Dear John

There's no point. Don't bother.

It has some life truths in it, but you will learn them anyway and will be saving yourself a lot of time.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Those of you who know me know that I have an obsession with penguins. You also know that I am extremely picky with fantasy films. This one was a bittersweet viewing for me.

I was annoyed throughout the film. My ear was itchy, the caravan-thingy they lived in was stupid, Johnny Depp was rubbish (I know, who would have guessed I'd ever be saying that) the mirror looked as good as Bigbird's impression of Julia Roberts and the graphics were childish enough not to be enjoyed by anyone looking for a serious experience and the children... Well there weren't any there and tell you the truth, I wouldn't take my kids to this either.

I would, however, take my kids to watch Brokeback Mountain. Not because I have an overwhelming need to make my kids gay, heavens no, and don't read into this because I'm not looking forward to explaining why I'm not PC. Just be quiet, will you! The reason I would take my kids to watch that film is because I want them to appreciate good acting. One of the reasons for me watching this misguided effort of a film in the first place was that Heath Ledger happens to be one of my favorite actors. How can you not like someone who apparently improvised half the comedic dialogue in this film? He made this film, without him, this would be as much to watch on the big screen as tomato soup boiling. And I don't know about you but I dislike tomato soup.

When Depp played his Tony, I was rather frustrated. The charismatic swagger of Heath had been replaced with the awkward yet warm slyness of Jack Sparrow. I won't say anything about Jude Law or Monsieur Farrell, mainly because I felt them to be trivial to the film. Kind of them to take part and extremely kind of them to give their paychecks to Matilda Ledger, but apart from the somewhat awkward fit of Farrell's badboy look for Tony's fate, I found little to be joyous for.

By the way, Lily Cole is a babe. That is all.

Now I wonder whether it would be the same film if Ledger would have finished the film. I guess it wouldn't. But it would be better. I suppose he just went to prove again that the brightest of us burn out the quickest. Heath Ledger - what a man... and what an actor.

The Hurt Locker

You know one of these films that you watch and feel nothing and would carry on feeling nothing for a few hours? Well it is definitely one of them.

There was sort of nothing good about the film, there was nothing that hasn't been done before, whether you take Jarhead or Full Metal Jacket. It's all about the camaraderie and the trust and dependence the soldiers share trusting their lives in the hands of their mates.

There seems to be nothing happening in the film. There is just some sand, and boots and a shell and a guy with explosives locked to his chest begging for help. And then there is dust, a football, more dust some wind and then a sniper taking your head off.

I didn't understand how it won more Oscars than Avatar... and I still don't. But it is just SO good. Why don't you do yourself a favor and go see it? If you don't, you will be angry at you and you won't like him when he is angry.

New York I Love You

The weirdest film I have seen in a long time. It was kind of like the show "The Hills" in terms of meaningless fragments of the plot and the rest filled with scenes from the city.

Maybe I'm being harsh here, because I've never been to NY, I don't know, I'm not a doctor. But I know that the so-called plot in the film reminded me more of scribbling on a napkin than script. I bet the guy who wrote this, realised he had a deadline for this, but then took the down payment he received for the script, went and bought a large quantity of weed and disappeared off the face of the earth for about a month. Once reality came calling, he just decided to chuck in random bits and fill the rest in with piano music and shots of buildings.

And another thing. Fair deuce you want to make a film where people's lives cross randomly, but if you stuff your film with conversations developing on the corner of the street it will feel very fake. Because people just aren't like that in real life. I was thinking to myself several times during the film "In real life, at this moment the person would just tell you to f*ck off!" And the truth is that they would, call me a cynic, but they would.

What I did like about this film though was the old couple. "Lift your feet" "I am lifting my feet" "No, you are shuffling" - Brilliant.

Oh, and don't watch this film.

The Messenger

It has been a long time since I saw a film the I enjoyed as much. And I'm not being too kind here, because I expected it to be good. Oscar nomination for Woody Harrelson and a solid plot - you would expect good things to happen.

But here's the twist. I didn't think it was that good. For starters, Woody Harrelson was good, I won't go against the academy on this one, but I didn't think he was that good. I thought Ben Foster was better. Everything else seemed good as well - the directing, screenplay, writing (once again, won't go against the academy.) But that doesn't mean it was anything special. So why did I enjoy this so much?

The reason was that for the first time for a very long time I felt the people were really acting the emotions of the characters. And I liked that. Every now and again a film like this comes along and we instantly credit the plot or the writing. I guess for me, it was the combination of acting with the theme that created this sense of enjoyability. It just felt good to watch. I felt the actors weren't simply depicting the actions of the characters, they weren't puppets to movement. They were real, they were playing feelings.

Having never been to war and being very unlikely ever to have, I cannot judge whether the feelings conveyed were accurate or not, maybe someone else may see the film as slightly fake but I enjoyed it. I really did.