Reviews

As heartwarming as a film can be without trying too hard, Amelie is just a fantastic piece of cinematography. Every scene looks as if it has been lovingly hand-made, and the wonderful resonance each shot's colours have makes it very easy to watch. Tautou is excellent in the title role, and looks just perfect as the dreamy girl. There's nowhere in the film that deserves criticism, and it all runs very nicely. Brilliant.

It's so rare nowadays that a film combines great visual effectiveness with superb acting, so when two such films come along ('Moulin Rouge!' and 'Amelie') in the same month it really is a treat. Moulin Rouge! is so spectacular that it is just awe inspiring. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor's performances cap off a fabulous all round performance from the ensemble cast. The songs are just divine in the setting - particularly Roxanne and Like A Virgin - and the performances good. My only complaint is that the last reel drags a bit, as you wait for the impending finale.

For the first fifteen minutes Save The Last Dance looks like its going to be the same as all the other sentimentalist rubbish that goes around. In fact I almost dosed off. If it had remained as such I would have happily sent it to the bottom end of my list with Bicentennial Man and Days Of Thunder. Luckily for it, me, and the group of friends that had dragged me along, it did actually pick up. While not actually doing anything new, Save The Last Dance comes across quite well. The characters are relatively believable, while the two leads suit each other. The dance scenes are well choreographed. OK, so it is a bit slushy throughout, but Save The Last Dance is the kind of film you'd get out if you wanted a nice, untaxing chick-flick.

There simply isn't a better TV comedy around at the moment than Spaced. Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's scriptwriting is so sharp and full of references it can sometimes be hard to keep up through the onslaught of hilarious jokes. With such well rounded characters it is just too good for words, it is the recognition humour and references that make this a wonderful comedy.

'Beautiful Girls' is just my kind of movie. So little actually happens. The plot meanders around safe in the knowledge that the simple feeling of well-being that you get from relaxing and watching this film will be enough to keep you enthralled. Once again, Portman is fantastic and outshines a more experienced 'senior' cast. Given a choice of films to veg out to with a few beers on a cold winter's night, this would be it.

Given that this movie had done so well in America (I suppose that says it all), and that two (only two, note) of my friends had liked it I decided to go along and use the free ticket I had saved up loyalty points for. What a waste of a good ticket. The film is about 90 minutes too long, and is simply appalling. Given that I chuckled at 'American Pie' it can be assumed that I'm not a prude (I like the flute joke in said film), but there simply has to be some limits to which sick humour can go. Basically a direct remake of 'Scream' with bodily fluid jokes, 'Scary Movie' shows so little creativity it is astounding. Poor hammy acting, dire 'jokes' and nothing original in the whole movie, this has to go down as my worst film for 2000.

I first tuned into this movie a few years ago on it's UK terrestrial TV premiere, and just got sucked in. As part of BBC2's Moviedrome season I was expecting a good movie, but didn't expect to see what has become one of my all-time favourite movies. Léon is simply wonderful. Fantastic plot, brilliant acting (Portman in particular), great visual shots and decent script mixed in with an action movie that focuses on the relationship between two people of roughly the same mental age. There is very little I can fault this on. Gary Oldman as psychopathic Norman Stansfield is fantastic, Jean Reno just as good as the slightly simple hitman. Best bit: Stansfield talking Beethoven.

'High Noon' has been described as the best Western ever made, but I think that this does it a great injustice. You see, 'High Noon' is more than just a Western. It is a thrilling psychological movie, and succeeds as such as well as being damn good Western. The 'real time' feel of the movie - with constant glances at the clock - as well as the study of his 'real' friends just give this film an edge that is few and far between in other movies.

There is simply nothing I have seen film-wise that can match Citizen Kane. I have watched this film over and over again and still it just leaves me awe struck. While not as emotionally gripping as 'Dancer In The Dark' - and let's face it what could be - all of the elements required in the movie are just excellent. Every line is fantastically written, every shot wonderfully directed. Simply the best. Say no more.

Okay, okay. Now that the hype surrounding this movie has died down a bit, and people aren't saying it's the best movie ever (by this time it has dropped to no 4 in the list), we can look at it clearly. It's just as well that it is a bloody good movie then isn't it? So, there are obvious plot points on second viewing (isn't that true in any movie), and you have to slightly suspend belief (ditto to my previous parentheses). Does that really matter? The sole reason this movie scored so highly is because it DIDN'T aim at the lowest common denominator. At the risk of sounding pretentious, the kind of people who dislike this movie are the people that got 'Scary Movie', the worst kind of spoof (a bad one), to the top of the box office charts. Who do I mean? People who don't want to watch a movie too close to the knuckle, and think the best option for a movie's content is fart jokes. (By the way I voted South Park:bigger... as an 8* movie).

I saw this movie at a free preview screening and was just stunned. Truly awesome performances from all the cast lead to a fantastic movie. But the main, show stealing performance falls to a plastic bag. You'll see what I mean.

For a two hour movie, this went incredibly quickly, and I didn't even notice my butt going numb on the hard cinema seat. Some very atmospheric shots lead to a kind of 'trippy' feeling, but this only added to Nicolas Cage's masterful performance as the overworked ambulanceman.