square eyes

Bowen asked people on his blog to tell him how many films that have seen so far this year.

For me it is 14.

That is way down on previous years. The goals is to see 52 films in a year. I have never reached that goal.
Here are the stats from the last few years.

2005 – 14 (so far)
2004 – 22 (what a poor year)
2003 – 45 (oh so close)
2002 – 24
2001 – 11
2000 – 6 ( i only have tickets back to 2000 but i know i saw more flims than 6 in 2000)

Some of the tickets are getting very hard to read, but its a fun stack of tickets.

oh that is a total of 122 films since 2000.

Pooh

Yesterday morning Jenny and I ventured into the city for an advanced screening of ‘Pooh’s heffalump movie”. We scored free tickets from jennys dad.
So off we went to a cinema that was full of kids and mums. AS they seem to do before most advanced screenings and exclusive screenings these days they have an MC before the film who gives out prizes and stuff. Well yesterday they had two presenters from the Disney channel. And they were terrible. They made jokes that no one laughed at. The took up way too much time.
Anyway eventually the movie started and it was a bit of fun.

I have to admit that the heffalump as very cute. It was defiantly a kids movie though, not like toy story or films like that where it appeals to all ages. This was a kids movie, but none the less it was good to be a kid again. I got a tad bored in bits and there was a few musical numbers that weren’t very strong at all.
But all in all I give it 4.5 / 7

“hello to the giant pansy’s”

Tonight after work myself and jenny went to the cinema.
well before the cinema we went to the foodcourt. Of course.

Anyway we saw Madagascar.

I have to say I was quite sceptical of this film, thinking it was just another film trying to cash in on the success of toy story and shrek. But it did stand up by itself to be a very funny little film.
I love the way in animated movies that they manage to cater for such a broad spectrum of ages and different styles of gags and jokes and cross so many genres.
It was a funny film and made me laugh a lot, I didn’t laugh as much as the teenage girls 2 rows behind but I did laugh. Oh poo jokes are funny and this monkey made some funny poo jokes. And again chris rock impressed me, I think it is that when he is constrained he us much better in his roles.
I would recommend this film to everyone and give it a 5.5 / 7

2 days left

Today there was no big adventure to the city no train or busses. But it was still fun. Holidays are drawing to a close which is defiantly sad. I think I could quite happily take another 3 months off work. Am I looking forward to going back ? Well yes and no, probably tending more towards the no side at the moment. But once I’m back that might change.
Although past few months I’ve been questioning my future at work and stuff and it has been frustrating more than it ever has in the past so who knows. Maybe some other exciting things on the horizon too but for now I’ll just have to get plodding along again on Monday.

Today I woke up and sat around the house for a bit, watched some foxtel and ate some pasta and meat balls for breakfast. And then eventually ventured over to Jennys house to hang out with her. We sat around and jenny made me a toasted cheese sandwich after being inspired by debbies lunch.
Then we sat around more and I used the internet because at that stage the amazing david hadn’t been here to fix our net. Jenny was feeling a bit ill, so we didn’t go on any big adventures. But it was nice to relax, relaxing is good, just chilling with the mrs.
Later in the evening we did drive down to bobbin head and apple tree bay, it was too cold outside of the car so we lasted abut 2 minutes on the play equipment at bobbin head.

At 7 I met up with david in Westfield. We had dinner at julians pizza and then some gelato at gelatisimo, chatting away about our futures and whats coming up for us. Then over to davids office fro some email checking and then off to greater union for “coach Carter”

It was a pretty good film. A damn long film. 2 hours and 29 minutes.
Samuel L Jackson was cool, although hes always pretty cool in films. I have to say I’m not really a big fan of basketball infact I’m not any level of fan but I still enjoyed this film. It wasn’t a comedy you know one of those all American inspirational sporting films. The dodgy team that are all misfits eventually come through with the good and everyone cheers. Well it was exactly like that. A bit predictable, right up until the end. I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t seen it. but lets just say not your average fairy tale ending.
But it was a good ride, some cool characters and not too much basketball.
I give it 5/7

heaven on a stick

Oh the daytripper ticket is so much the bomb. I reckon heaven will have daytripper tickets. And you can catch all the train busses and ferries you want around heaven for eternity for only $15.

