Recently Seen Movies Six - Plus Subtitle

1. FINDING NEMO Pixar Animation Studios maintain their reputation for high quality. With Pixar you know you're going to get both eye-popping animation and a story and characters worthy of it. FN isn't Pixar's best, but it's still better than almost any animated feature you could name. A beautiful and funny adventure. My favorite character is Bruce the shark (authentic Aussie accent provided by Barry Humphreys).

2. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN I've just returned home from the cinema having seen this. I saw it with the advantage of never having laid eyes on the 'graphic novel' on which it was based. So I was tickled by this teaming of famous fictional characters from the latter part of the nineteenth century. I must say though that Dr Jekyll's alter ego owes more to The Incredible Hulk than to Mr Hyde. Another, more serious, fault is that the fight scenes are so shakily photographed and frenetically edited as to be often unfollowable, making you feel more than usually cheated. Even so, I found myself liking the movie. Not a lot, but enough.

3. HULK I wanted this to be great, to be Eric Bana's big breakthrough, so I'm sad to say it isn't. The running time is too long - they've clearly tried to create the definitive epic version of the comic-book classic - and there is a gross imbalance between the first half's setup and the second half's action. Bana has little real acting to do - his character's big scenes are cgi. The action scenes are spectacular, but Hulk's battle with the attack helicopters is ludicrously unconvincing because the choppers (no pun intended) move in impossible ways. I was disappointed.

4. THE CORE This might just become a science fiction classic. It's surely the most credible and interesting movie ever made about travel in the interior of the planet. The script is reasonably intelligent, the acting is excellent, and the special effects are also of a high standard. It works well too as a disaster movie.

5. NED KELLY This is the true story of the leader of Australia's most famous criminal gang. Driven into outlawry by corrupt police, Kelly and his gang were so successful at demonstrating the incompetence of the police that they become a dangerously subversive political influence. Eventually a small army (under the command of a South African) was sent against them, and they were defeated in a legendary shootout in which they wore body armour made of iron. Kelly was captured and taken to Melbourne where he was hanged. His last words were, "Such is life".

6. DREAMCATCHER I found the novel this was based on unreadable, and I hated the movie. The monster is analogous (pun intended) to the famous 'chest-burster' in the Alien movies. Slow, gross, derivative, tedious...don't waste your time.

7. UNDERCOVER BROTHER Clearly inspired by the Austin Powers movies and almost as funny. The actor in the title role (Eddie Griffin) was new to me, and he does a great job. His scenes with Denise Richards are hilarious. However, Chris Kattan as Mr Feather steals the scenes he's in. Everyone I know who's seen this liked it. Worth seeing again soon. I might even get the dvd.

8. MASTER AND COMMANDER - THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD If you like lethal cat and mouse games at sea during the Napoleonic Wars, this movie is for you. But it's well enough done that most people would, I expect, enjoy it, given the right mood. For me, the right mood was fostered by the film-makers' excellent choice of music. Even the abrupt and obviously sequel-begging ending was made delightful by a piece (by Boccherini, I think) that wonderfully expresses both joy and sadness. This is far from being a great film, but as slightly-deeper-than-usual entertainment it's worth seeing.

9. GODS AND GENERALS Is this the most embarrassing movie ever made about the Civil War? The characters don't converse, they make speeches, they orate. There are no people in the movie, there are only historical figures; even the minor characters are historical figures, moving not through the world but through a historical landscape. Bad movie.

10. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT Have you seen the Simpsons episode (it was a Halloween Special episode) in which Homer, while trying to repair his electric toaster, accidentally invents a time machine? His visits to the past cause appalling changes when he returns to various alternative presents. This movie uses the same basic idea as Stephen King might have written it. After much horror, there is a happy ending...of sorts.

11. KILLING ME SOFTLY Dreadful chick flick plotted as a 'mystery' the punchline of which can be seen coming by a blind person's guide dog. The only saving grace is that it stars spectacularly beautiful Heather Graham whom you get to see naked a couple of times. Co-star got to play with her boobies - lucky bastard!

