from the end of the first film with Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) focused on the world of “The Grid”, the computer generated world within the system from the original movie. Telling his son, Sam, a bed time story about the way the wonderful world within will revolutionise the world, he heads off, never to return. The future of his software empire has been subsumed by a board of directors who are more concerned with re-releasing their existing operating system to the world, while the major shareholder Sam Flynn, wants nothing to do with their dealings. Lured back to an old arcade, he stumbles upon his father's old lab, something that 20 years worth of detectives and investigators appear to have missed. Once Sam is inside the world of the grid, updated to hexagonal resolution, the real movie begins, with his fathers lookalike program “Clu”, in charge and planning to revolutionise the world outside in a alarmingly different way

Legacy is a visual feast for the eyes, especially in the 3D format. There is an ever-present dark background the movie uses to make the light suits/bikes/etc stand out. This also gives the world of “The Grid an endless feel. The outfits feel a touch more fetishised, both for the male and female “programmes” than you might expect for a Disney movie, They've been redesigned for minimal light lines, but updated for rubber enhancement of shoulders, hips, thighs and buttocks. And this was where I had a problem with the movie.

While the original movie used cutting edge wire graphics to give the film a futuristic, inside the computer feel, giving us visuals of a game that you could feel like you wanted to play, the update wants us to thinks that it's using the latest multi-sequenced rendering, which makes the action sequences feel like a cut sequence, the point where interaction with the characters drops off and leaves you as a passive viewer. There is an attempt to make the visuals seem real, to the point of using props that emit light, where constructs of light would have sufficed.

But once you get over this small aesthetic gripe and get into the movie, it's an enjoyable epic tale of clearly defined good vs clearly defined evil, excellent characters and a cautious fable of identity theft with a reflection on who we are compared to who we were.

Garret Hedlund does a reasonable job with carrying the film as it's true lead character, Sam Flynn, but appears to come off as an unwitting pawn of almost everyone else in the film, running back and forth, with no real plan, just reacting to what he gets told, guided only by his actions. Jeff Bridges works double-time with the rendering of his young face. It works best in the “real world” flash backs. At other times the lighting and furrowed brow made him look more like Alec Baldwin, now. His turn at Kevin Flynn, 20 years on, however, lacks the heart that the original character had. I can't help but feel that an old school hacker would just sit back like a zen hippy, without trying to re-write the error, or trying to re-create the miraculous discovery within. Olivia Wilde captures the ferocity mixed with innocence that her character, Quorra, deserves. Bruce Boxleitner returns as Allen Bradley, giving the real world scenes a connection to the previous film that would have been otherwise lacking. Michael Sheen does an amazing job with his all too brief appearance, all but stealing every scene he has as Castor. The cameo by the musical directors of the film Daft Punk, fits in perfectly.

j17eph Kosinski has previously worked with CGI, producing/directing commercials to sell computer games, such as Halo and Gears of War, but Disney are clearly pinning a great deal of hope on him as he's already signed to do the re-make of The Black Hole. With Legacy, he manages to create tension with characters and explosive action with effects. I can only hope that, as he continues to make feature length movies, he learns how to mesh the two, seamlessly.

REVIEWED BY SIMON FEENEY

Going to a Sofia Coppola movie is always going to be an interesting journey that challenges the senses and thought. Somewhere is the story of a thirty-something actor who lives for stimulation in any form. It shows the day-to day commitments of an actor participating in pre-release publicity, the parties, the women and ultimately the loneliness. The loneliness is the underpinning theme of this movie. The question asked of him at a press conference, “Who is Johnny Darko?” is unable to be answered by Johnny. Ultimately, this movie is about trying to understand what the answer to that question is.

The title, in itself, seems to be a misnomer. "Somewhere" implies a place or destination. This journey does not have an itinerary, rather, it feels like the aimless wanderings of thirsty man lost in the desert. There are moments of head scratching, wonderment and confusion about where the piece is heading and how it is can possibly reach a satisfying resolution.

This film is a piece of art. Harris Savides' cinematography has moments of simple beauty and many of the scenes work beautifully in this artistic offering. He has captured the scenery in a manner that evokes a deep sense of understanding and beauty. Stephen Dorff as Johnny Marco and Elle Fanning as Cleo, his daughter, are cast well and have a really believable relationship. The sound contributed to the beauty of the imagery but I was left with a feeling of abandonment as it sounded like things were heading for a climax, only to be misdirected. Perhaps it was director Sofia Coppola’s intent to misdirect the audience and maintain the ebb and flow and if so, it worked.

This movie is not for an intended audience of middle aged males so I dutifully asked Herself to attend this screening with me. She makes the following observations.

"The overall feeling is that while there was a constant tempo to the movie and it was excruciatingly slow. To put it simply, it dragged on, and on, and on… The premise of the story revolves around the self indulgence of a popular actor and the counterpoint of the jaded lifestyle is just taken way too far for me. The introduction of the daughter brings a welcome respite until infectious banality re-emerges and sucks the life out of the movie. As a woman who reads the occasional Mills and Boon as a bit of “mind candy”, this little morsel left me with the bitter aftertaste of artificial sweetener. In short, it dragged and even though the ending was unexpected, the experience left me unsatisfied. I am sure the artistry of the work will please some, but not me."

Somewhere has an intrinsic beauty in the visuals and has some appeal. After all, it has won some awards, including a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for Emerging Cinema for Sofia Coppola. I dare-say Margaret and David will be enthused about this piece.

Fellas, as this really is not a bloke flick and your beloved wants to take you, there are a few bonuses for you, but the reward of flesh is way too little for the length of time (97 minutes) and suffering many will go through.

While we are glad to have had the opportunity to see it for the positives, it leaves one feeling a little cold and wanting more Think of it as like the fancy canapés and hors d'oeuvres at a high end function. When you leave, you just want a good kebab to sustain you through the rest of the night.

Now, where is the burger joint, I need a burger with the lot and a side of beer battered chips.

REVIEW BY ROBERT HARTLEY

It’s very easy in a romantic comedy to get caught up in the romance, so much so that the rest of the world feels fake or a little too rosy. So it’s really refreshing in a sea of same-same lovey-dovey films floating about that this one actually deals with real problems in a real-world context.

Going the Distance centres on Garrett (Justin Long), a boy who can’t seem to do right by girls, and Erin (Drew Barrymore), a girl who isn’t looking for a boy. They meet, they like, end of story, right? Except that Erin is only in town for a newspaper internship in a declining media industry. Unable to secure a job at the paper, she must return home and the blossoming couple will have to be satisfied with a long distance relationship.

The struggles these two feel while trying to make it work are very relatable and the economic crisis backdrop adds gravitas to their story. The media IS in a state of flux and a lack of jobs on the whole makes it very difficult for two people to just up and move cities to be with each other. The slow downward turn of the newspaper industry as we know it was handled well, and meant that the movie had a firm anchor in reality that other romcoms just can't muster.

The chemistry between Barrymore and Long works and works well, owing in large part to their on-again-off-again off-screen romance. Much of the movie’s fun comes from Garett’s sidekick mates (Jason Sudekis and Charlie Day). Their wit and timing is impeccable and they are exactly the kind of womanizing (Sudekis) and disheveled slacker (Day) friends that make the comedy part of the romantic comedy really fly. A special mention should also go to Christina Applegate as Erin’s uptight, OCD sister. She’s come a long way since the days of Married with Children and is a revelation in this (as was she in Samantha Who, before the network cancelled it, as they do with everything I seem to like).

Director Nanette Burstein is primarily a documentary filmmaker and this was her first foray into a feature fiction format. Unfortunately, it shows, with some parts of the film displayed in that grainy doco, handheld camera format that, while effective and attractive in itself, seems awkward and out of place in the rest of the romcom structure.

But this is only a minor quibble. If you’re looking for a solidly enjoyable, and most of all BELIEVABLE romantic comedy, with heavy emphasis on comedy, then this is a pretty safe bet.

Boy meet girl. Boy likes girl. Boy dates girl. Boy and girl get married. Boy doesn’t tell girl he kills people for a living. Oops.

Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl star in Killers, a film that proves that what you don’t know probably will hurt you … in a variety of shoot ‘em up action sequences and general ass-kickery.

Kutcher is Spencer Aimes a guy with zero personal attachments and no family who works as an operative for the CIA. In a very cute “meet cute” he meets Jen (Heigl), a girl on the wrong end of a breakup whose parents are convinced she will not end up with anyone. They fall in love and he leaves the spy game to be with his beloved and pursue a boring life behind a white picket fence. Firmly ensconced in the suburban “love bubble”, his American Dream is shattered when his past catches up with him and soon pretty much everyone is trying to kill him to claim a $20 million bounty on his head. And his wife finds out. D’oh!

This film is actually more enjoyable than it should have been. With a storyline so predictable that people could see the twists and turns before they even bought their popcorn, the action sequences give a pace to the movie that it sorely needs. The humour is pretty silly but in a good way, where it’s unbelievable but you buy it because it’s fun and easy to digest. Kutcher does a great job (both with his shirt on and off… but mostly off… hmmm Ashton with his shirt off…) of commanding attention and being likeable without slipping back into the loveable idiot character that made him famous. He’s a smart guy and it shows. Heigl on the other hand hams it up and delivers an over-the-top performance that’s too slapstick and not enough satire. She constantly looks like she’s about to crack up laughing and it’s just plain distracting.

The film also suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Is it a romance? A comedy? An action flick? Or even a slasher flick, with a couple of particularly gory death scenes that seem out of place? It doesn’t quite mesh the genres as well as it could have done but it does make it both a girls’ and guys’ flick, which is handy for dates. Girls can perve, guys can protectively put their arms around the girls when the people start dying in the blazing guns action sequences.

Killers is a bit of silly amusement that’s enjoyable enough. If only to see Kutcher’s solid performance… and rippling muscles.

