In the Company of Men

Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are assigned to a different location within their company for six weeks. Chad is a classic asshole (at one point he has a male intern drop his pants to see if he has the 'balls' for this job) and Howard wants to pretend to be a douchebag of similar size so they agree to wine and dine a girl simultaneously and then breaking up with her at the same time - all within those six weeks.

The girl Chad (of course it's Chad) picks is Christine (Stacy Edwards), who is deaf (added bonus!). They take her out and send her flowers. Howard is not as good at this as Chad and actually falls in love. Christine falls for the charm of Chad.

When Chad and Christine go to lunch in week four, with him being all sweet and charming (you want to punch him in the face for playing that lovely girl like that) they run into Howard and Christine realizes for the first time that the two know each other.

When Howard confesses his love, Christine tearfully breaks up with him and apologizes for not having been honest from the start. This prompts Howard to spill the beans of what they were doing, which leads to a fight ("You, you are fucking handicapped! You think you can chose?"). A few days later, Christine confronts Chad, who goes back to asshole mode, saying that he wanted to let her down easy, but "fuck it".

In the last chapter of the film, we realize just how big an asshole Chad actually is.

from Roger Ebert's review:
We find a level beneath the other levels. The game was more Machiavellian than we imagined. We thought we were witnessing evil, but now we look on its true face.

8/10

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)

One of the earliest films in the classical sense and it is...science fiction. How about that?

It runs for only 14 minutes and it took people to the moon long before we were even close to considering space travel.

It is humorous, introduces us to weird characters and gave the world the often used, iconic image of the (man in the) moon with a looking glass, checking out what those weird little people on earth are up to.

An absolute must-see.

10/10

For Your Eyes Only

With For Your Eyes Only James Bond returns to earthly grounds - no outerspace or underwater adventures.

But first and before the credits we have to say some goodbyes. First, Bond visits the grave of his late wife and then disposes of his old foe Blofeld (for copyright reasons).

What follows is some old-school secret agent adventures. Almost immediately we start into a fist fight followed by a car chase (perusing the rather slow but cultish 2CV), but not 007 is behind the wheel but the latest Bond girl Melina, dead set on avenging her parents' deaths. So while looking for the culprits, Bond also has to keep Melina safe and keep her from killing people.

And where does a secret agent go the chase bad guys when beaches and exotic lands are not an option. Why, of course, the alps. There he meets Bibi, an infantile ice skating protegé, who offers herself up to him but gets turned down. By the notorious womanizer James Bond. Together Bibi and Bond go and watch the biathlon, primarily the east German champion Erich Kriegler, who of course is in cahoots with the bad guys...and he is armed and on skis. Cue ski chase (not a new theme in the series).

Also after Bond - a young Charles Dance as Claus. While he is after Bond they both jump of a ski jumping ramp. Obviously. Then Bond is off on his skis again, chased on skis and motor bikes. Later he gets attacked in the ice rink by guys in hockey gear. Lucky for him, his pursuit of the bad guys then leads him to warmer areas, namely Corfu (and later Albania).

Oh, the point of all this is to retrieve the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) before it falls into the hands of the Soviets, as the transmitter can order attacks by the Royal Navy's fleet of Polaris submarines' missiles. In the end, Bond makes sure nobody gets his/her hands on it by simply destroying it.

It ends with Bond in Melina's arms. Of course.

5/10

The Last Waltz

Listen up, kids!

This is what a concert should be.

No over-hyped auto-tuned 'singer'.
No crazy stage shows with colorful lights and vidiwalls.
No dance brigades and a gazillion costume changes.
Forget the Rhiannas and Beyoncés and Biebers and even the Madonnas.

Here is Martin Scorsese's version of The Band's last series of live concerts. Spiced up with interviews about their history and stories from various tours. It was a one-of-a-kind event thanks to the incredible list of guest performers that reads like a who is who of 1960's and 1970's music - The Staple Singers, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, even Bob Dylan and many more.

Not only is this the greatest concert film ever (not only in my opinion) but I will go as far as stating that this is Martin Scorsese's best film to date. There, I said it.

If there is one thing I envy my parents' generation it is the music. They really had something special in the time before pop took over and style became more important than the craft itself.

This is music.

10/10

The Take

Felix (John Leguizamo) gets kidnapped while driving his money truck and is forced to make the rest of his pick ups for the night before he gets shot in the head and left to die. Only, he doesn't die. Also, this is just the beginning of the film.

What it is actually about is the aftermath. How Felix deals with his dire situation, not knowing who to trust and only remembering bits of what happened. His family have to suffer through is mood swings and paranoia.

He feels like the police are not on his side and makes a few bad decision that incriminate him. The only cop appearing to be on his side is Agent Perelli (Bobby Cannavale), who tries to help as best he can while Felix undermines the law officials' work. He decides to take matters into his own hands and hunts down the guy who shot him in the head.

The shaky camera makes this slightly irritating to watch. Great performances by Leguizamo, Cannavale and Rosie Perez (as Felix's wife).

6/10

Men in Black 3

Will Smith saves the world. Like he does.

Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum security prison on the moon where he spent the last 40 years courtesy of young Agent K. After he escapes he gets a time travel device to go back to 1969 to do away with K before he shoots off one of his arms and locks him up.

After he kills K in the past, Agent J feels uncomfortable and appears to be the only one in the agency to know K ever existed - apart from Agent O who knew him back in the day and realizes what has happened. J goes off to the past to restore order and save K's life.

This is the story.

Unfortunately, there is not much of Tommy Lee Jones in this one, you know, having been eradicated and all. His younger self is played by Josh Brolin (not a bad choice). The big bad guy is played by a barely recognizable Jemaine Clement and the modern day Agent O is Emma Thompson.

Not a bad cast and a somewhat entertaining film, although the MiB films do lose some of of their initial shine and humor.

6/10

I Give It a Year

Nat (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Rafe Spall) get married after a 7-month romance and a short time later realize that they are not really made for each other. Determined to make it through their first year (at least), they work on their marriage with the help of what is possible the most ill-equipped marriage counselor ever.

Anyway, Josh is really still into his former girlfriend Chloe (an unfortunate looking Anna Farris) and Nat falls for Guy (Simon Baker), who she flirts with, mostly to get his account for her company. (If you know Simon Baker's Patrick Jane, he appears weirdly under dressed in just regular suits...I'm used to seeing him in three-piece ones.)

It doesn't help that Nat and Josh are surrounded by less-than-helpful friends and family, like Nat's sister Naomi (Minnie Driver), who is predicting that they will never last and is constantly annoyed by her own husband, or Josh's best friend Danny (Stephen Merchant), who is one of those people that says the most improper thing at the worst possible moment.

Through all this amusingly weird things are happening in the background and slightly out of frame.

Love, Actually... this is not, but still amusing.

5/10