Movie Roundup – February 06

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Jim Carrey... in a serious movie... whatever next? Ok, he's done some straighter less comedic stuff before, but this is the most serious I've ever seen Jim Carey act and he pulls it off rather well. The story revolves around a man whose girlfriend (Kate Winslet) erases all her memories of him and their time together. Very upset he does the only thing he can, and erases all his memories of her. From the same author as Being John Malkovich (which I haven't seen) this film is incredibly strange, and a little predictable. It's not bad, and some of the camera trickery they do is really clever (only made obvious in the DVD extras).

The Twins Effect

I love watching martial arts. Jackie Chan started me off and more recently actors like Donnie Yen have helped keep things fun. This film has an extended cameo with Jackie, and the fight choreography was by Donnie, so I got the best of both worlds. The story is fairly generic martial arts fare but the fighting is great. I was stunned to find out that the two female leads had never done any fighting work before, especially after seeing the stick fight they had on top of the flat. Very enjoyable.

Robin of Sherwood - Series 2

Well... I mentioned last month I was watching series 1, and now I've seen series 2 as well. It's basically more of the same, with the exception that Robin dies at the end of the last show... or does he? I've just ordered the first part of the third series from Amazon.

Arahan

Another martial arts flick, this time about a lowly policeman who wants to do what's right but is generally inept. One day after getting hit by a female martial artist it is discovered that he has massive amounts of chi, which give him the potential to be a martial arts master. Again the story is fairly generic, but this has a nice style to it, and is different enough that it's still enjoyable. The fight in the cafe is surprisingly brutal but great none the less - It was nice to find out it was done without any wire work as well. The final confrontation with the bad guy is also suitably over the top.

Dark Angel Series 1

In the Christmas sales I picked up Dark Angel series 1 for an incredibly low price and, since I've run out of Robin of Sherwood, have started working through it. Before now I had never seen the tv series but I knew it was produced by James Cameron (Terminator & Titanic) so thought it would have potential. So far I haven't been disappointed.

City of God

Heard good things about this before, I enjoy watching foreign films as they often show different stories in different styles to the standard English/ American fare. Unfortunately I just didn't get into City of God. I felt nothing towards the main character and didn't care about any of the others - It wasn't bad, but I doubt I'll watch it again.