When I told people I was going to see this film, a look of confusion flickered across their faces. Until, that is, I followed it up with "Ben Stiller's serious film". "OH!" they said, nodding. And that pretty much sums up this film for me.

Ben Stiller is Greenberg, a failed musician turned carpenter who moves back to his hometown of LA from the big NY smoke. Depressed and a little OCD, the aimless Greenberg is housitting for his brother and in doing so, trying to figure out a few things about his life, which currently consists of him writing complaint letters to anyone who will listen and "really trying to concentrate on doing nothing right now". His old friends are hesitant to let him back into the fold and it's obvious his own family considers him the "hopeless" one. He strikes up an instant accord with his brother's assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), a much younger woman who is also a little dysfunctional herself. Together they navigate the first flushes of a romance, filled with plenty of speed bumps, not the least of which is her tendency to say too much and his short fuse.

As with director Noah Baumbach's other protagonists, Greenberg is completely and utterly dislikable. It's hard to see how anyone would want to spend more than a few minutes with him, let alone put up with him in a relationship. But that's where the intrigue is to be found in this film; navigating the awkward way in which two people who are both a little lost in the world learn to live with each other and keep the lids on their respective big buckets of crazy.

Stiller give a very impressive performance as the obnoxious Greenberg. There is the danger when using a comedic actor for a serious role that the audience will keep waiting for the punchline but this doesn't happen here. Stiller takes the subtle intricacies of a man suffering with depression and embodies them completely. Gerwig is similarly striking as Florence; she has such a natural bubbly awkwardness that at times I forgot I was watching an actor. Their chemistry, while initially a little creepy, just works in it's own dysfunctional way.

The problem that I had with Greenberg is that nothing really happens. It's all completely character driven, and the characters were completely evocative, but I kept waiting for more. It's hard to love a piece that revolves around its characters when those characters are not likeable. The ending redeems this somewhat but I couldn't help feeling it was too little too late. That's not to say it's a bad film, by any means. There are many moments that are genuinely touching and heartfelt, and many more that are uncomfortable and emotive. But at the core of it, I felt I was missing something that was preventing me from immersing myself completely. Then again, others I know who saw this film found it "utterly captivating and mesmerising", so I guess it says different things to different people.

As far as I am concerned, this film will always be "Ben Stiller's serious movie" as I think his performance was spectacular and the rest of the film paled in comparison. Worth seeing, if only to satisfy your curiosity that Stiller can be more than just really, really, ridiculously good looking.

There were many things that were funny about Jason Segal's breakthrough film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One of the more memorable elements was the character of Aldous Snow, an lovable rogue of a rock star who was boffing Segal's tv star ex. His character had it all... humour, charm, cheek and a very strange air of attractiveness. But these attributes, as with many of the quirkiest, funniest film characters, are usually best served in the supporting role.

Aldous Snow (Brand) has somewhat fallen from grace since the times of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. After undergoing a transformative spiritual enlightenment, Snow released a rather misguided and frankly quite offensive album called African Child, in which he describes himself as a sort of "White African Jesus from Outer Space" and gives birth to an African Child while super-songstress and girlfriend Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) parades herself around him in a skimpy bronze outfit. The public turn against him, Jackie Q dumps him on national TV and the star falls into a pit of despair. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill strangely not reprising his Forgetting Sarah Marshall role) a newbie record exec who still thinks Snow has what it takes to bring in the crowds, and who is subsequently charged with getting Snow from London to a concert at the Greek Theatre in LA. Problem is, Snow is a cheeky bugger with a predilection for drugs, booze, women and anything else destructive he can lay his hands on. Madness ensues.

Or does it? There are some genuinely funny moments in this film including the riotous clip to African Child and a crazy scene involving a drug cigarette called a Jeffrey (because who could be afraid of a Jeffrey?) and a fuzzy wall. But there are also quite a few gags that just end up feeling awkward, including a threesome scene that's just plain weird.

But Rose Byrne is a revelation as the pop princess Jackie, with some of her songs so deliciously offensive that I had to watch the full clips to them as soon as I got home. Similarly, Sean Combs (aka P Diddy, Puff Daddy or whatever the hell else he may have changed his name to in the meantime) is unexpectedly hilarious as the deadpan record mogul Sergio Roma. Brand delivers more of the same irreverence that we have come to expect from him, but it feels a tiny bit tired in a feature length format with him at the helm. Also, there is only so much an audience can take of the "Jonah Hill is wasted" cam. Hilarious sidekicks? Definately. Main roles? Perhaps not quite.

The biggest disappointment for me was that the film gets itself bogged down into too much sentimentality in bits. Yes there does need to be something to anchor the comedy but does it have to be so saccharine? It's in these moments (Snow missing his dad, Snow missing his ex, Snow missing his child) that the movie loses the sense of pace that it's worked so hard to instill with it's ticking-clock supers and "will they or won't they make it" rushing sequences.

Ultimately, the film is full of laugh out loud gags, gags that miss the mark... and Russell Brand. Great if you're a fan already but if you haven't quite warmed to his "charm offensive", then perhaps this isn't for you. But if you DO love Brand and you do love the Judd Apatow-style of gross humour, then it's a solidly enjoyable romp.

Starting out as a fairytale that took the piss out of traditional Disney cartoons, Shrek, the tale of a lovable Ogre with layers, took the box office by storm and was embraced by adults and children alike. Logically the producers all got together and decided to make a little more money by making a sequel. It too took the box office by storm and was again embraced by adults and children alike. This time though, the critics were a little less welcoming. But, the franchise was still making the producers loads of cashola so they decided to make a third film. Which, unsurprisingly, took the box office by storm. But by this stage, the critics were getting more critical and the rep of the franchise suffered. When they announced a fourth and final installment … well … let’s just say I haven’t spoken to many critics that were looking forward to it with childlike wonder.

But they should have been because in his final film, the feisty Shrek we all remember is back for one last hurrah. And it’s bloody refreshing.

It’s taken three films, but Shrek has gone from a terrifying grumpy old ogre who scared pretty much everyone, to a married family man who’s a bit of a celebrity and whose once mighty ogre roar has gone from making people cower in fear to making them roll in the aisles. He’s had it. He just wants to be scary again. Enter Rumplestilzkin. Turns out ol’ R Stiltz was about to do a deal with the King and Queen of Far Far Away to ‘make their problems go away’ and sneakily steal the kingdom; their problems being that their daughter, Princess Fiona, was still locked up in her tower. Unfortunately, Shrek rescued Fiona and royals didn’t go through with the deal. Rumplestiltzkin has held a grudge ever since. He meets Shrek at his most dissatisfied and sets up a deal: he will make Shrek a scary ogre again for one day, if he can take one day of Shrek’s life, from his childhood… probably one that he doesn’t even remember. Suddenly and rather inexplicably, we’re transported to a world where Shrek has his ogre mojo back but for some reason no one knows him and Rumplestilzkin is king. Which day did he take? What does Shrek have to do to get his life back? And why is Puss in Boots so darn fat?

I’ll get it out of the way and say the opening scenes of Shrek’s married rut feel like we’re in for more of the same lackluster screenwriting. Luckily the story kicks in quickly and we’re off on the new adventure. What’s great about this installment is that everything feels fresh again, because … well … it is. It’s an alternate reality to the Shrek world that we know where all the characters are still familiar and cosy but all the circumstances are new, exciting and mysterious. The jokes and contemporary references that felt worn around the edges in the previous sequels have a fresh energy about them that makes everything feel revitalised. At an hour and a half, it’s the perfect time limit to keep the kiddies entertained, get the adults roped in and punch out the storyline without too much extraneous information.

I can’t really be too content focused in this review unfortunately, as it is only a short film and saying too much would spoil the story. Basically, it’s fun and refreshes a tired franchise.
Get ready for a new adventure… Shrek’s back.

Let me preface this review by saying that I am a long-time, massive, no-holds-barred, Manolo-wearing, Chanel-loving, New York-obsessed Sex and the City fan. It's that fact that makes what I have to say next particularly difficult.

I'd heard the bad reviews of the second movie before I saw it and I thought "how bad can it be? At least it's a chance to catch up with the girls again!" So I went to see for myself... After the first film, I didn't think they had any stories to tell. Looks like I was right.

Sadly, plot summary will be terribly easy as there wasn't much there. Sex and the City 2 picks up two years after the first film. Carrie is worried she is becoming too married and boring, Charlotte is trying to convince herself that her husband isn't going to have an affair with the bra-less nanny and trying to pretend she still loves parenting even though her kids drive her nuts, Miranda is juggling motherhood and work - poorly - and Samantha is trying to stop her vajay-jay from drying up for good. And they all find some flimsy reason to escape to Abu Dhabi (played by Morocco). And then they live it up. And then they go home and realise that they took everything for granted. The end.

For starters, you would think that the filmmakers being denied access to Abu Dhabi to film might have signposted them to the fact that some Sex and the City 2's content is pretty offensive to Muslim culture. I don't care where you are Samantha, it is NEVER OK to put your hand down your date's pants in public. She is repeatedly told to cover up and respect the culture of the country that she is in, and when she refuses, she wonders (while throwing condoms around religious men and screaming that she loves sex) why everyone is so outraged. Um, how about BECAUSE YOU ARE DISRESPECTING AN ENTIRE RELIGION. In real life, she would have ended up in prison instantly. And the way the girls all stare agog at a woman lifting up her burka to eat fries is just embarrassing.

There are so many disappointing things in this film. Former flames come back to serve functions rather than the real characters we've come to know and love. The only two gay characters in the show, who have hated each other for 12 years, conveniently end up together in the most ridiculous, pointless wedding that seems to serve no point other than to showcase Liza Minelli dancing to single ladies and to square away the homosexuals. Not to mention the fact that the writer seems to have gone pun mad (Abu Dhabi doo, Bedouin Bath and Beyond, mid-wife crisis, I could go on but they're too painful to recall). All the girl power seems forced and contrived and even the fashion seems to have lost a little of its sparkle, with Carrie at one point donning a hat that resembles an old crusty wicker basket.

