Jennyred

Cool opening shot, one long sequence in time with a beat. The kid who played Baby has a real air of individual charisma and confidence for a relatively unknown actor and that really helps the film. The film is now slightly tainted by the Kevin Spacey association, as he is in this playing a now type cast aggressive creep.

The soundtrack is cool, which you'd expect from Edgar Wright. I remember an interview he once gave about Spaced where he said it was largely an excuse to get people to listen to the music he personally found cool. It's still weird that Edgar Wright is now a big Hollywood director after starting out on niche Channel 4 comedy. I once saw him at the theatre in London watching Dylan Moran's stand up show, and I find it weird that he is now A list Hollywood. I preferred it when he made cult comedies for British consumption.

.

Jennyred

Creepy and effective horror film which works really well as a metaphor for mental illness, or addiction, because (spoiler alert) the demon is not defeated or banished at the end, but can only be forever managed down in the basement by getting to know it and work with it.

Definitely up the more sophisticated end of horror films, and memorable for it.

Jennyred

This is my favourite of the Bourne films mainly because visually it's easier to watch than the Matt Damon films which went too far with the shaky cam and jump cuts. Those practically gave me motion sickness, it was like watching a strobe.

Also Jeremy Renner made a worthy alternative character to Bourne and the writers did a clever job of fitting this alternative world around the existing Bourne films.

There were some dull, if slick action sequences, like the motorbike chase in the Philippines, and of course not enough characterisation like most action films, but overall I enjoyed this and was disappointed there were no more Jeremy Renner sequels.

Jennyred

I do love this film for its existential life and death focus and its twist. Also Tim Robbins, who had such a streak of great films in the late 80s and 90s (not so much later, sadly.) but I find it too traumatic to rewatch this film on a regular basis, it's likely to give me nightmares.

It's a bit of interesting trivia that Macaulay Culkin was featured in the film's marketing at the time almost as much as Tim Robbins, because he was so famous off the back of Home Alone, despite being in Jacob's Ladder for just one scene at the end (which he filmed before Home Alone). That does date this film a bit.

Jennyred

This isn't my type of film as it's lacking in characterisation - I'm quite happy to watch action movies but I do demand character development, whereas this is just mechanical action sequences.

The worst bit is the fight at the end where Tom Cruise beats the villain via a punch up in the rain. It was such a cliche that I found it frankly embarrassing to watch.

Jennyred

There's an argument to be made that this is the best Harry Potter film - it is more pacy and grown up than the first two slower more child friendly Christopher Columbus films, and has a distinctive slightly gothic directorial style, but without the grey, dull colour palette and gloomy content of the later films in the series.

The character of Professor Lupin is pitched sympathetically and gets the most screen time here - sadly he doesn't get much more development at any point in the rest of the series.

I like the way they dress the 3 main kids too - keeping it to classic and simple styles with no branding and a look which won't date badly, like jeans and jumpers.

The plot does get a bit messy in the final third, but the time turner is still a fun plot device for creating a unique story. Obviously if they can give it to Hermione to get to more classes they could have used it to save some lives at other points in the series! But that aside, this is a fun instalment.

Jennyred