Gamer

I just yawned my way through Gamer.
Based on the premise "Gee, what if the characters you played in a game were actual people", this film doesn't get any deeper than you think. A shallow, obvious, boring film. Lots of graphic bloody violence, and not enough sex. Hell, if you're going to make a film rated R for violence, you might as well throw in some sex as well, especially given the topic.
This film had barely enough content for a short story, let alone a feature film. I put this film in the same category as Death Race, which was suprisingly better than it sounds and had some tension and drama. Both these films use the concept of criminals giving themselves for entertainment fresh meat for their freedom, which is pretty silly stuff, and unless you build a decent story on top of that, you just end up watching it with one questioning eyebrow permanently raised.
The funniest part of Gamer is when one controller refers to the human body parts he's just splattered as giblets. If you never played Doom or Quake, you'd have missed it. You're right though, it's not that funny.
Don't Bother.

Avatar

I've just been see Avatar. This is an unbelievably awesome film. Intensely immersive. It's all filmed in 3D which adds to the immersion, and most of it is computer generated, although the  actors' performances are mapped directly to their digital avatars, so it is entirely believable. The filming technology has been described as a huge directable game engine. It's completely amazing and engrossing.
The film is essentially humans taking resources from aliens. The alien world is a beautiful, holistic, sensual place full of wonder, and nasty creatures on an almost Asher level. The humans are stereo-typically corporate driven and military supported, but their environment is in its own way awesome, with fantastic hover ships, and exo-skeleton infantry. The conflict is epic, and I found, deeply moving.
Again, the effects and sound are amazing, produced by the likes of Weta Workshop, Skywalker Sound, Industrial Light and Magic, a group called The Pixel Liberation Front, and many others.
The acting was generally pretty good I thought. Sigourney Weaver really likes her SF. James Cameron wrote and directed the film, and has been waiting for a long time for the tech to complete his vision. Brilliant work.
The avatar concept in the film, where humans can tele-operate a vat-grown alien body isn't entirely new, (usually done with a synthetic host), but works really well as a device for connecting both the viewer and the film humans with the aliens. It is beautifully done.
Go see this film. See it in 3D too. It's completely amazing.

Primer

Speaking of Time and Space, you seriously have to watch the film Primer. Don't read the plot on the wiki page before you see the film though, you should watch the film totally flat.
It's about time travel, and is incredibly complicated. Even after watching it twice, I still hadn't worked out the last 13 minutes. "What the bloody hell just happened?". And this is the point of the film, to feel very confused. And the last 13 minutes is the explanation, if you don't get it, you've missed the depth of what has been going on. But that's ok, you're not supposed to understand the first time. I think re-watching the film to understand the events nicely mirrors the time travel in the film.

Watch the film, maybe a couple of times, and then go and read the timeline explanation here.
Brilliant.
Like many things, this came to my attention via XKCD.

Fanboys

I just watched Fanboys.
This film is saturated with geek reference to the point of overdose. Awesome. At no point was I bored, as the characters kept on hitting nerdy lines, one after the next, in joyous, unashamed pride. It made my cry. Fantastic. I was also drinking.
Not just Star Wars, although obviously mostly Star Wars, and obscure, geek head-nodding-obscure Star Wars at that, but also, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, various comics, D&D, Willow and others. The various scenes that mirror or recreate scenes from Star Wars are prolific and a lot of fun.
Appearances from William Shatner and Carrie Fisher were satisfying, surprising and very well done. The Carrie Fisher gear was subtle and appreciated.
Star Wars fans and true geeks must see this film. It's purile and stupid, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome.

Star Trek 11

I went to see Star Trek 11 on Tuesday night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had heard it was a lot of fun, and I quickly found myself agreeing with the sentiment during the early scene of the bar fight with a young James T. Kirk. Smack!
I'll try not to spoil too much if you are going to see the film, but although it is billed as a prequel, and really is at heart a prequel, it's technically more of an alternate past of the Star Trek universe we know from previous films. Star Trek is without doubt the king of the temporal anomaly, and this film is reminiscent of one of my favourite Next Generation episodes "Yesterday's Enterprise" which blew my freakin' mind back in the early 90's. This is what I love about science fiction. Technology provides such a massive space for plot device. The film, while using the time travel and changed alternate realities device, does try to make it feel like a prequel, and there is a sense of the altered timeline trying to heal itself to become what we know it should have been.
I really enjoyed a few obvious nods to the original series, in particular there is a scene with Kirk and a green skinned alien chick. That's just timeless.
The acting was all really quite good, which The Onion actually make fun of. In particular, I thought Karl Urban's portrayal of McCoy was brilliant. "Good God Man!"
Lastly, I have to say the sound effects really did it for me. The sound for a ship jumping to warp was more like a bullet out of a gun, and the laser weapons were more punchy as well. There were also a lot of similar sounds to those from the original series which provided good linkage.
Go See it!

The Machinist

Dark and moody, this film has you guessing for the duration. "What the hell is wrong with THIS guy!". It's really cool. There are several innocuous images/scenes during the film that are repeated over and over, and isn't until the end that it makes sense. So unlike Sinead, stick with the film until it is finished. I won't ruin it for you. The sticky notes are brilliant though.