Where did the anchor to reality go that made the television series so relatable? Sure they dressed in things we couldn't afford ate at places we could only peek in the window, but at least their problems seemed down to earth. Here, we see Miranda make her decision to quit work for motherhood in the first 10 mins of the film, only to renege in the last ten. She spends the rest of the film faffing about in Abu Dhabi, and not progressing her story at all. The one or two great moments the peeked through the fog were not enough to make this a good film. The whole thing seems like one big excuse for the actors to travel to far places, and wear expensive clothes (and make the producers a lot of money.)

There will be some die-hard fans who will love it still, but sadly, I was not one of them. Samantha, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, you've changed... you used to be cool.

In short, Sex and the City 2 manages to go halfway around the world and yet not go anywhere at all.

The work of Lewis Carroll has always been close to our hearts here at Snarkhunters. After all, our name comes from one of his nonsense poems, The Hunting Of The Snark, and incidentally, the Snark has long been thought to be a euphemism for happiness. Couple that with my love of all things Burton and I was pretty excited to be invited along to go see Alice in Wonderland.

As a child, I always found the story of Alice a little creepy. Even with the shiny Disney sheen there was always something a slightly unsettling lurking beneath the colourful facade. Tim Burton’s new incarnation, reveals the dark heart that I always knew the tale had.

Rather than following the original story of Alice, Burton has taken the film in a different direction. He has given audiences a reimagining of the tale, taking elements from the original Alice as well as Carroll’s later novel Through the Looking Glass. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 19, doesn’t remember she ever visited Wonderland. She is haunted by distant dreams of rabbits in waistcoats, and strange talking caterpillars in a far-off land but can’t quite fathom what it all means. Her father now passed, Alice’s mother is determined her daughter grows up and leaves her silly notions in the past. At a crossroads in her life and about to be fobbed off to a foppish society cad, Alice sees an old friend, follows him and falls down the rabbit hole once again.

The pairing of one of the most imaginative film minds of the past few decades and one of the zaniest literary minds of all time is a great match. Burton has created a wonderfully whimsical world full of beasts and creatures that have leaped straight off the page. Snippets of Carroll’s poetry peppers the fast-paced dialogue and the famous characters we have all grown up with are all here, with a few more that are even more wild and wonderful than we remembered. All in all, this film has very much of a Return To Oz feel – young girl thinks she’s mad and is haunted by her past, which she thought was a manifestation but it all turns out to be true and now she has to save the day for the land she once forgot. And, as Oz was for Dorothy the second time round, the Wonderland Alice returns to is much more sinister than she remembers.

The cast are perfect for their roles; Matt Lucas is charming as the bumbling Tweedledum and Tweedledee; Helena Bonham Carter’s screechy Red Queen is suitably evil; and Anne Hathaway swans about with an effortless lightness, her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. Lastly, Johnny Depp is delightful as the erratically eccentric and madder than mad Hatter, this time with an occasional thick Scottish brogue (“Doooon with the bloody rrred queen!”). And as much as other reviewers have said Depp overdid the act, I actually found myself empathizing with him much more as the Hatter than I have for any Depp character since probably Edward Scissorhands. The costumes were classic mixed with contemporary, in the kind of slap-dash style that could pass for high fashion. And yet as visually sumptuous and perfectly performed as this adventure is, there seems to be something missing that would make it amazing, rather than just fun.

The story is classic, the actors are vibrant and the visual realization of this whimsical world was truly inspired. Not to mention the fact that this is one of the more fanciful and creative uses of the 3D medium. (And the fact that they served cupcakes at the screening made the event all the more enjoyable.) I just can’t shake the fact that the film was slightly less than the sum of it’s parts. On paper, it all adds up but the end product left me slightly wistful, but for what, I could not put my finger on.

This film won’t change the world, but for sheer artistic vision, great performances and a classic tale, it sure is a good, solid, perhaps even magical ride.

Love is a many splendored thing… At least that’s what the movie makers would have you believe. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. A lovelorn child strives to win the heart of his sweetheart. Best friends realise they’re meant for each other. It’s the staple of the romantic comedy genre and audiences lap it up. Trouble is, we’ve seen it all done before. And much better, too.

The commercialised Hallmark holiday of Valentine’s Day provides the catalyst for the latest foray into the ensemble rom-com. There are so many overlapping storylines here it will be hard to summarise them all so I will try as best I can without spoiling anything. Ashton Kutcher has just proposed to the woman of his dreams and she said yes. But why can’t anyone seem to believe it when he tells them? Jennifer Garner is his best friend in the first flush of new love. But is her handsome doctor McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) all that he is cracked up to be? Meanwhile, Jessica Biel is busy planning her annual “I Hate Valentine’s Day” Party, but no one has RSVPd. A boy in Garner’s class is also in love and desperate to declare his true feelings with a grand gesture. Meanwhile, his grandparents (Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo) have been married for years and couldn’t be happier … if only things were that simple. Emma Roberts is the boy's baby sitter and is also in love (are we detecting a theme here?) with her boyfriend and has decided that school lunchtime will be the time to lose her virginity to her beloved. Jamie Foxx is a newscaster desperate to be promoted, Taylors Swift and Lautner are a young couple in love, Julia Roberts is an army Captain on her way home, Bradley Cooper is her fellow passenger. Eric Dane is a sportsman on the verge of being forced into retirement, Queen Latifah is his agent, Anne Hathaway is her temp who works a questionable job on the side, and Topher Grace is her new boyfriend. Phew! I think I got everyone… And when you find yourself saying that phrase when trying to summarise the film, you know it was too all a bit too much.

There’s something to be said for a good ensemble comedy. When all the stories converge seamlessly to create a narrative montage of romantic goodness, it can really hit the spot. The Brits have a knack for this quirky genre, creating interweaving storylines that overlap delicately and cleverly. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Yanks. Because of this, Valentine’s Day comes off looking like the poor bastard cousin of the mega-successful (and Channel Ten Friday night movie staple) Love Actually. Where it created carefully crafted storylines that revelled in their subtlety, Valentine’s Day makes all the connections seem forced. It's like the filmmakers had ten short films, put them up on a whiteboard and drew lines to create the connections. They don't flow and they feel a tad superficial. The cast list contains a virtual who’s who of Hollywood, past and present. They all strive hard to maintain the momentum (with the exception of Jessica Alba, who it appears has been mistakenly replaced with a robot doppelganger) it’s just that there’s not enough meat on the bones of this film. The stories don’t develop, or are a little too predictable, or else are blatant carbon copies of a Love Actually storylines (yeah, you heard, I went there).

That’s not to say there aren’t some great moments that peek through. Taylor Swift, while starting off trying a little too hard, shows the beginnings of a solid comic actress. Her scenes with boyfriend Taylor Lautner are an all-too-brief breath of fresh air. I actually found myself looking forward to the scenes with Kutcher (I know, right?) whose grounded performance of a likeable character seems to be the glue that holds the film together. Anne Hathaway also amuses with her turn as a Russian-impersonating bondage queen phone sex operator. The film’s strangest moments come in the scenes with MacLaine and Elizondo playing an aged couple overcoming romantic obstacles, in a cemetery, with an actual MacLaine film mirroring a scene behind them. Just bizarre.

I wanted to love it. To sink into my chair and be swept away all the romance. But I felt rushed and it made me disconnect. I wanted it to be like Love Actually, which is what it was marketed as… but the very fact that people are making comparisons to that film, means someone is always going to be disappointed. Valentine’s Day was the film that could have been, if it hadn’t tried to do way, way too much. Take a leaf out of the Brits books USA, and next time, keep it simple.

After the preview screening of 2012 I received the following email from one of my colleagues (thanks John):

Five lessons Roland Emmerich has taught me about the end of the world:
1. Don’t worry about saving the dogs, they can tight-rope walk after all.
2. When faced with a giant tidal wave, ring a big fucking bell.
3. If escaping, prefer Bentleys for their glacier-handling ability.
4. You can survive a collapsing building by driving really fast through a window.
5. Never, ever let Danny Glover become president. Ever.

And that about sums it up. When it comes to 2012, no situation is too ridiculous, no conspiracy is too far fetched and the words “too much CGI” have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. With its tongue firmly in its cheek, 2012 falls firmly into the category of so bad it’s good.

2012 is set in the not-too-distant-future (the year 2012, surprisingly enough). Global warming has caused the sun to heat up big time, and the core of the earth is also bubbling along a hotter than usual. Unfortunately, those environmental factors are turning the Earth into a big ol’ microwave, convection cooking the crust until it’s nice and crispy. Turns out the Mayans predicted this happening thousands of years ago but no one listened. Oh well, lucky there are science types to figure it out now. But is it too late? The scientists who discovered this deadly phenomenon are recruited by the President of the USA (Glover) and sworn to secrecy. While the government it working on a survival plan, the rest of the world are going about their business, blissfully unaware of the carnage that will follow. For the human angle we follow a single dad Jackson Curtis played by John Cusack, who discovers the danger of the situation when he crosses paths with an eccentric conspiracy theorist (played with terrific fervor by Woody Harrelson) while camping with his kids on his access weekend. There are a lot of little side stories, and too many to go into here. Suffice to say they introduce enough characters with enough screen time to make you care at least a little when one or more of them bite the dust.

The logistics and the premise of this film are ludicrous and completely unbelievable. How convenient that when the plane Cusack and family are in runs out of fuel on their way to China that the Earth’s plates shift a few thousand kilometers to place their destination directly below them! How fortunate the dog knew how to tightrope walk! Thank goodness their travelling companions were Russian and thus possessed a massive plane full of Bentleys to make their escape! This is not even mentioning the fact that Curtis deserves the father of the year award for the number of times he abandons his children at almost every crucial life-or-death moment. The film’s use of metaphor was particularly subtle, especially when Curtis’s ex-wife Kate and her new plastic surgeon beau are talking about feeling like they are growing apart and the line “nothing is going to tear us apart” is followed by a massive earthquake opening a chasm between them in the aisles of the local supermarket. So delicately done. And I loved the way that Oliver Platt as an adviser to the President kept his political cards so close to his chest. It wasn’t like he had BIG FAT REPUBLICAN tattooed on his forehead at all!

