The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

I saw this film on 13 December at Stratford Picture House

Unstoppable

I saw this film on 29 November at Stratford Picture House

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1

I saw this film on 19 November at Stratford Picture House

Another Year

I saw this film on 15 November at Stratford Picture House

This beautiful film is about real people with real mundane lives. No one is perfect although Gerri and Tom start out shown as close to it as real human beings are likely to come. Both are good but also realistically flawed. The film shows various sad people, Tom’s brother with his appalling but only too realistic son and his empty life. Mary the sad, needy and vulnerable woman befriended by Gerri. Ken the equally sad and vulnerable man. Nothing spectacular happens but in real life it usually doesn’t.

Rambert Dance Company

I saw this performance on 12th November
at Sadlers Wells Theatre

Hush - the usual Christpher Bruce excellence
Awakenings - for me forgettable
Cardoon Club - I would have preferred this without the foliage

Burke and Hare

I saw this film on 1 November at Stratford Picture House

The Social Network

I saw this film on 18th October at Stratford Picture House

This was a very entertaining film. For a while I thought what unpleasant people these students are. Then I realised these Harvard undergarduates were being portrayed in a similar way to how Oxford and Cambridge men used to be shown (and the active Harvard students were men) - arrogant toffs, arrogant oinks and aspiring middle-class types despised or exploited by both. Maybe that is how things were and are. Most people either grow out of this teenage phase or are pulled out of it by realities. this film showed incredibly clever but immature and selfish young men who unfortunately are in a position to drag their contemporaries and society along the self-obsessed path.

Birmingham Royal Ballet

I saw this performance on 16th October
at Sadlers Wells Theatre

Pointes of View - Superb
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue - Good
In the Upper Room - Brilliant

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

I saw this film on 11th October at Stratford Picture House

Gekko is out of gaol, hated by his daughter, snubbed by his former colleagues but his prospective son in law fawns on him and he is still an inspiration to almost everyone else although apparently now a profit of doom.

The hero Jake has a touching faith in fusion energy, I don't suppose he ever heard of ZETA, and although almost completely wet behind the ears seems much sought after on Wall Street.

This is sanitised capitalism. Other than the merchant banker who commits suicide because his bank goes bust (he built it so cannot bear to see it go down) very little is shown of the effects of the meltdown. The worst shown to happen is the hero’s mother has to go back to nursing when her property business goes bust because her son can only (!) give her 30K dollars. The American dream continues financial meltdown or not.

Made in Dagenham

I saw this film on 4th October at Stratford Picture House

The Town

I saw this film on 27th September at Stratford Picture House

Devil

I saw this film on 20th September at Stratford Picture House

I could not work out why everything was shown upside down at the start and the continuing use of odd perspectives throughtout the film did not do much for me. There were some pretty scary and unexpected happenings but I found the eventually revealed plot rather disappointing with a strange morality. But over all it had lots of suspense and I have seen far worse. Almost half the audience seemed to consider attending the film more of a social occasion, a bit like going to see football on a big TV in the pub while chatting to your mates, than as a performance to watch. Surprisingly though this did not spoil the film completely. Worth going to see.

The Last Exorcism

I saw this film on 6th September at Stratford Picture House

Is the girl really possessed? Is the father a nutter, a perpetrator or with a genuine concern for his daughter? Is the son part of the cause of the goings on?
Most of the answers are revealed at the end, unfortunately the hero will never know.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

I saw this film on 30 August at Stratford Picture House

A good plot but not as complicated as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Nor did it have scenes of rape, buggery and torture as unpleasant as in the previous film. So my impression was of a slight watering down. Although the second in the trilogy it was still excellent and shows how good Dragon Tattoo was. See it, don't wait for the DVD.

Salt

I saw this film on 23rd August at Stratford Picture House

Complete and utter but enjoyable nonsense. The plot was ludicrous but not quite as much as the stunts, jumping between moving vehicles and I lose track of what else that Croft, I mean Salt, got up to.

Henry IV Part 1

I saw this performance on 22nd August
at Shakespeare's Globe

Knight and Day

I saw this film on 16th August at Stratford Picture House

Inception

I saw this film on 2nd August at Stratford Picture House

I had been told this was a very difficult plot to follow

Danton's Death

I saw this performance on 15th July at the National Theatre.