Here is myself and jenny, sitting on the marvellous manly ferry.

Howie! Do you have to take a photo of me?????

Well our daytripper took us to the city, then across to manly and in manly we had lunch and laid on some grass after walking around to shelly beach and cabbage tree reserve.I had a buddy and a cheese and tomato roll.


Even our drinks had a rest on the grass in the midday sun

Once back in the city, we went and saw a movie.


It was allright. It was extremely predictable and quite hollywood. But it had some good gags and funny lines. Chris Rock was a bit restricted which I thought was good because he tends to go over the top a bit. And adman sandler well he’s the same in every film he is in. Except” punch drunk love” . I’m gonna give it 3 / 7
After the movie as we where walking down to the rocks from Wynyard. There was a large building and in its foyer was this man just sitting on an office chair all by himself. So I thought I’d take a photo because it amused me.

then pancakes on the rocks. A fine 24hr establishment.

Beautiful girl in a beautiful city.

I like big glass lifts.

and that was the day of fun.

better than 1 and 2

The fun began at 8pm when Sam came and picked me up. We drove to St leonards then trained it into town hall.
We joined the queue of Star Wars fans at about 9:15 and slowly our group grew over the next 3 hours as we progressed about 6 inches in the line.

Once inside the cinema, there was a competition for the best dressed and some star wars trivia.
The whole cinema turned nasty when the film was supposed to begin and instead in all greater unions wisdom they played 20 minutes of advertisements and trailers. There was booing and shouting. All quite entertaining.

The film itself. Well it was definitely much better than episode 1 and probably better than 2 as well. I’m so tired its hard to remember what even happened. Umm Yoda did some kick but fighting again. My main man R2D2 also kicked some but. He’s so cute.
The best thing about it was that jar jar binks only had about 2 seconds of screen time and in that 2 seconds he didn’t say anything.

I’m gonna give it 5 / 7 I might elaborate more when I have some brain cells.

Across the border and back

Well here we are!

Down town Coolangatta. Thats right tom and i are sitting in an internet cafe in coolangatta on the lovely Gold Coast of Australia.

What a way to spend a day off. We flew up here this morning, just saw Hitch Hickers guide to the Galaxay.

Which was a good entertaining film, I dont know how it compares to the book because i dont really read books. But it was fun. Marvin the depressed robot was my favourite. It wanst an amazing film but worth a watch i give it. 5/7

anyway we have to leave soon and head back to the gold coast Airport for our flight home.

I reccomend a quick trip interstate for a few hours, especially queensland becasue the coke is cheap the films are cheap and thats all you need really.

how did all this frivolity come about?

Well tom and i both had days off so last night we brainstormed what we could do together today and an interstate flight came up. So on the net we went finding cheap fares.
So cheap the train fare to the airport was more expensive thatn the flight to the Gold coast.

anyway so much fun and frivolity.

this is me on the train at 5 something this morning

tom on the train

and this is me at Coolengatta Airport at 8:45 this morning

me blogging right now

extra extra

Australian films can either be pretty good or just plain didge. And when comedians make films generally they arnt all that good. Take for example Jimeons last film “The Craig” it was absoutle bodgness. Bad Eggs, Crackerjack all films that where not terriffic.
Anyway THe Extra was pretty good, it was funny, jimieon didnt go over the top and made a pretty good film. Quite a few camios from burried aussie stars and also comedians. Shaun Mcallif was of course absolutely fantastic.
A film about a movie extra who wants to be noticed, some very funny lines and sketches, the story not all that fantastic bust still worth a watch.

i give it 4 / 7

tonight after church and after maccas.

Myself and jenny went to greater union and saw “The Interpreter”.