So sure, it’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, the script is over the top, the cinematography borrows from more than one disaster movie and some of the situations are absolutely absurd. But it’s all marvelous fun. It’s a popcorn movie and one hell of a ride and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. The clichés come thick and they come fast and just when you think they’ve dried up, they hit you with another wave (so to speak). It’s because of this over-saturation that I think the movie succeeds. Emmerich has been here before with Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. He knows it’s ridiculous and he does the only thing he can do; treats the audience to a thoroughly exciting ride and one of the most visually spectacular unintentional comedies of the year.

Adding something new to a book that has been adapted to the screen in numerous guises was never going to be easy but Disney have taken on the challenge with gusto. They've taken a classic tale and shaken it up whilst still staying faithful to the original story.

A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an embittered old man who seems not only to have forgotten the meaning of Christmas, but the meaning of every other day of the year as well. He works his lone employee Bob Cratchet ridiculously hard for very little recompense and snubs offers of friendship and family festivities from his forgiving nephew Fred. Then on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by four ghosts whose job it is to show him the error of his ways by alerting him to consequences of his miserly behaviour.

Jim Carey shines (quite literally at times) as Scrooge and his spooky spectres, with the rest of the voice cast (a veritable who's who of Hollywood) all adding a little magic to their roles. Most players in this film voice more than one character but (with the exception of Carrey, who bears a striking resemblance to all his characters) it isn’t obvious and everyone creates new and wonderful mannerisms for all their incarnations. There are too many voices to mention, suffice to say that Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman and Robin Wright Penn all deserve a pat on the back.

The film doesn't mollycoddle its audience and some moments are genuinely frightening, which is perfect, because at its heart, A Christmas Carol is a dark ghost tale; it has a dark undercurrent and is not always meant to be full of Christmas cheer and chestnuts a-roasting. Zemeckis’s offering thankfully avoids slipping into the treacley sugar-coated area that A Christmas Carol can so easily slide to, while still retaining the air of wonderment needed to keep the kiddies interested. There were a few genuinely scary moments which could make for a few eye-covering seconds for the really young ones, but conversely, most of the older kids seemed to find it hilarious when ghost Jacob Marley's jaw actually fell off and he continued talking and haunting.

The animation is incredible and is really a credit to the art as a whole. You can practically see the bah-humbug oozing from every crotchety crater, penny-pinching pore and fractious frown-line on Scrooge’s face. The animation is made all the more lifelike with the added dimension and some of the scenes flying over the countryside were particularly spectacular (although I did feel a little motion sick in parts).

One of the standout features of the film was the way in which characters resembled their vocal origins and took on some of their characteristics too. Seeing The Ghost of Christmas Past groove around with an injection of Jim Carey slapstick was priceless.

This will be a wonderful film for families this season. At the very least, it will scare your kids into being nice and being thankful for whatever they get for Christmas, even if it's not the pony they asked Santa for. Which, if it's anything like my childhood, it won't be. But hey, I'm thankful, OKAY?

What many people don’t know about this film is that the title contains a hidden message. Yes, it’s called Couples Retreat. But what the writers really mean is Couples… Retreat. Far away from this cinema. What looked like a harmless bit of movie fluff – a guilty pleasure if you will – alas, turned out to be more pain than pleasure.

Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (a suspiciously young to be married to Bateman- looking Kristen Bell) have been married for eight years but are doubting their commitment to each other. Which is ridiculous because it’s completely obvious to EVERYONE in the audience that they are completely, obsessive compulsively perfect for each other. Their solution is to use a group discount and a couples therapy weekend to get some counseling. But to get the group discount, they need a group; enter their hapless group of friends (including Jon Favreau, Kristin Davis, Vince Vaughan and Malin Akerman), lured into attending the resort with a less than convincing PowerPoint presentation and a cheesy plea from one of the couples’ children. Of course, the other couples are assured by Jason and Cynthia that they can do all the fun activities and skip all the mushy talking about their feelings stuff.

Once they get there, the couples soon realise that the therapy is compulsory, cue the hilarity… or not. Shock horror, cracks start appearing in the relationships that look perfect and doubt sets in for everyone.

There are too many things wrong with this movie to number. Yes, there are some funny bits, and I genuinely laughed out loud in a few places. But only a few. Most of the jokes fall flat and what is meant to be a light comedy descends into utter ridiculousness. A tiny 20-year-old with a drastically overweight thirtysomething who doesn’t have enough energy for a bike-ride let alone to cope with a week-long party? Yeah right. Kids who are about three and seven understanding the significance of the need to put in work to save a marriage? Or the concept of marriage at all? Uh huh. A Guitar Hero battle that seems like an elongated advertisement and really doesn’t fit in at all? Priceless. At least for the producers who must have collected a hefty sum for the blatant PlayStation montage. When the tough stuff goes down, the music in the background swells in a big soppy crescendo. Well, how else are we to know when to stop laughing and start tearing up?

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. There were funny bits, as mentioned, and it was a little bit of a fairy floss movie so what did we really expect? It doesn’t pretend to be anything else. But at two hours, it felt like three and the occasional titter here and there isn’t enough to classify this film as a comedy. That being said, a surprising number of loud guffaws were coming from the people behind us so maybe it just wasn’t my cup of tea. See it if you dare.

Drew Barrymore has been producing and starring in films since she was a tiny tot. This time she uses her ample experience to take the reins on set and drive the whole shebang. And for a first-time director, she ain’t that bad.

Bliss (Ellen Page) lives in down and out Bodean, Texas. She’s a unique little thing who is a bit indie, but her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) insists on her dolling Bliss up once every few weeks to enter an endless string of butter-wouldn’t-melt all-’merican beauty pageants, so that she might live vicariously. Bliss is looking for something more in life and, when she picks up a flyer for roller derby while buying a pair of high-top doc marten style boots, she finds it. For the uninitiated, roller derby, put simply, is when a bunch of chicks put on skates, and try to score points by passing other skaters any which way they can. Blocking, punching, pushing and shoving are all on the table in this no-holds-barred sport.

The character of Bliss has a really strange, almost unbelievable tone to her, thanks to the writing. Fortunately Page works up enough quirky charm to make the whole thing stick together well enough. Ali Shawkat (Arrested Development) is vivacious as the obligatory best friend. All the derby girls have exactly the right devil-may-care attitude (and special kudos to Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem, who has perfect comic timing). But the standout for me was Daniel Stern as Bliss’s dad. Sure, Harden’s character is the typical uptight, obsessive mother but she is perfectly balanced by Stern’s nice guy dad. He’s tough when he needs to be but he has a soft spot for his daughter the size of the entire US of A. In fact, there was only one bit of casting I really had a problem with and that was Landon Pigg as love interest Oliver. If you’re gonna go for that quirky, nerdy yet cool guy, you gotta be a little good looking, or a little endearing. Pigg is neither. His acting was adequate, he just seemed wrong for the role.

The film is predictable; we know the second that Bliss defects from the world of pageantry to the gritty roller derby ring without telling her folks that the grand final of the sport will be held on the same night as the grandaddy of all pageants. It’s the way of all sports movies and why should this one be any different? It’s still enjoyable because of the assortment of kooky and cool actors thrown into the mix.

It tries really hard to avoid all the clichés, with a few smooth injections of some genuine alternative heart but there are still the obligatory cringe-worthy moments that creep through. Fortunately all the ladies have the tenacity and likeability to rise above these moments, which are few and far between. All in all it’s a valiant effort by Barrymore, but she’ll need to get a few more flicks under her belt before her greenness stops peeking in. Some scenes and emotions seemed underdone, and some of the jokes missed the mark, which will all improve as she finds her directing stride.

There is only one word to describe the derby scenes in this flick: kick-ass. Okay so that’s two words, but it’s a compound adjective so give me a break. As soon as we walked out, I was grabbing flyers from all the derby girls in the foyer, trying to find out when the next meet was. The Boy and I will be there for sure. Come on, as if he is going to miss a bunch of chicks in skimpy outfits pounding the crap out of each other. And you know, the whole girl power thing has me up for it too.

Adapting Li Cunxin's bestselling sweeping epic tale that's been read by pretty much everyone around the world (except me, I know, I know) was always going to be a huge undertaking. And the fact that the story is not a work of fiction, but memoir steeped in personal hardship makes it all the more difficult. What do you put in? What can you leave out and still keep the gravitas at the story? It's a conundrum that Beresford has approached with gusto and, for the most part, his endeavour succeeds. Especially if you consider the box office results: at the time of publishing, Mao's Last Dancer was the highest-grossing Australian film of the year, and the fourth-highest grossing Australian film of all time.

The film jumps between past and present to give the widest scope for the story. It begins with an accomplished Li (Chi Cao), unaccustomed to the Western lifestyle, arriving in the US under the chaperone of Ben Stevenson, director of the Houston Ballet. Then we leap back to the past, where, at the tender age of 11, Li (played by a young Huang Wen Bin) is plucked from his classroom by Communist officials for a “special honour”. He must leave his poverty-stricken family (his mother spectacularly played by Joan Chen) and travel to the Beijing Dance Academy. There, he is poked, prodded, stretched and contorted in an effort to teach him to dance for Chairman Mao's China. At first he is reluctant, but his teacher soon instils in him the passion he needs to be brilliant. Fast-forward, and back in the US Li excels far from the oppressive eastern influence. Worried that Li is being seduced by the Western way of life, Chinese officials inform him he must return to China at once. Reluctance gives way to desire and Li defects from his homeland, forgoing any chance of ever returning to see his family.