Women Beware Women

I saw this performance on 3rd July at the National Theatre Olivier.

Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time

I saw this film on 11th June at Stratford Picture House

London Assurance

I saw this performance on 22nd May at the National Theatre Olivier.

Robin Hood

I saw this film on 17th May at Stratford Picture House

Iron Man 2

I saw this film on 10th May at Stratford Picture House

True Marvel spirit again but very different from the previous Kick Ass. American dream stuff, nothing to show the violence actually hurts anyone. Lots of heavy rock music. Good clean fun.

Kick-Ass

I saw this film on 26th April at Stratford Picture House

This was the closest I have seen to a Marvel Comic, not the sanitised, sentimental, clean-cut and full of pathos versions we are used to but a black Marvel throughout. The real superheroes' histories are actually told in a comic book story within the film. If you like lots of mindless violence, blood and torture you will have it (although I did not see any spilled guts). But if you don't like the violence or depiction of the nastines and sillines of humanity comic-book style give it a miss. I thought it was great but I've been reading and enjoying Marvels since when Stan Lee was a lot younger than I am now.

The Ghost

I saw this film on 19th April at Stratford Picture House

An excellent thriller and a clever plot. Adam Lang, a British ex-prime minister, is accused of war crimes because he helped the Americans to torture people. I found the film compulsive watching. I almost felt sorry for the ex-PM holed up in the God-forsaken island off New York.

The plot was tight but detail often seemed misplaced. Would there really have been such an American public outcry outside of the media? Was the London first mugging setup or was it a mistake? Did it actually matter about the manuscrpt's content once Lang's secret was out? Would the CIA have made such a simple mistake over dates?

Well worth seeing though. The performance was well attended.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I saw this film on 6th April at Stratford Picture House

This was excellent. I have rarely been so gripped by a film. The plot was largely very tight, violence went to the edge of being too much but without going over. I confess to start feeling rather sick at the rape scenes but they ended just before I felt I had to leave. The ending was not predictable (at least to me). The film lasted two and a half hours but I did not even think of looking at my watch once. This for a film with sub-titles! For reasons not clear to me some (but only a very few) credits had English descriptions, the rest in Swedish.

A Single Man

I saw this film on 26th March at Stratford Picture House

It's not often that I leave a film thinking "I want to see that again". That is how I felt after seeing this. It did not leave me feeling happy, or excited or in suspense but I wanted more. Set in 1962 it simultaneously gave a feel for that era and made then feel almost like now. Although there is the odd nude scene there is no explicit sex and does not need to be. The photography is superb. The story is mundane, sad and completely absorbing.

It's taken along time for A Single Man to make it to Stratford. Now it is here go to see it.

Green Zone

I saw this film on 16th March at Stratford Picture House

The plot is that the American government deliberately lied about weapons of mass destruction, not just to its own people and other governments but to the CIA and military. Miller (Matt Damon) discovers this and tries to reveal the truth. The film started off like many war movies, soldiers shooting, choppers hovering, lots of noise and chaos. Although this military overkill quietened down it didn't go away. A big disappointment of a film. The people of Stratford had perhaps heard how bad it was as the audience numbered four, low even by Picture House weekday standards.

Shutter Island

I saw this film on 15th March at Stratford Picture House

I found this a very unsettling and often unpleasant film. That said it was extremely well put together. The plot was deceptively simple. Examination of the dark side all too convincing. Not a film from which I emerged happy or at ease but I recommend it.

Alice in Wonderland

I saw this film on 9th March at Stratford Picture House

Enjoyable, but (no bad thing)the 3D seemed largely irrelevant. Although this was not billed as a retelling of Lewis carol's story it had of course many of his characters and as usual completely mixed up the different stories of Wonderland and the Looking Glass. the characters were largly superb although I found the Red Queen rather disappointing as all too often she seemed to have walked straight out of Black Adder.

Invictus

I saw this film on 2nd March at Stratford Picture House

A superb film. This is not a film about rugby. It is primarily about Mandela and his visionary approach, how it worked, why it worked and about others attitudes towards it. It was refreshing to see how the positive side of human nature can be encouraged instead of showing the more usual and depressing punitive approach.

