Hobbit 3 The battle of the five armies 7/10

A classic example of why the Hobbit should have been 2 films and not 3.

The last one was a bit slow and seemed to drag the story out this one was non stop fighting from start to finish.
Seemed to be so little story and all fighting. ( could have been directed by Michael Bey !).
Plus it was spoilt for me by the succession of actors i knew, James Nesbitt, Bily connolly etc. All of whom seemed out of place in Middle Earth

The Inbetweeners 2 6/10 & Guardians of the galaxy 8/10, got a few more to get through over the next couple of days

Lone Survivor 12 out of 10, superb movie, was expecting the same old hollywood gung ho trigger happy bullox, but was happilly surprised at how believable the battle was, how modern war movies should be made

Watched Se7en again over the Christmas holidays - the first time since it came out in 1995 and was reminded how good it was. Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey are excellant and the ending - without been gory is one of the most shocking endings in recent film history.

This. A decent watch, visually stunning as ever but I was pretty bored by the end.

A few holes in the plot too.

Captain America - Winter Soldier; a satisfyingly chunky Marvel movie, better than most. I enjoyed the 70's espionage feel of the opening scenes and although the Winter Soldier himself was a bit one-dimensional, it was enjoyable stuff. 7/10

X-Men - Days of Future Past; had its moments, but overall, a bit dull, despite the large scale, time-hopping nature of the story. The scene where Quicksilver diverts the bullets is really well done (reminded me of the excellent Nightcrawler in the Whitehouse scene from an earlier instalment) but in general, not particularly engaging. 6/10

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - this was so CGI heavy, I felt like I was watching a cartoon; interesting stuff nonetheless and far from awful, but the wishy-washy nature of the main human character failed to balance out the animated apes; Chuck Heston he is not. 6/10

Jack Ryan - Shadow Recruit; enjoyable hokum with Kenny Branagh and Chris Pine doing decent turns as the cardboard cut-out evil Russki and the clean-cut patriotic Yank. Interesting to see the jeopardy focused on analysis of economic data and currency transactions rather than explosions and fights, but there's still enough action to avoid dullness. Worth a watch and doesn't require your in-depth attention. 6/10

A million ways to die in the west 5/10, very disapointing, Seth McFarlane should stick to voices cos he ain't no good on screen

Noah.

Why did i watch it.
Noah as vegetarian, Noah as ecologist, Noah as drug user, Noah as gladiator, Noah as infantacidist.



Noah what a load of shiite.

Nul points.

The Counsellor - a stellar cast, an outstanding director and a brilliant writer - all the ingredients for a fantastic movie. Unfortunately, despite having all of the above, this manages to be significantly less than the sum of its parts. It's dull, fails to engage and despite the lengthy running time, manages to produce a series of one-dimensional characters whom I didn't care about. As for the dialogue - it tries ever so hard to be deep and philosophical, but just comes across as trite. I thoroughly un-recommend this movie. 4/10

Birdman. As a big Inarritu fan I'd looked forward to this film for a long time, and I wasn't disappointed, but it wasn't what I expected. There was none of the depression usually associated with this director, but it was a cheerful story with a great ensemble cast. The story dealt with character development, the photography was great with a lot of long shots, there was a constant percussion soundtrack, but the director struggled to find an ending. In fact it was very much like a P.T. Anderson film. Bring on Inherent Vice.