As a story, it a truly epic tale that is worthy of the audience it has already received. As a film, it doesn't shine quite as much as we hope it will. The dialogue is ham-fisted and overly cheesy at times ("Life in China not so good. I dance better here because feet more free.") Hardly anyone in this film does their own accent - there are Canadians playing Englishmen and Texans, Australians playing Americans, Northern Americans playing Southern Americans - and it shows. Accents drift in and out of with this film. While the cultural divide is at the forefront of this tale, the overview of the horrors of communist China seemed a little simplistic and glossed over. There were many clichés thrown in for what turned out to be bad measure, and the rags to riches element of the story left out all the guts and kept all things predictable and obvious.

Despite the shortfalls, the truth and the beauty of the story still managed to shine through. The circumstances by which Li shunned his homeland were so incredible that they still resonate immensely with the modern audience. It’s because the story is so interesting that the movie rises above simply average. The overacting tendencies of many of the cast members are forgiven the moment you see them dance. There is something ethereal and beautiful about the way these dancers’ bodies move that takes you to another place and Graham Murphy’s choreography would be riveting even without the narrative behind it.

Even though the film never really musters the inspirational zest that it’s reaching for, it’s still very enjoyable. Li’s dramatic arc is compelling and most people I knew cried buckets in the climactic scenes. But, if you find yourself wanting a little bit more come the credits, I’ve been told the book is the way to go.

Every now and then a film comes along that captivates and mesmerises, so much that, as soon as it’s over, you want to march right down to the box office and purchase a ticket to their very next session. You want to tell all your friends, change your Facebook status, tweet about it; anything that means everyone you know feels compelled to experience what you just did. It’s rare that such a film comes along, and even rarer that, as a reviewer, I will be so completely gushy about a film. The idea is brilliant; this is a guy flick – it’s written by men, directed by a man, about a man, dealing with male issues. But in showing the sweet vulnerability and inner workings of its protagonist, it gets the ladies hooked as well. If you’ve ever lusted, loved, lost, dumped or been dumped, then this film is for you.

Straight up, a Pushing Daisies-style narrator pulls no punches in telling the audience that although this may be a story of boy meets girl, it’s not a love story. And it’s precisely at this moment we begin wishing it were.

Tom (j17eph Gordon-Levitt) believes in love. The kind of love that fills your being, that triumphs over all obstacles and that brings two souls together with all the bells and whistles and fireworks of closing night of the Ekka. He fittingly works writing the platitudes and poetry in greeting cards (though he secretly wants to be an architect). Then one day in comes Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a impulsive infectious woman who, seemingly obliviously, drives the guys wild. They share a love of the Smiths (which they discover on approximately day 4) and a brief moment in the photocopying room (day 31 if memory serves), so it must be love, right? RIGHT?

In deconstructing the love affair, the film uses a sort of day counter to navigate the scrambled chronology. Instead of being put through the rigmarole of enduring the gradual breakdown in painful detail, (500) Days only shows us the important moments and the happiest bits are interspersed with the blackest and most depressing. The breakup is served up almost immediately, around day 290, and, despite its explosiveness, we don’t care because it’s followed by an insanely sweet moment and we fall in love with the couple instantly. Thus, it never drags, never gets bogged down in the relationship semantics and never leaves us feeling like we are wading through despair. Director Marc Webb is primarily a music video director and his love of tunes shows. What certainly doesn’t show is his lack of experience, being that this is his debut feature film.

This film unashamedly wears its indie heart on its sleeve. Its quirky sense of humour is endearing and the chemistry between the two leads is so infectious that it spills out into the audience. Two words… perfectly cast. It’s such an intricate look at the inner workings of a dumpee that we can’t help but be taken along with Tom for the ride. My male companion totally felt his pain (and loved the film as much as I). Even as a straight female, I could completely empathise with Tom as I too had fallen in love with Summer and, damn it, she broke my heart as well.

I didn’t want to give this film five stars; I am very hesitant to give any film five stars. But when I looked back on my enjoyment of the movie, and realised I had yet to find a single thing that I would be critical of to deduct points, I realised that this film deserved the full five from me. There was not a second where I wasn’t totally wrapped up in this tale. The acting was spot on, the cinematography was impressive, the story was brilliant and the soundtrack is a must-have for any music buff. I’m gonna say it… it’s my fave film of the year so far. Perhaps even last year too. Do yourself a favour and go see it. Then Tweet about it.

Firstly, this film did not do well in the cinemas in the US. Actually, it barely recouped half of its budget. Now, this surprised me. First of all, it stars two award-winning actors, fresh off major success in their respective films, a director who had just had two huge hits in Atonement and Pride and Prejudice and a storyline that sounded fascinating… Based on true events to boot and I am a sucker for real stories (or rather, based on a shell of a rumour that may have been a true story once upon a time as most “true” films are these days). But, ultimately, the public didn’t buy it and the money did not roll in. Perplexing, I thought. Until I saw the film. I wanted to love it. I only just liked it.

The Soloist is an adaptation of a series of columns written by LA Times journalist Steve Lopez. He’s the type of columnist that has an air of self-centredness – sure that no matter what he writes about the public will lap it up and yearn to follow his adventures. Sadly for humanity, in Lopez’s case it appears to be true. Stuck for a column idea and coming off a nasty accident involving the introduction of his face with a gritty gravely road, Lopez goes for a walk to clear his mind and stumbles upon Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a gaudily dressed homeless man playing a two-stringed violin. Something about this guy gets Lopez thinking, and after a little research, he discovers Ayers was once a pre-eminent student at the prestigious Julliard academy. So how did he end up on the streets? It’s something that Lopez is determined to uncover, and then spew forth to the public in digestible, bite-size column pieces. Not usually someone to stick around, Lopez is fascinated by Ayers and has an undeniable urge to help him improve his life and get back on the track to musical brilliance that he left so many years ago. But Ayers is suffering psychological problems and begins to panic, making it very difficult for anyone to assist him. But does Ayers’ life need improving? Does he really just need a friend? Is Lopez the one who really needs help? So many obvious questions!

The trouble I had with this movie is that I haven’t been able to put my finger on exactly why it didn’t work for me. Downey Jr and Foxx both turn in performances with extraordinary depth of character, the subject material is thoroughly intriguing, and the director has been reliable, even praised (in the case of Atonement) in the past. But this one falls short of the mark. The direction is ham-fisted and tries to manipulate the audience with little effect. For example, when Ayers first plays on his new cello, the camera follows a bird as it soars high above the city. And in another scene, also when Ayers is experiencing the majesty of a full orchestra, the movie goes all Fantasia and the screen is filled with abstract colour blobs that explode in time with the music. We get it. Music is amazing. But we don’t need to be beaten over the head with it… the music can and should speak for itself in a film primarily about a musical prodigy.

The story is there, but unfortunately the script is not. Two side stories playing in the background are ultimately distracting. The real Steve Lopez is happily married, so to add suddenly make him divorced and add strange romantic element where his ex-wife is also the editor of his paper is jarring; it goes nowhere and doesn’t really add anything to the story except to detract from the main narrative. Similarly, a side story showing the redundancies in the print media world itself seems redundant. What’s the point? Lopez’s job never feels threatened and thus it serves only as social commentary for the sake of making social commentary.

Despite all the things that didn’t work, there were some genuinely good things about the film. Heart-wrenching scenes in the slums of LA do much to highlight the plight of the homeless. They’re effectively uncomfortable to watch. The chemistry between Foxx and Downey Jr is compelling; each bounces off each other beautifully. It’s just a shame they didn’t have the strength in the direction or script to support them.

It is obvious from the first time we meet Ayers that Foxx is angling for another Oscar. In fact, Academy aspirations are written all over this film… Whether it will get there or not is another story.

Those already au fait with the fashion world will have known of Anna Wintour long before her literary incarnation splashed all over the best-seller list in The Devil Wears Prada. Yes, the steely eyed, poison-tongue editor of the fictional Runway magazine, Miranda Priestly, was based on Wintour as seen through the eyes of Lauren Weisberger, former second assistant to the first-lady of fashion. The book, and subsequent film portrayed her as a powerhouse of a woman, feared by most but revered by all. She could cut down an entire fashion house with a single pursing of her lips and whose demanding ways were the end of many an assistant. But is the real Wintour REALLY that fearsome?

The September Issue is a deliciously revealing fly-on-the-wall documentary that steps inside the hallowed halls of Vogue to film Wintour and her ilk preparing for the phonebook-sized September issue of 2007. It was a stunning issue, Vogue’s biggest to date by a whopping hundred pages. Over the course of the film, we see Wintour and a cast of hundreds - including editors, journalists, stylists, designers, models, photographers and gophers – coming together to create magazine magic. But through all the hard work, endless overtime, fashion shows and international photo shoots, Wintour keeps her watchful eyes firmly on the prize and never lets her own vision falter. Her power in the fashion world is such that she can go to Yves Saint Laurent and designers doubt their entire collection with a single offhand comment. In case anyone was in any doubt, it becomes clear that what Wintour wants, Wintour gets. Unless of course her equally stubborn former model and Vogue fashion editor Grace Coddington decides to go behind her back. “What?” I hear you say. “Go behind Anna Wintour’s back? Surely the woman is mad!” No, not mad, just used to Wintour’s swift style of tough love. She’s been at Vogue for exactly the same amount of time as Wintour (they started together on the same day) and they are almost like the perfect team, except that Wintour always has the last word and it's always her "big picture" that is adhered to, sometimes at the expense of Coddington’s best work.

What surprised me the most was that Wintour wasn’t quite the ice queen that everyone made her out to be. Sure, she knows what she wants, and at times can be utterly brutal (like when, after hours and painstaking hours of Coddington dreaming up and creating an absolutely stunning 1920s -inspired fashion shoot, it takes Wintour mere seconds to breeze in and axe half of the shots in one fell swoop) but it’s all in the name of maintaining the impossibly high standards she has pioneered for Vogue. There’s a moment of pure vulnerability in the film that caught me completely off guard and really stripped Wintour of her airs and graces and reminded the audience that she is only human.