The Hurt Locker

I saw this film on 26th February at Stratford Picture House

This was an excellent film. Little gung-ho attitude is shown. And therea re many chilling scenes; the hostaged human bomb and the helplessness felt in dealing with his predicament I found particularly moving.

The Lovely Bones

I saw this film on 20th February at Stratford Picture House

This is a very unsettling film. The story is well told with low level but quite chilling suspense. The ending is tidy but I found slightly disappointing. Well worth seeing.

Nation

I saw this performance on 19th February at the National Theatre Olivier.

The stage set is superb; the puppets are excellent. But the play was otherwise very disappointing. The story was a mish mash. I was frequently bored during the first act and often found it difficult to follow the storyline. I was very much expecting to enjoy this play but was very disappointed. Perhaps those who know Pratchett's work backwards (as many do) would have find this enjoyable; I don't and I didn't.

Every Good boy Deserves Favour

I saw this performance on 12 February at the National Theatre Olivier.

This was an incredibly powerful play. A Soviet dissident is locked in a mental hospital for having delusions, namely that sane people are placed in mental hospitals. I felt as if I had gone back over thirty years to when the political points were particularly relevant and the references to Soviet actions were either current or still in memory. But I am puzzled as to why the play is popular now. Did the mentions of Czechoslovakia or the ironic references to the Soviet constitution have any real meaning to todays audience? Perhaps so as the auditorium was packed. If you can, go and see this.

The Wolfman

I saw this film on 11th February at Stratford Picture House

Hardly worth seeing. The plot is straight from the old-style B-movie. The photography is superb but the scenes of London felt the same as in numerous other films recently. How did they persuade Anthony Hopkins, Antony Sher, Art malik, to say nothing of Benicio Del Toro to appear in this movie?

Edge of Darkness

I saw this film on 3rd February at Stratford Picture House

There are some took-me-by-surprise scenes but otherwise this is very mundane. Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) is a spook with none of the originality, humour and presence of the original TV character. All the same he was far superior to Craven (Mel Gibson) who was largely wooden with occasional extreme violence. The plot was weakened to little more than a cover-up. I expected something more than almost everyone being gunned down towards the end. Altogether this was a big disappointment.

I had at the beginning changed seats to move away from the people who insisted on chatting loudly but as the performance continued I began to have some sympathy with them.

Up In The Air

I saw this film on 21st January at Stratford Picture House

The hero of this film is a professional firer; he travels around the US telling people they have lost their jobs. Like Albert Pierrepoint the hangman, Ryan does his job as well and mercifully as possible. He also thrives on his never-stay-in-one-place lifestyle. Then, enter the efficiency experts. The characters are somewhat one-dimensional; the plot is almost predictable; the satire on the portayed way of life is more shallow than subtle and the overall message is fairly well worn. All the same, George Clooney portrayed Ryan very well and Vera Formiga's Alex was entertaining. Altogether I found the film very enjoyable although not great.

Up in the Air had been nominated for a BAFTA award, but the Stratford audience numbered five, including myself, a rather disappointing turnout.

The Book of Eli

I saw this film on 20th January at Stratford Picture House

Eli travels across America with a mission. He kills large numbers of nasty people as he goes; their deaths are all deserved but many innocent bystanders go the same way. That's what happens after an apocalypse as Mad Max showed us thirty years ago. The hero himself, played by Denzil Washington, seems to have superhuman protection and almost superhuman fighting capability. The chief villain, played by Gary Oldman, has neither. Although I found the film quite gripping I kept wondering what it was really about and expecting some sort of deeper message; there wasn't one. Although there was a small twist toward the end I found the film's conclusion rather disappointing. This was a fairly entertaining way to spend a couple of hours but otherwise the film has not a lot to recommend it.

Up - 3D

I saw this film on 7th January at Odeon Covent Garden

My first film of the year was one I had missed first time round. Animation and 3-D effects wre very well done. But the story? A young boy has a hero who was denounced as a fraudster and a young girl longs to visit her dream location. Together they do neither and we are shown their lives in the first five minutes. After that the film went downhill as fast as the balloons went up.