Best kids DVD movies 2009

1. Bolt
its hard to fault Pixar – I don’t think they are the masters of Computer Generated Animation and i don’t think they have made a duff movie yet. This is a winning combination of a cute canine hero, a plot involving getting lost (see finding nemo), some lovable character (Rhino the pet hamster in [...]

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Gone Baby Gone

It’s been a while since Ben Affleck has been in a good film.
Good Will Hunting – was a great way to make a debut
Changing Lanes – was an interesting piece
Sum of all Fears – was pretty poor
Pearl Harbour – was awful
Dare Devil- was worse than it should have been
But when he gets behind the camera [...]

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Best kids movies on DVD in 2008

Here’s my pick of the best kids movies on DVD in 2008. I am thinking of primary school aged children. There’s a similar list for 2007 and i have just made a 2009 list.
1. Wall-e
Irresistably good movie – even my two year old loves it – Wall-e was one of her first words! OK so [...]

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Cloverfield

Don’t read this if you don’t know anything about this movie. It’s best watched in ignorance.
Sometimes a film that is a great concept doesn’t really work in reality – Sliding Doors, 300, Sin City – visually arresting or philosophically clever but overall they don’t work. But I think Cloverfield does work – its a little [...]

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National Treasure 2 (can’t believe i rented this)

Ok so I am a glutton for punsihment. But I thought to myself how far wrong can you go when Harvey Kietel, Helen Mirren and John Voigt are in a movie? World class actors they wouldn’t sell their actings souls for a few extra dollars – they are bigger than that. Then I remembered the [...]

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – is a parable of mortality and the powerlessness of experience and unlimited resources. I am not talking about the plot line of the movie (that barely warrants comment) what i mean is that Harrison Ford who looks very good for his age – still seems [...]

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Battlestar Galactica – RAZOR

This is a must purchase for fans of Battlestar Gallactica. This feels more like a movie than an extended episode and introduces important plot details that both set up series 4 but also shed new light on what happened in series 3.
RAZOR refers to Admiral Cain’s philosophy of war. In times of crisis human beings [...]

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REM Live

Really enjoying the REM live CD and DVD I got for Christmas.
The production quality is very high – and you do get a lot of songs for your money.
Track List:
Disc 1:

I Took Your Name
So Fast, So Numb
Boy in the Well
Cuyahoga
Everybody Hurts
Electron Blue
Bad Day
The Ascent of Man
The Great Beyond
Leaving New York
Orange Crush
I Wanted to Be Wrong
Final [...]

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Best DVDs of the year (2007)

Here are my favourite DVDs of the year:

1. The Lives of Others -masterful, poetic, a German language film with a powerful plot line about love, despair, surveilance and omniscience. This was my favourite film of the year.
2. The Waitress – quirky, sweet but not saccharine take this film, add an evening off and a large [...]

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Judi Dench turns to the darkside – Notes on a Scandal

I was very impressed with Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal. The film based on Zoe Heller’s (2003) Man Booker Prize nominated novel stars Dench alongside Cate Blanchet (Babel, Lord of the Rings) and Bill Nighy (Love Actually). To see the transformation in Dame Judi was amazing – it’s hard to believe she is [...]

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The illusionist

So here is my second straight movie about 18th century theatrical illusionists. Timed to hit the cinemas at the same time as The Prestige this movie features another great cast. On paper this was a good cast: the normally excellent Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X) and the very competent Paul Giamatti (Sideways, [...]

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The Prestige

By some strange quirk the excellent AMAZON DVD service has sent me both “The Prestige” and “The Illusionist” in the same week. It does seem strange that movie producers bring out essentially the same films out at the same time. Do you remember when it was “Deep Impact” and “Armagedon” in the same Summer. Or [...]

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Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland is a powerful movie based around the life of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. It uses the plot device of a fictional young Scottish doctor (played by James Macavoy) who goes to Africa escape an overbearing father, “to have some fun and to make a difference.” Through a series of [...]

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Sunshine

I was looking forward to watching this Danny Boyle directed movie for a while. It had some really good reviews. But the more i watched the more this film felt like we’d been here before.
1. Alien – the long boring journey through space with nothing much to do and lots of infighting – ominous [...]

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Bourne Ultimatum

Jason Bourne has been on a long search to find his identity. Found as a floating amnesiac. Bourne has been discovering that he was programmed to be a killing machine by a black ops department in the US government. In the first film Bourne discovers who he is and tracks his handlers down and takes [...]

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

(see the harry potter and the halfblood prince).
This is part 5 of the Harry Potter series. I must confess I have never read a whole Harry Potter book and so my review is based around the film as a film rather than as a literary conversion. I really enjoyed the movie – the centre piece [...]

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Bridge to Terebithia

I was expecting a predominantly fantasy based film along the lines of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Especially as it was made by Walden Media. What you get instead is a very intense drama about two children who don’t really fit in at school – so they construct a fantasy sanctuary in [...]

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Next

This film had such a good cast. Peter Falk, Julianne Moore and Nicholas Cage. It is based on a short story by Philip K Dick – the brains behind some of the all time great Science Fiction movies:Blade Runner, Total Recall. But this film is pretty useless. It reminded me of the old joke:
Patient: [...]

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The Waitress

This is the last film to be made by the director/ actress Adrienne Shelly who was tragically murdered in November 2006. It is a sweet movie.  It reminded me of the excellent “Amelie.” The film is based around the life of Jenna (Keri Russell) who works in a Diner in a run down Southern town in the [...]

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Review of Children’s movies

Ok so a combined effect of a rainy August, 25p DVDs at Blockbuster have meant our family has watched a lot of children’s movies this Summer. Here’s some of our views on children’s DVDs. See also my 2008 recommendations. You can see some of the recommendations on my amazon store too:

1. Zathura – total rehash [...]

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