Coddington was a delight to watch. Her work evokes such emotion and awe that I couldn’t help but think the shots done by other stylists (including the famed Mario Testino) paled in comparison. She has the ability to make clothes that looks absolutely ridiculous on the rack look like pure magic on film. Her vision is incredible and her cheekiness in defying the great Wintour is really endearing.

It was fascinating to get an inside peek into the Vogue offices, but I couldn’t help but notice they looked nothing like I thought they would. Instead of the Mecca of all that is stunning and beautiful, the individual offices were stark – even a little bleak. By contrast, Wintour’s office is filled to the brim with French Provincial glamour, fresh flowers and feels really comfortable – like an immaculate house in the Hamptons. It really was interesting then, that her attention to detail didn’t extend beyond the doors of her own domain.

Director R.J. Cutler maintains a respectful distance from the subjects and creates a film that goes some of the way to unraveling the mystery of Wintour. I would like to have seen a little more, as at 90 minutes, the film feels like its only just beginning. It’s hard to imagine they have go through all this emotional turmoil every month!

When I look back on my childhood, the movies I always remember the most vividly were the ones where the line between magical and slightly scary was a little bit blurred and where the filmmakers didn’t mollycoddle their audience. Think the scene in The Neverending Story where the wolf is about to spring out of his cave. Or the scene in the Labyrinth at the masked ball when Jennifer Connolly smashes the glass wall. Or pretty much any scene in Return To Oz. Instead of the shallow toilet humour of the countless “same-same” CGI movies invading our cinemas and video stores, these films don’t mince words, they don’t play things down and they are filled with a genuine sense of wonder and adventure. Coraline falls effortlessly into this spellbinding category.

Presented in glorious 3D at selected cinemas, Coraline is a delightfully creepy film full of all the morals and quandaries of fairytales. And as with the best tales, the line between good and evil isn’t always clear.

Coraline borrows its story from a book by Neil Gaiman (Stardust) and shares its director with The Nightmare Before Christmas. No, not Tim Burton, although you could be forgiven for thinking so, as his name is all over it. I guess that’s what you get for producing (read: putting in all the cash). The director is in fact Henry Selick, widely known for his similarly macabre directing style.

When Coraline moves into a decrepit old mansion with her workaholic parents, she is left to fend for herself. With a keen sense of adventure, and certainly more up-and-go than her folks, Coraline goes exploring. She doesn’t find much. Her neighbours are all old and weird, the only person her own age is a boy too annoying for words, there is a creepy cat that keeps following her around and the 150-year-old house is falling apart. In the middle of the night, led by a jumping mouse in a scene very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, Coraline comes across a mysterious tiny door. Her curiosity leads her “down the rabbit hole” and into another world that’s exactly like her own… only much better. Her “other mother” and “other father” live only to make her happy, the house is no longer decrepit and her other neighbours are eccentric but terribly interesting. And even though the grass seems greener on this side (literally, the garden is a deliciously opulent feast for the eyes), it’s hiding a terrible secret.

In the age of technology where everything is made with computers, and filmmakers have special effects coming out of their ears, it’s wonderful to see a studio making a stop-motion film with such attention to detail (see the accompanying blog). The array of in-jokes are really very well thought out, but then, what can you expect from a film that took 18 months to make (not to mention the two years of pre-planning).

Everything about this film is pure magic. The storyline is pithy and engaging, the visuals are sumptuous, the cinematography is inspired, and the soundtrack is eerie, lovely, terrifying and imaginative. The music evoked feelings of an Amelie-like whimsical curiosity, so it was not a surprise to find out that the composer, Bruno Coulais, is French. Each character seems carefully constructed and possesses more depth than your average children’s movie, and in some cases is wonderfully dark and a little bit scary. The “other mother” and “other father” for example, have buttons where their eyes should be.

The vocal talents, including Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, are all well cast. The film even features a delightfully infectious cameo song written and performed by They Might Be Giants.

The standouts are undoubtedly John Hodgman (the PC of the infamous “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads), as well as (and god damn it pains me to say this) Teri Hatcher, as the both the real and “other” parents. Hodgman brings a geniality to the role that is beautifully understated and Hatcher’s smooth tones are perfect as she switches from disinterested parent, to treacle-sweet domestic goddess, to malevolent manipulator.

All these elements alone create a film that flies but it’s the 3D that really makes it soar. It’s the first time I’ve seen a film that uses 3D as an integral part of the story and the magic, rather than a gimmicky add on. If you can make it to a cinema that shows it in 3D, it is definitely worth the extra bucks over a cheaper boutique screening.

This film is billed as a children’s film and it is, for the most part, but beware; younger (or worrisome) children might be a little frightened by some of the darker scenes and concepts. Then again, these could be the very reasons they remember this film well into their adult years.

PS. If this doesn’t win the Oscar over Pixar, I will be sorely disappointed. And so too, I imagine, will the hundreds of people that spent years creating this stop-motion marvel.

There are few sequels that surpass their predecessors, with even fewer third instalments standing up to the strength of the story arc carved out before it. And part four? Forget about it. Half the real actors are usually replaced with lookalikes or distant cousins of the now-absent main character, and the actors that stay only do so to be able to keep claiming they are “working actors”.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is part number six. And at the time when any normal franchise, the magic would have begun to fritz and the spells fall apart at the seams, Harry Potter is bigger and better than ever.

It’s been six years since Albus Dumbledore first invited the bespectacled young boy wizard into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Harry has done a lot of growing up since then. The last film ended with a spectacular showdown at the ministry of magic, where Harry witnesses the murder of His godfather by the evil Bellatrix Letstrange and discovers that he is “the chosen one.”
We pick up the action just after these events, with the world still reeling from the news that the Dark Lord is back. There is an air of uneasiness in the wizarding world, and in the muggle world too as the Death Eaters start banding together to cause havoc across the magical divide. Draco Malfoy – looking a lot more drawn and battle-weary – skulks around the school, slipping around corners and hiding in the shadows to conceal a dark purpose. And Dumbledore is making secret trips away from Hogwarts and needs Harry’s help. There is a real feeling of folks gearing up to fight the big bad, which gives the film a real sense of purpose. Love is also in the air this year, showing that the innocent young cast have indeed become all grown up during their time at Snogwarts… Sorry, Hogwarts.

All the actors have matured and do a ripping job, but particular kudos must go to Daniel Radcliffe for his antics following the ingestion of Liquid Luck – it’s clear that his time on stage in the West End has done wonders. Also worth a mention are Jessie Cave who plays the smitten-with-Ron, pash-mad Lavender Brown, and Evanna Lynch as the airy-fairy Luna “Looney” Lovegood.
Half Blood Prince is by far the best instalment of the Potter series so far. The first films had the right storyline, but the wrong tone and strange direction, the later films perfected the tone, but had a stilted storyline and still didn’t feel quite right. Half Blood Prince combines the best elements of each to create the most well-rounded of the films; the storyline flowed and didn’t rush anything, the direction (by David Yated this time) and performances were spot on and the tone of the film was, I believe, the closest to what J.K. Rowling intended yet. The feeling of impending doom is nicely peppered with the humorous notes of young love, meaning that the film never feels too heavy or burdened.

I have read the book, but so many years ago that I cannot remember much of it at all, and thus was not quite as jittery about things that had been left out as Luke. I do not think the film really lost anything by these scenes being left out, and actually think their inclusion, however cool it might have been, would have detracted from the main story arc.
This film is pretty much a set up for the final showdown between good and evil, but never feels like a stepping stone. And with news David Yates is also directing the last two films (Deathly Hallows is being split into two parts), I can’t wait to see what’s next. In fact, I might even go see this one at the cinema again.

Sacha Baron Cohen is back on the big screen wreaking havoc on unsuspecting individuals and this time, he's virtually unrecognisable. Gone is the hirsuit, curious and socially awkward Kazakhstan export in a lurid green mankini and in its place is a boisterous, flamboyant hairless Austrian gay icon, full of self-import and desperate to be famous.

Describing himself as Austrian Jesus and the White Obama, Bruno is riding the crest of the fame wave as the host of Austrian TV show Funkyzeit, where his say so can immediately change something from "hot" to "not". When his show is cancelled, Bruno finds himself on the Z list and sets off for Los Angeles to acheive "real fame". He has many theories on how to make this happen and tries it all - from adopting a black baby (cause Brangelina and Madonna have, so why shouldn't he?) and writing his own TV show (that involves jiggling penises), to trying to bring peace to Middle Earth (the Middle East, where he amusingly confuses Hammas with hommus) and even learning to become straight (by attending a swingers party, of course).

Even though the film really should be looked at on it's own merit, one can't help but to compare it to Baron Cohen's 2006 outing, Borat. As far as characterisation goes, wheras Borat was endearingly awkward and clueless, Bruno comes across as slightly more offensive and off putting. Sure he is funny, he looks amazing, and I am surprised he wasn't killed with some of the stunts that he pulled, but the characterisation just wasn't as likeable as Borat. You genuinely wanted the charmingly naive Kazakh to succeed in his quest, which doesn't quite seem to be the case with Bruno - famous, not famous, who cares? As long as he doesn't thrust his crotch in my face one more time. Moreover, because of his brash personality, his victims' defences went up a lot quicker - it's obvious Barron Cohen had to work a lot harder for his material because of it. The story was also not as coherant as Baron Cohen's previous outing and served less as a plot and more as a catalyst for a series of sketches. As a result of the lacking story arc, the film just sort of... ended... when no one was really expecting it.

But where this film succeeds is in it's primary goal - to hold a giant mirror up to society and reflect it to the masses. The stars here are the innocent bystanders - those unwittingly duped into revealing the true colours of different corners of society. Bruno's scenes definitely work best when the subject is oblivious to the joke. It's these scenes that provide the hilarious moments in the film, and despite its shortcommings, there are many. I laughed, I wiped tears away from my eyes, I stared in amazement at the balls (literally) of Cohen's audacity.

