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This film star Kate Winslett and Ralph Fiennes gets off to a slow start, but then sucks you in as the plot thickens and it all starts to make more sense.
 The Reader Poster It is based in Berlin after the war and also in more recent times. A school boy has an affair one summer with a tram conductor, who turns out to later to be on trial for being an SS guard in Auschwitz. The boy reads the books he is studying to her (hence the film title).
The story then slowly takes you through the life of the boy up to date, and how his and her life are connected.
Greate story hence 4 stars.
 Beneath Hill 60 film poster The film is set in the first world war when a bunch of Australians miners are tasked with tunnelling under the Germans and planting tons of explosives. The miners play cat a mouse with the German tunnellers.
The film is a bit predictable in that 1st world war an and tunnelling films have been done before, but it is interesting in that I was not aware that there was such extensive tunnels dug during the war.
 Mr Nice film poster I’ve read the book so it will be interesting to see if the film is as good as the book which was OK but not memorable. It is the story of Howard Marks (played by Rhys Ifans) a notorious Welsh drugs smuggler.
The film uses an interesting technique, the film starts off in the 60/70′s and they use genuine footage with the actors overlaid to great effect. It does however give a film a sort of amateur feel to it but in a good way.
Rhys Ifans plays the role well and adds to the whole slightly tongue in cheek attitude to the film.
 Brooklyn's finest film poster Film about 3 policemen in New York’s 65th precinct. Each of them have complex situations. One is under cover, is a good cop who is afraid he is turning ferral, wants out, and his boss needs him working undercover. He is also indebted to a criminal who once saved his life.
The next is a family man with 4 kinds and wife pregnant with twins, who want to move to a bigger house, the one he is is run down, and he has trouble paying the mortgage. He feels under great pressure, and has stolen from criminals to get money to move.
Finally the one played by Richard Gere is a week away from retirement and just wants to serve his time.
The plot is complex and it all comes together in the final scenes.
 Exit via the gift shop This is Banksy’s first film, about a French man living in California who somehow gets involved in documenting street artists and their art.
It is filmed as a documentary with plenty of intervieww of the french man and Banksy. The french man essentially gets his camera turned back on him by Banksy.
This is a hard to explain film but well work wathcing.
 Black Swan film poster Film about a ballerina (Natalie Portman) who gets to play the part of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. Natalie Portman was the young girl in Jean Reno’s film Leon many years. The film tries to show the pressures, rivalry, politics and egos of the ballet world. Portman who lives with her mother who never beyond the corps de ballet, and treats her daughter like she was twelve, becomes more a more delusional and starts t imagine and dream some terrible thoughts about her rivals, but it all seems to be part of the preparation to play the part of the black swan.
Three stars not as good as I hoped it might be, and a bit confusing.
 District 9 Film poster Helen put this on our Love film list. It gets good reviews but I was a bit sceptical. Peter Jackson is involved with the film, and he comes with a reputation for doing great films, Lord of the Rings, and the most recent King Kong. None of the actors in it were known to me so, in fact the main actor had never acted before, I was not sure how it would be. It came about when a film based on Halo (video game) fell through and Peter Jackson offered Neill Blomkamp 30 million to do what ever he wanted.
The story involves aliens that have come to earth and are stuck here, their mother ship is parked over Johannesburg, and the aliens are kept in a camp that looks like the shanty town of the apartheid era. It is told in the style of a documentary, interviews of people, interspersed with the actual story. The MNU (an arms company) is contracted to move the aliens from district 9 to a new camp outside the city, and the main character is the man on the ground in charge of the operation.
During the operation he gets splashed with an alien liquid and then things take a turn for the worse and the whole thing goes crazy. It is a fantastic film with lots of very well done CGI, and I would recommend watching it, which I give a very rare 5 stars to.
 Monsters film poster Film made on a budget, about a future time when the US/Mexican border is a no go zone due to extra terrestrials, which have invaded earth after NASA tinkered with their planet which is in our solar system. There are only two main actors in the film and it was often improvised.
The story is basically the boy a reporter trying to get a scoop, is charged with getting the daughter of the owner of the newspaper he works for back to the US from Mexico passing through the “Infected Zone”. There is lots of CGI in the film but it is done really subtly it add to rather than being in your face.
A good film worth 4 stars.
 Departures film poster This is a Japanese film set mainly in a fairly rural region, Daigo a cellist loses his job when his orchestra is disbanded, so with his wife he returns to his home town to live in the house that his mother left him. He gets a job with a guy who prepares bodies to be placed in coffins. The preparation is a traditional Japanese ceremony, the job is seen by many as one that might bring shame on someone. During the course of the film Daigo speaks of his father who he has never forgiven for leaving him and his mother to fend for them selves. Slowly the main characters start to appreciate the work that he does and the valuable role he plays in the grieving process.
The film is well filmed in the almost always grey weather. It is nice to see the real Japan rather than the Tokyo that we always see in other films. I got the sense that there was definitely some Japanese humour in it that I may have missed, I suspect that it also touched on a subject that is perhaps Taboo in Japan. It deserves four stars for being different, interesting and for giving me an insight into Japanese life.
 Kings speech film poster Those of you who follow the blog will know that it very rare that a film would get 5 stars, well I think this one just about deserves 5. The film is based on the true story about the relationship between King George VI, and his speech therapist. The film covers the period before and up to the abdication of Edward.
The cast of the film goes some way to explaining why it is so good, Colin Firth, Colin Rush, Helena Bonham Carter star but also Timothy Spall, Guy Pearce, and Aidrian Scarborough. Match that with the fantastic sets and great shots of the people of the time, and you have a film worthy of 5 stars.
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