Don't Mess with the Zohan

OK, I normally don't like films with Adam Sandler, or his acting. But this is actually quite funny, and he doesn't play his usual character. Its funny, watch it.
Oh, I was drinking whiskey again. But is still funny, is good!

Cloverfield

Cooool. Just watched Cloverfield. Blair Witch meets War of the Worlds. Stylistically like Blair Witch with the whole thing filmed from a consumer video camera, the content of a monster rampage in New York. Really nothing new, but damn, it was gripping. Some of it reminded me of playing the Doom PC game. I don't think it was particularly scary, well not popping out of your seat scary, but once it gets going, and it takes a few minutes, it just doesn't stop. Cooool.

2001: A Space Odyssey

I just read 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke. I also watched the film by Kubrick.
The film feels very arty, and I remember after seeing it the first time thinking "what just happened?". The book is much better from an understanding point of view, and actually after you've read it, you can see where Kubrick is going with it.
The book is very readable and I really enjoyed it. Much of it is still in prediction territory, regardless of the name. You really have to remember that this was written in 1968 before the whole moon landing thing.
I love the coriolis tech used in the space stations and ships, although I'm pretty sure you need a radius of at least 300m to feel comfortable. The 10m radius of David Bowman's exploration ship's rotating section would drive a person insane.
The themes are all very cool, although I was disturbed by the implication that at alien race may have been needed to push apes into humanity.
The book should have ended two chapters earlier than it did as well, with the Starchild. The subsequent chapters are about a pre-Babylonian hunter/gatherer tribe meeting aliens, and an exploration group on the moon finding a different alien artifact. Irrelevant and irritating. Clarke was ahead of his time with the whole consciousness run on computers, then as pure energy. 1968. Damn.

Commercial TV

<rant coarselanguage="yes">

Commercial TV seriously pisses me off. I don't watch it if I can help it. In fact, the only time I watch it is when I want to just chill out on a Friday or Saturday night with Sinéad in front of the telly, and even then I'll push to watch a download.
It isn't especially the commercials that piss me off on commercial TV. Some commercials are entertaining, and you can deal with commercials quite effectively by hitting the mute button. Try it. Seriously. No sound will probably just annoy you at first, but you'll soon come to appreciate the absence of complete shit being shouted at you.
What really pisses me off is movie truncation. OK, so you've sat down to watch a movie that perhaps you haven't seen for a long while, or maybe even its a relatively new one that somehow you just missed in the [DVD rentals/Cinemas/downloads]. You've dealt with the ads nicely with muting (v.s.) and really quite enjoyed the film right up to the point where the credits start rolling. At this point, the movie has not fucking finished and the commercial TV assholes squish the credits into a third of a screen, mute the movie and start spouting bullshit at you about moronic TV programs you aren't going to watch because they make your brain bleed out of your ears. "Hey, assholes! I was watching that!". I often want to read some of the credits to find out who some of the actors were, but more importantly, the end music is an important factor in leaving you in a particular state of mind. It can actually be a large part of the film. Directors take care with this, and artists are paid lots to have films finish with their work.
What I also hate about commercial TV is the way they move schedules about, very often without telling you anywhere in advance. Say there's a particular science fiction series you've been enjoying. One week, they might just not fricken show it all, the next week they could put it back by an hour. "Sure, we'll just show this at 12am instead of 11pm, no one will care". Assholes. Or worse, bring a show forward by an hour, so you can sit down in time to watch the credits. No wait, you never get to see credits, they're spouting bullshit at you. It's enough to drive you to downloads.
Oh, yeah, most of the programming on commercial TV is just moronic bullshit you aren't going to watch because it makes your brain bleed out of your ears. I may have mentioned it. But that's OK. I don't watch it. My favourite moronic bullshit I don't watch is "Current Affairs" shows. These sensationalist, purile, indignant "fact finding" stories make me want to puke.
OK. deep breath. I think I'm done now.

</rant>

The Godfather

Sinéad and I sat down and watched all The Godfather films over the weekend. I've wanted to see these for quite some time, just never managed to do it. They were quite good I suppose. I think a lot of the impact was probably lost because I have sat through all of the Sopranos. I really enjoyed seeing the very young Al Pacino and Robert De Niro at work. I also picked Robert Duvall who I recognised from Days of Thunder. That's just tragic, I know. I also picked Sofia Coppola (director's daughter, oooooh!) in part III. I thought she was ok! Apparently, her acting was widely panned in this. Part III was probably a bit over the top with all the super corporate empire and Pope shenanigans. The first one is cool. Ah, Marlon Brando.

Kill Bill

I just finished watching Kill Bill again, downloaded of course. It's so good. I can't get the poignancy of the song Bang Bang out of my head. The song features mostly in part 1, rather than part 2, (I just finished watching the latter), but there is a scene at the end involving a four year old girl playing guns, where she shouts "bang bang". It's painful. I physically winced. Neise is four. OK, enough whiskey, bed now.