I confess that I watched a great deal of this film through my fingers, sometimes completely openmouthed. It aims to shock and it succeeds. But I cant help but think it might have been more effective had the main character (however well performed) garnered a little more sympathy from the audience so that we were really all pulling for him to come out on top.

One of the biggest make or break points of every romantic comedy is the chemistry of their two leads. If there are no bells and whistles, the whole movie can collapse in a messy heap. Luckily for the team behind The Proposal, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds have the spark in spades.

Margaret Tate (Bullock) is the editor in chief boss from hell of a book publishing company who strikes fear into even the most steadfast employee. People run when they see her coming, sending messages all over the office, such as “The witch is on her broom” to warn of her impending arrival. She’s ruthless, powerful and will do anything to keep on top of her game much to the chagrin of her long-suffering assistant Andrew (Reynolds). Desperate to be an editor, this man fears the wrath of his boss so much he has even started drinking the same disgusting soy-flavoured caffeinated beverage as her for no other reason but so he has a spare on hand in case he spills hers.

Trouble ensues when Margaret is called into the big boss's office an informed she violated her working visa conditions by leaving the country to sign an author. Faced with deportation, Margaret promptly announces she and Andrew are engaged (and the look on Reynolds’ face is delicious). He agrees to go along with it on the condition that Margaret promote him to full editor status in return. Then (of course) the immigration department says it will be investigating them for fraud and Margaret must make the journey to small-town Sitka Alaska with Andrew to spend the weekend with his family.

This film is predictable as it comes. Boy meets girl. Girl is a bitch. Boy tames girl, they both learn stuff about themselves and possibly live happily ever after if the screenwriters wish to make the audience happy . And yet, because of the spicy chemistry and sparkling comic timing of the two leads, the movie is infectiously fun. You know what is going to happen every step of the way, but Bullock proves why she has been a staple in many romantic comedies over the years. Reynolds, on the other hand, is one of the most understated actors in his generation. I think his biggest problem is his versatility: he is good at too many genres and as a result has jumped around so much he has never really become a household name. These two play off each other beautifully, sparring like pros and reeling it back for the emotional revelations as needed. Betty White (aka she who has been an old woman for years but never seems to age) is delightful as Andrew’s grandma and Mary Steenburgen (aka oh she who seems to age in reverse) is suitably nurturing as Andrew’s mother.

What lets this film down is the script. It’s a funny idea that could have been taken a lot further than it was. The thing that really bothered me was the development of Margaret and Andrew’s relationship. It was written to happen too quickly and its catalyst, a kiss thrust upon the pair by Andrew’s cheering family, wasn’t convincing and looked uncomfortable. The actors’ chemistry was perfect but their journey just wasn’t long enough for them to get to where they did. It was all too quick and convenient… but I guess that’s Hollywood romance for you. Still, quite enjoyable and definitely worth a watch, if only to watch Reynolds and Bullock (in her very first nude scene) smash into each other completely nude. Props to the sound guy, the effect their smacking bodies make is hilarious.

It’s not often I get the itch walk out of a film. I am usually a stayer; no matter how bad, boring or pointless the onscreen action is, I need to see it through to the end and get some closure. Not the case with Year One. In fact, it was only about 15 to 20 minutes in when I got the unmistakable urge to get up and leave. Around about the same time Jack Black ate a piece of poo. Yes, you heard correctly. And sadly, it doesn’t get much better.

Jack Black and Michael Cera play Zed and Oh, cavemen in a primitive tribe of hunter-gatherers. Both of them are already sort of outcasts in the group when Zed (Black) decides to eat a piece of forbidden fruit. Not surprisingly, the consumption of forbidden fruit is actually forbidden and the two are banished to walk the mountains, with Oh positive they will fall off the edge of the Earth when they get there. Unfortunately for us all, they don’t.

Instead, the pair farts about (literally, which is charming, really) weaving in and out of various Bible stories. They just happen to be there when Cain (David Cross) kills his brother Abel (Paul Rudd); they’re there when Abraham (Hank Azaria) tries to sacrifice his son to God and somehow comes to the conclusion that circumcision is a really good idea; they even make a side trip to Sodom, an alcohol-fuelled orgy-fest of a town, whose inclusion allows the writers to make all the cheap and easy jokes about sodomy (which they do over and over and OVER again).

This movie is what you would get if you took Life Of Brian and stripped it clean of actual wit and got the writers of The Love Guru to rewrite the script, making a stipulation that they add at least one faeces, urine, vomit or crass sex joke every five minutes. To put it simply, my idea of a funny film does not usually involve an intellectually disabled person farting so hard he craps his pants, or Jack Black tongue kissing the inside of a woman’s nostrils.

What’s most perplexing is the amount of sheer star power this film has. You’ve got Black, Cera, Rudd and Azaria; Oliver Platt; Gia Carides; Vinnie Jones; Juno Temple (Atonement); Kyle Gass (Tenacious D); David Cross (Arrested Development); Olivia Wilde (House); Director Harold Raimis (Groundhog Day) and Judd Apatow of Superbad fame. How they ended up with this tripe, considering all the talent the film comprises is almost a filmic impossibility.

Having said that, Paul Rudd is amusing for the few minutes he is in it and Oliver Platt does a commendable job with terrible material. I have always had a soft spot for Cera but even his wide-eyed “little boy lost” act that is normally so appealing can’t quite hold up this poorly written shtick. Jack Black is … well … Jack Black in a loincloth, and not an amusing School Of Rock Jack Black either… More like a Nacho Libre Jack.

I admit, there are a few funny moments and I did giggle once or twice but a few funny moments doth not a comedy feature film make. Nor did they make up for all the slop that came before them.

I’ve always liked Paul Rudd but unfortunately he is always comedy’s bridesmaid and never the bride. He’s the best friend of the main guy, the made-fun-of colleague, the secondary love interest, a complete random … I could go on for ages (or you could go check imdb.com yourselves). But all those times playing second-fiddle are finally over as, fresh from a lead in Role Models, Rudd takes the centre stage in I Love You, Man. And what’s more, he’s reunited with Forgetting Sarah Marshall writer/star, the hilarious Jason Segal. And the chemistry could not be better.

I Love You Man is a bro-mantic comedy centreing on Peter (Rudd), a real estate agent who has always been more comfortable in the company of women than he is in being one of the boys. He dresses sharply, is kind and thoughtful, doesn’t pay much heed to sports, loves the movie Chocolat and isn’t exactly what you would call a seasoned drinker. He tries so hard, but being cool just isn’t quite doable. It’s what makes him so loveable.

The trouble begins when he asks his girlfriend to marry him and subsequently overhears her talking to her girlfriend about him and his mates… or rather lack of them. It hits home when he realises he has no one to be his best man on the big day. On the advice of his gay brother, Peter goes on a series of "man-dates" in the search for ‘'the one'’. What he finds is Sydney (Jason Segal), an almost oafish, erratic slob, who would always put mates before dates and you just can’t help but love. It seems Peter can’t help it either and before you know it, the two are hanging out, jamming together (slammin' de bass), going to rock concerts and engaging in healthy male bonding activities. Unfortunately, Peter's new fiancée is not so used to sharing him. Will they all live happily ever after?

The plot is so simple and maybe even a little "done before". But even when the storyline is nothing particularly new, a movie that is stacked with the right actors and featuring enough clever one-liners and comedic moments, can really take off.

Rudd is perfect as the cringe-inducing Peter – he puts a congenial face on pure awkwardness like no one else and is brilliantly utilised. I can’t stress enough how great it is to see him in the spotlight. It's great, great, great. Jason Segal is perfectly cast as a man comfortable in his own skin; Segel's success lies in the fact that he not only does he perform comedy flip-flops with skill and fervour, but that he creates an utterly believable, flawed and human best friend to whom anyone would be proud to say the words “I Love You, Man”. The minor players all work as a team to prop up the action with sublime comic timing, and the pace of the film never lags – there didn’t seem to be any time wasted, which is rare in today’s comedies. Oh, and it’s worth mentioning Lou Ferigno is in the film as well. Yes, that's right, the original Hulk.

The story is peppered with heartfelt moments that never get cheesy, gross-out scenes that never cross the line and funny bits that never seem to get old. You know you’re watching a cracker comedy when, even though you’re in a screening with fewer than 20 people, the guffawing sounds as though there are 80. I don’t think I have laughed so much in quite a long time and I left the cinema feeling great – which is what comedies are all about, really. It has enough romance (and bro-mance) to keep the girls happy, but not so much as to put off the guys, and there seems to be exactly the right amount of "man humour" to keep the boys happy too, without ever turning off the girls. If you feel like a laugh, do yourself a favour and see this film. I can't tell you it's the best film ever made, but it's one of the most enjoyable comedies I have seen in ages.

One of the best theatrical, musical and literary minds of his time, Noel Coward is known for his virtual invention of celebrity and iconic, oft-imitated style as well as his plays. Around the 1930s, he picked up the nickname “The Master” as a testament to his natural talent when it came to the performing arts. His plays are typically bright, witty and full of biting satire directed at the upper classes. His conversational style of theatre was revolutionary and made his works ideal for film adaptation. The latest of these is Easy Virtue, starring Jessica Biel and Colin Firth. Never heard of it? You’re not alone and, after watching the film, it’s easy to see why.

