Bottle Shock

A light hearted comedy about the early days of Californian wine making, based on true events.

It evolves around an event that is now referred to as "Judgement of Paris". Apparently, the story of Steve Spurrier's travels to Napa Valley to bring American wines to France for a tasting (competing against French wines, of course) is only a very loose interpretation of what actually happened. This according to Mr. Spurrier himself.

Whatever the case, the film itself - true or not - is charming and has a pretty interesting cast. Spurrier is played by the always wonderful Alan Rickman. Besides him it features Bill Pullman, Chris Pine, Freddy Rodriguez and a very brief appearance by Bradley Whitford (brownie points!).

Chris Pine looks pretty awful as a young surfer dude (but, unsurprisingly, gets the girl). Other than that, the stellar cast makes this worth a watch - possibly more so than the story itself, which is more or less reduced to classic US patriotism.

We showed them French people!

4/10

The Cabin in the Woods

I love horror films. I very much like Richard Jenkins. I adore Bradley Whitford. I like the idea of a company pulling the strings behind the scenes to release different nightmarish scenarios on a group of unsuspecting young people. I love the poster.

The problem? I don't like this film.

Despite all the above mentioned ingredients it doesn't quite come together for me. The actual cabin-in-the-woods part of it is all very bland and I never cared for any of the people there. Not a one. I didn't care whether they lived or died and nothing that befell them was particularly scary to me.

The background part (the part with Jenkins and Whitford) was more interesting. The out-of-placeness of it was different and it is in the company environment that the film actually showed some humor. The deaths of pretty much everyone involved there was harder to take than that of any of the pretty young people.

Oh Josh Lyman Hadley! At least you went with a cocky remark on your lips. Good for you! *wipes-away-tear*

The fun part? All monsters imaginable getting unleashed and going into mayhem mode. Blood and gore and a murderous unicorn. But then there was the stupid, unimaginative, uninteresting, useless ending/explanation. The fucking Ancient Ones'?

Seriously?

3/10