12. THE RING How is it that I can still be scared by movies like this? I mean, when you look back at it from a rational point of view it makes very little sense. Almost nothing is explained, and it blithely violates its own internal logic. Apparently ghosts are getting into technology now, I mean to help them with their malevolent and indiscriminate vengeance. Kudos to the film makers for their skill in pushing a lot of those psychological fright buttons one is reluctant to admit one has. This movie turned me into a newt!......I got better (p.d.q).

13. DOGVILLE Misanthropy, plain and simple? Abstract production design. Several 'name' actors. Very good performances. Thought provoking script. I liked it. (Excepting its immorality.) Many will not. See it anyway. What's your opinion?

14. I, ROBOT This is an fx movie. Spectacular but shallow. Dialog is pretty poor. Will Smith relies on his charm - it isn't enough. Don't buy the Asimov book expecting to find this story in it, it isn't there. Little remains of Asimov but the Three Laws of Robotics. Disappointing.

15. SECRET WINDOW It's getting to be a joke how many stories Stephen King writes in which the main character is a writer. Johnny Depp plays the writer in this one, John Turturro plays the spooky guy who accuses him of plagiarism. That's all I dare tell you about the plot. Well acted, well directed. Worth seeing.

16. PAYCHECK Yet another sci-fi movie based on a Philip K.Dick story. Very well paced, but would be much more respectable if the action scenes were less far over the top. Learn some restraint, John Woo. Ben Affleck displays his two facial expressions, and Uma Thurman looks haggard - as if making Kill Bill Vol.1 really took a lot out of her and she wasn't looking forward to doing Vol.2

17. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY This might have been an acceptable sequel if they had found an unpretentious director for it like they did for the first. Lots of nauseating hand-held camera scenes, frenetic editing, and incompetently staged and shot action scenes. The fight scenes are particularly poor (in the same way that those in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were poor). The story is okay, but not worth the incipient sea-sickness resulting from the increasingly palsied dancing ducking and weaving camera. If you enjoyed The Bourne Identity, prepare to be angered by this bad followup.

18. VAN HELSING Very much an fx movie, but I found it quite watchable on a cartoonish sort of level. I didn't realize, until the end credits, that it was made by the guy who made the Mummy movies, Stephen Sommers. He's improving. A movie this one resembles, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (both mix characters from different stories), is nowhere near as good. For me, the star of the show was Dracula.

19. MONSTER Probably the title is meant to be ironic, but I judge it to be quite accurate. We are no doubt meant to conclude that the main character, a female serial-killer, was not a monster, merely the helpless product of her unfortunate circumstances. But consider this: she murders for money, using the money to impress her weak-minded girlfriend. A love-starved prostitute, she buys love with money obtained by murdering her would-be customers (and even one man who merely accepts her as a hitch-hiker and offers her kindness). Of course, at the first touch of police heat, the girlfriend sells her out . The story is very well and convincingly told, but don't be convinced this monster was not a monster. After the initial case of self-defense, she knew that what she was doing was grossly wrong but did it anyway. Charlize Theron gives a remarkable performance, helped by some equally remarkable makeup. Christina Ricci is adequate as the monster's lover.

20. A LIKELY STORY Last night I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often do these days, and I was lucky enough to catch this movie on our local public (no ads) tv broadcaster. Right from the start and all the way through I was entranced and entertained. A comedy of great energy and amazingly lively and committed performances. But that isn't all; it also displays quite clever and imaginative direction. The plot is merely very good. This movie gives us access to a more innocent time: a happy and almost absolute denial of a darkening world, a denial lit in the brief afterglow of victory in the recent unpleasantness. Almost forgotten stars - Barbara Hale and Bill Williams. Director - Henry C.Potter, who also directed such better-known movies as Hellzapoppin (1941) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). I don't know what possible access the rest of you guys might have to A Likely Story, but you could do much worse than seek it out.