Easy Virtue is essentially about the war between Old World manners and New World freedom. It’s 1929 and John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) has sent word to his family that not only has he gotten married overseas without telling them, but that he will be returning home shortly, new bride in tow. Even worse, their arrival reveals John’s new missus, Larita (Biel), is a brash gutsy American, who is older than him, wears trousers and just so happens to be a famous race-car driver. Predictably his right-proper mother (Kristen Scott Thomas) is aghast and the film descends into a typical 24/7 showdown between daughter- and mother-in-law. Refreshingly, John’s apathetic father (Firth in typical period-film form) doesn’t give a toss for the manners of the time and occasionally encourages Larita in her rebellion against Mrs Whittaker – much to the chagrin of his horrified wife.
This film contains two of the best period actors of their time, Firth and Scott Thomas, so the inclusion of Biel among such renowned talent seems to be at odds with the rest of the film. She doesn’t fit in with this bunch, and not in the whole metaphorical “well, neither does her character” way – I don’t buy her as a period actress and I’m not entirely sure I buy her on the big screen either. Her performance – while meant to be brash and juxtaposing to a degree – was just plain jarring and kept pulling me out of the film. It’s like she’s too modern for the film (and again, not in the way she’s intended to be). The rest of the actors do a decent job with slightly lacking material, except for young Ben Barnes, who looks pretty enough but could do with a bit more emotion.

More than anything, it’s the story I had a problem with. For a Noel Coward script, it seemed remarkably dull and lacking in the sparkling wit he is so famous for. Sure, there were some great comedic moments (including a “situation” with the family pet), but for the most part the plot left me wanting. I don’t quite know what else I was expecting, but whatever it was, it wasn’t there. That being said, the movie is visually stunning and lush, and I am pretty sure I want every costume that Biel wears. The soundtrack is also very clever, taking modern songs and reworking them with a jazzy 1920s-twist (including a very funny rendition of Tom Jones’s Sex Bomb).

My biggest problem was with the ending – I saw it coming and I still didn’t think it had enough gravitas to make it dramatic, or enough comedic or feel-good value to be amusing. It’s like was stuck in some sort of dissatisfying ending limbo.

Costumes, music and fleeting moments of situational comedy bordering on slapstick save this from being a complete disaster. It’s enjoyable enough, but nothing particularly special. And it really is no surprise that this isn’t one of Coward’s most well-known offerings.

If you’re expecting this ensemble piece to be a true to life account of the trials and tribulations of the brave young men fighting against the establishment full of searing drama, bitter confrontations and an important moral to be learned then you’ll need to look elsewhere. This film is pure montage-full music-driven fluff. But boy it’s fun.

The year is 1966 and pop music is permitted to be played for only two hours on the radio every day. Being that the 60s and 70s were widely renowned as the decades of truly great rock and roll, this seems to be a bit of a surprise. Thank goodness for the good ship Radio Rock, run by a group of rag-tag renegade DJs dedicated to bringing the topical tunes to the airwaves. People are listening in their millions any way they can - in the kitchen, at work, in the car, even under their pillows after their parents have gone to sleep. The (very loose) story is seen through the eyes of young Carl (Tom Sturridge) who has been sent to the boat to see out the summer, under the not-so-watchful eyes of his godfather Quentin (a quintessential rockin’ Bill Nighy) – the ship’s fearless leader. The all-male line-up of daring DJs include husky ladies-man Gavin (an unrecognisable Rhys Ifans), awkwardly “hip” Angus (Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby), rotund Romeo Dave (Nick Frost) and The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffmann in another brilliant brooding and low-key role). And that’s just the famous ones.

Of course, even though the practice of broadcasting rock and pop music on the open seas was not technically illegal, there had to be some killjoy with a stiff upper lip (in this case covered with a spectacularly snide moustache) who wants to rain on their hit parade. Enter Dormandy (played with enormous gusto and hilarious hammy-ness by Kenneth Brannagh), the aforementioned crusty MP with a grudge against the groove. He hires the aptly named Twatt (Jack Davenport) to find the loophole that will allow him to silence Radio Rock forever.

To put it bluntly, this film doesn’t exactly have much of a through-line. Sure, it’s about the plight of pirate radio and how rock music made it to the mainstream, but plot wise, it’s very much a character-driven piece. Rather than a story, it’s several stories, played out in a skit- like format, held together with a seemingly endless line-up of colourful montages. But rather than detracting from the film, the short scenes feel playful and really hold your interest. By the culmination of the film, I was quite wrapped up in the individual stories of the characters and wanted to see how they all worked out. The soundtrack, of course, is spectacular and made me want to rush out and find all my old CDs and pore over my mother’s vinyls. All the actors are fabulous and add their own comic signature to the role. I particularly liked Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) who pulls off a completely vacant performance better than anyone I’ve seen. My one big gripe was that Kiwi Rhys Darby was under-used. I laughed at nearly everything he said and was looking forward to more screen time that never really came.

It’s fun, it’s frivolous, it’s colourful and exciting. All in all, this film is like a really good stew – it takes a little while to get going but it’s full-bodied and meaty by the end, full of delicious goodness. You may even, like me, want a second helping.

When a film about monsters battling aliens – full of tentacled beings, massive space ships and mega outer-space explosions – hits the big screen in both normal and 3D vision, you’d expect your average 10-year-old to choose the 3D right? Wrong. Strangely, it took a lot of convincing to get The Boy’s little brother to want to watch all the action with an extra dimension. But boy, I am glad we did.
First things first. The action begins at the wedding of a young, idealistic girl called Susan (Reese Witherspoon). The guy she’s marrying is a little bit of a jerk, but in the way that he’s still kinda likeable and you’re not going to worry too much if they tie the knot. Unfortunately a giant meteor gets in the way, literally, and Susan is turned into the 50-foot woman. She is promptly shipped off to a secure facility where the government holds all manner of monsters in order to deny their existence to the public and forget them.
Susan makes friends with oozy, brainless but still loveable B.O.B the blob (Seth Rogen), tough-talking but soft-hearted reptilian Missing Link (Will Arnett), crackpot mad-scientist turned insect Dr Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) and an enormous creature slightly resembling Godzilla crossed with a guinea pig, Insectosaurus. When aliens attack the earth, the monsters are shoved in the deep end and told that they must defeat the aliens to secure their freedom. But it’s not just Earth they need to save – Susan has something evil lord Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) wants and the other monsters must realise their individual strengths in order to save her.
This film, which looks suspiciously like a Pixar offering, is genuinely surprising. Other than the Shrek franchise, Dreamworks seem to have a little trouble pulling off an animated film that ticks all the boxes. This one does it quite well, although the story does lack in parts. That being said, it’s mostly amusing, likeable, well-animated and above all, it doesn’t feel like they’re trying too hard. The 3D adds an amazing (forgive the pun) dimension to the film, with both The Boy and I stopping to marvel at the composition of the scenes in the film that would usually have been completely innocuous. Some of it genuinely does feel like you’ve stepped into the film. And the 3D glasses themselves have certainly improved from the days of yore. Gone are the flimsy, cardboard, red and blue specs, replaced with sturdy, clear Elvis Costello-style ones, complete with a security tag to prevent the odd kleptomaniac with a taste for movie paraphernalia from swiping them.
All in all it’s a solid offering from Dreamworks and it's a major 3D release with a solid plot and huge talent base voicing its characters. That being said, I would probably take off half a star had it not had the novelty of 3D to entertain me.

In times when our economy is telling us to spend, spend, spend, there could not be a better film than Confessions of a Shopaholic to stimulate the economy. Sure, it’s supposed to be a cautionary tale, warning of the dangers of letting your spending spiral out of control and showing consequences of a life lived on credit. In truth, it’s bound to have exactly the opposite effect. Stunning ensembles, kitschy gadgets and the very latest in designer accessories are sure to have “recessionistas” throwing caution to the wind and handing over the plastic in a purchasing frenzy. Heck, even I went online to discover who made Rebecca Bloomwood’s iconic black and white, shawl collar boucle overcoat and where I could get one. (Incidentally, Matthew Williamson, €700 and no longer for sale.).

Confessions of a Shopaholic is based on the bestselling Shopaholic series of books written by Sophie Kinsella. It follows the fortunes of Rebecca Bloomwood, the type of shopper who makes Paris Hilton’s shopping efforts look like child’s play. Shop mannequins call out to her, seducing her with the sales of the day and she is powerless to resist. A bonafide fashonista, Rebecca dreams of working for the glamourous Alette magazine, run by the equally chic Alette Naylor (a very French Kristin Scott Thomas). When she accidentally gets a job on a magazine doling out financial advice (incidentally with a very dishy boss played by Hugh Dancy), her own financial woes threaten to overwhelm her.

I’ve read all the Shopaholic books and am a huge fan so it was with a mix of trepidation and excitement that I went along to this movie. After all, I could tell from the previews that there were already a few changes – for starters they changed the location from London to New York and Rebecca’s nationality from British to American for no discernable reason. Secondly, love interest Luke Brandon becomes Becky’s boss, rather than a mysterious rich stranger. That change made the action slightly more predictable, but saved them the wage of an extra actor to play her editor. I’m not going to get into the whole “why the book is better than the movie” tirade – it’s inevitable that changes need to be made to make it work on the big screen, I’m just not sure the changes really added anything.

The main problem is that the plot suffers from a lack of believability. For example, Becky writes only two articles … JUST two … and suddenly she is the magazine’s biggest asset? Some of the film was overacted for little comic effect (especially by Wendy Malick with a cameo as a Shopaholics Anonymous group leader) and I really wanted to feel more of a connection between best friends Becky and Suze (Krysten Ritter). Overall, the film was most certainly enjoyable, it just didn’t have the sparkle of those chick-flick powerhouses – Devil Wears Prada and Sex and the City – that have come before it. The chemistry between Dancy and Fisher, however, was perfect – there are no other words for their coupledom than ridiculously cute. Moreover Patricia Field, of SATC fame, did a wonderful job, making the costumes (with the exception of the bridesmaids’ outfits) completely lust-worthy.

Another thing that has come out of Confessions is the incredible star power of Isla Fisher. She’s come a long way from Summer Bay and she’s showing her cute looks and kooky demeanor just scream “leading lady”. She’s utterly adorable, there’s no other way to put it. Indeed if it were not for her, Shopaholic would have fallen a little short of the mark. But Isla ‘s performance more than makes up for a lacking plot, and turns a chick flick that’s just a little bit silly into a film that is infectiously funny and deliciously decadent.