Friday Reviews & Weekend Watch - 12th Feb 2010
A Single ManColin Firth's best ever performance in this touching tale of a college professor in the early 60s mourning the loss of his partner. It's precise and perfect - and thankfully make Col's painful turn in St Trinian's 2: The Legend Of Fritton's Gold seem a million miles away.
5 stars
Valentine's Day
Of course it's cheesy. That's a given. But this slick tale of beautiful LA types on the most romantic day of the year expertly gets the point of A-list rom-coms. It's about the warm glow you get from watching familiar faces tick the chick flick boxes with a smile on their face and Joss Stone warbling on the soundtrack. The movie equivalent of a comfort blanket.
4 stars
The Wolfman
It stars off well, gets a bit boring, then becomes totally ridiculous. Benicio Del Toro may have the hairy look but his 21st century cool doesn't fit with this Victorian horror story, heavily edited and delayed for months as the producers tried to work out what the hell their film was actually about.
2 stars
Percy Jackson & The Lightening Thief
It may be a shameless attempt at getting a new Potter-type franchise going, but this US teen take on Greek myth is fast, fun and frothy. Get past Pierce Brosnan as a half-man/half-horse and you'll have a good time.
3 stars
As usual if you're not going to the cinema this weekend, here are some decent movies to check out on the TV.
The Fifth Element
Friday, 9pm
Five
Get past a quite unbelievably squeaky performance from Chris Tucker and this sci-fi thriller with Bruce Willis and Mila Jovovich has a high-art, almost surreal futuristic quality that jumps off the screen. If you don't get the image on the left then look it up for added LOLs.
VolverSaturday, 11.40pm
Channel 4
Classy turns from Penny Cruz (pictured right) and her cleavage in this haunting, heartbreaking, ghostly drama from Spanish maestro Pedro Almodovar.
ApocalyptoSunday, 10pm
´óÏó´«Ã½ 2
Mel Gibson directs this blood-splattered adventure set amongst the ancient Mayan civilizations of South America. It's hardly subtle - but Gibbo sure knows about gutsy, eye-catching cinema.
Comment number 1.
At 12th Feb 2010, Mark wrote:This weekend I think as its Valentines Day you have to go with what the girlfriend wants, a good ol'Romantic comedy so I think the pick of the week for the cinema is Valentines Day. Although the reviews coming out of A Single Man are all superb.
As for TV movies this week I think the pick has to be Apocalypto. Check here for the a top 10 Romantic Comedies -
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Comment number 2.
At 15th Feb 2010, Gibbonius1 wrote:Went with what the girlfriend wanted and ended up seeing Valentine's Day this weekend. The only review I had heard was James King's on Friday so I went thinking that it might be a cheesey but enjoyable rom-com. Sadly it wasn't.
So many characters are thrown at you that it is difficult to care about any of them and the last 20 minutes are particularly painful as you wait for them tie up yet another storyline. There were relatively few laughs in the packed cinema I was in with the jokes being so forced and obvious that they lose any impact. Overall I just found it boring and to make matters worse the girlfriend didn't like it either. She described it as a bad rip-off of Love Actually; I never got round to seeing Love Actually so can't comment. Came into work this morning and no one else seems to have liked, if it hadn't been released near Valentine's Day I doubt most people would have seen it, a shameless cash cow. No idea how this could ever be considered four star, at least it's my film choice next though.
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