It was a good film, Nicole Kidman playing an interpreter at the UN headquarters
No love story really which was nice. There was explosions, drama, suspense. A good film all round. I think quite educational too, seeing inside the UN and how the big congress thing works. Also anything to do with Africa holds my interest quite well too.

I give it 5.5 / 7

hitch

I think everyone who i have talked to who saw this fim have said “its good but not amazing”
I followed suit. It had its moments that made me laugh and had me entertained but all in all it wasnt an amazingly brilliant film.
Will smith does well, although hes a pretty smooth actor in my view and just has a good screen pressence. Story quite predicatable the whole way through. But you know it was not hard to watch and a good film to just chill.
Probably the sort of film that is better watched in a full cinema, there where about 6 people in the cinema today.

I’m gonna give it 5/7

Miss-take

Tonight i went a watched “Miss Congeniality 2″ with a whole bunch of fun peoples.
To begin with at the candy bar i couldnt bring myself to ask for a ticket to this film. I have standards. Anyway jenny asked for me. So as you can see from the outset i didnt have high expectationns for the film.
It didnt prove me wrong it was absolute rubbish. It would have been more enjoyable to spend the time running through a field of dog poo with bare feet. It would have been more entertaining watching “Sleepless in Seatle” 45 times in a row.
It was that bad. I have to confess in a moment of weakness i did snicker 4 times during the course of the film.

I give it the big 1/7 and it only gets 1 because it was better than a tom hanks / meg ryan film.

I reccomend it to deaf and blind people

You’re invited

who wants to see a film with me tomorrow night (thursday night) i dont know what film and i dont know what time.

location. Greater Union Hornsby

Darlene sent me

Tonight myself and the Jenny went to see Hotel Rwanda.
We where sent two free tickets to the film at work by the one and only Darlene Zschech. So if Darlene is sending us then it must be a good film, and also didn’t want to let Darlene down and not make it. So off we went to the 9:20pm session at Castle Towers.

It was a very moving film, quite sad, intriguing, eye opening, educational and many more things too.
As the film began the opening shots took me back to my first few minutes in Africa when I was in the car from Entee Airport driving through the streets. It was a bit strange, I started picturing myself and reliving my trip to Uganda. But it didn’t last long as the story in the film began I became connected to the main Character Paul, following his every move. It was one of those films were it would not be a surprise if everyone in the cinema had a tear in their eye at some points. The struggles of the 2 tribes in Rwanda, the Rebels the fighting the cold blooded slaughtering. The film also showed the uncaring wester world, us snobby white men who did nothing except try and save all the white people.
The film follows a man named Paul who worked in a 4 Star Rwandan Hotel, his connections and networks with guests and his family. Paul was a courageous man who was extremely selfless and courageous. He goes against policy, he goes against normalcy and puts his own life on the line to save his people. Not just his tribe but his people being all Rwandans.

Its hard to rate films like this. But I’m going to give it 6/7

Thanks Darlene

I should get paid for this

On Tuesday night I saw the Aviator with Tom, David and Anmol. But I forgot to blog about it and give it the big rating out of 7.
It was on $5 Tuesday. Fantastic, the person in charge of the $5 Tuesday at greater union deserves a 600 ml coke buddy.
Anyway it was a good film, I’m not generally a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan but he was good in this. Actually he was good in that one where he was on an island too, cant remember the name of it you know the one, bah I cant remember.
Anyway the Aviator, I had no idea what the movie was about before I saw it, I figured it was about planes and some romance with lots of Leonardo taking his shirt off. But instead its about a crazy eccentric entrepreneur who finds himself with a massive inheritance and spends it on making the biggest film the work has seen and also in the process making the worlds fastest plane.
The film follows the highs and lows of his career in the Air Travel business in the early 1900’s. A very good film. Also very long I think it was about 3 hours long. All films are long these days if its less than 2 hours its like you are just watching a trailer. Bit of a shame that because long films used to be a bit of a specialty but now they are just annoying because dodgy b grade films go just as long as little rippers.
Anyway the film was good, I would say that the character of DiCaprio was really an olden days Richard branson or that Branson is a modern day Howard hughs (di Caprios character).

I give it 5/7

A little Ray of sunshine

I saw Ray tonight with the jenny.. It was a really good film. I felt like i was being quite educated musically and found it a really easy film to watch. I thought it was good that the film was made to be a bit of a tribute to Ray and came out not long after his death. But it wasnt all a “oh how good is ray” the film showed the real Ray, a man who Got caught up in drugs and really made some bad choices, but they showed that and showed his struggles. I thought it was really good. And what a soundtrack.
The biggest low point for me was a computer generated transition between scenes of a record with the album name apearing on the album. It was out of place and a bit unrelated to anything else. but if a transition between scenes is the main low point then it must have been quite a good film.
I give it the big 6/7

goodnight.

At least it was free

Today myself josh and jenny all went to see “Oceans twelve”.

Why did they make another one, Oceans eleven was a good film now they made this piece of junk which ruins the whole experience of the first film.

As soon as holograms or invisibility comes into a film, I’m gone its all over for me. Like in ‘Die another day’ with Bonds car being able to turn invisible. It just takes the whole unbelieveability just that extra step too far it turns from being fun and novel to being stupid.

I’m giving oceans twelve a massive 2 out of 7.

Luckily I used my free ticket to watch it so I t didn’t cost me a scent in money, just cost me in time and wasted brain cells.

on reflection…..

After a conversation this morning and a bit of my own reflection I deciding not to recomend people see “team america, worl police”.

I think the fact that it was naughty was part of my appeal for the film, but really it did go too far and was quite offensive and grotesque in parts. Sure i laughed at it and had a good time. But what was it that i was laughing at?

So what i’m saying now is that i saw the film.
If you go see it then you go see it but if you dont see it you wont need to fill any voids in your life becasue of a giant gap…

maybe i should go see “shall we dance”

team america

So I went and saw team america world police last night with jenny, josh and ian.

It has to be the most inappropriate politically incorrect film I have ever seen. It was over the top in its use of offensive language and sexual references. It was racist and stereotyping

But man it was funny.

On a scale of funniness I would give it 53 / 60

On a scale of inappropriateness I would give it 60 / 60

I think if you get offended by excessive course language and inappropriateness then I don’t think you should see this film.

But if you want to laugh a lot then go see it.

For overall rating I give it a 6 / 7

I ran into Scott and Beck in the foyer they where seeing shall we dance…
without seeing that film i give it 1 / 7

The Terminal

Well I went and saw “the terminal” with jem tonight.

I have to say a mighty fine film.

I would even stand up and make the call that its the best film i have seen so far this year…..yeah i know thats a big call.

Normally in Tom Hanks films he gets a bit tedious buy about the 30 minute mark. But not in this film, sure he may not be the worlds best actor but hes pretty good in this.

Tom plays a man who is trapped in New York airport after his passport is revoked due to a military coo in his home nation. He is not allowed to leave the airport until his country is recognized by the US.

You are pretty much always guaranteed a good film when Stephen Spielberg is the director.

Its funny and sly and quite initiatives in terms of storyline and concept. It looks good, there is no tricky shots its all made by the story and the relationship and closeness you feel to Tom Hanks’ character.

A downside to the film would probably be the insane amount of product placement.

But overall i give it a big 6 out of 7

100 and not out

tonight i went and saw “the terminal”

it is the 100th film i have seen since i started keeping my tickets. And my oldest ticket is from November 18 2000 when i saw “Billy Elliot”

so in just under 4 years that is 100 films.

I just looked at all my tickets and added colated all the individual ticket prices into a spreadsheet.

the total money spent on my movies in the last 4 years is $1,118.70

fortunatly there where 2 free films in there and i know friends have bought my tickects a few times.

but still not bad.