My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 4

Posted on January 26, 2015 by jaycluitt

The start of the year is now a distant memory, as life continues to move forward and I continue to not watch as many films as I’d like to. Who does? I’m not the only person to write this sort of weekly update, and I really feel like my watch history pales in comparison to pretty much everyone else. I genuinely don’t know how others find the time to run a blog, manage a podcast, have adequate relationships with actual real life people, work a full time job and still find the time to watch a load of movies too. I suppose it doesn’t help that I seem to be in a constant state of “doing up the house” which eats away at the weekend like nothing else. Ah well, at least I watched some stuff.
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My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 3

Posted on January 20, 2015 by jaycluitt

This was what could be described as the year’s first “normal week,” in that it was a full week at work, with the occasional busy evening here and there. We’re in a perpetual state of doing up the house, which always eats away at time, but fortunately it means I can’t afford to go out anywhere, which leaves lots of time to stay in and watch movies. Continue reading →

MAS*H

Posted on January 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

In Korea, 1951, the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital receives two new surgeons in the forms of Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Capatin Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt). They aren’t what you’d typically expect from army surgeons, preferring to put a large portion of their efforts into relaxing and goofing off instead of actually getting down to work, which doesn’t sit well with the current head surgeon, Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall). Burns, who also shares a tent with the new recruits, is a religious man who abstains from alcohol, so is essentially the polar opposite of the newcomers, so they set about having him removed from the hospital, and he is replaced by the much more fun-loving Captain Trapper McIntyre (Elliott Gould), with whom the guys have many adventures.
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Meet the Parents

Posted on January 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

Greg (Ben Stiller) is literally on his bended knee mid-proposal to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo) when she gets a call from her sister, who has just got engaged and is due to get married in the immediate future, as in a couple of weeks away. Pam casually remarks that her father puts a lot of stead in the tradition of the potential bride’s father being asked prior to the question being popped, so Greg pockets the ring and plans to ask said father when they visit Pam’s family home for her sister’s wedding. However, the visit does not go necessarily according to Greg’s plans, and it’s all exacerbated by the fact that Pam’s father Jack (Robert DeNiro) is not a retired rare flower expert as she has told Greg, but is a former psychological profiler for the CIA, who is very protective of his first born child.
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Out of Africa

Posted on January 16, 2015 by jaycluitt

Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep) is a wealthy, unmarried woman in Denmark in the 1910s. In her circle, an unmarried woman is deemed unseemly, so she marries her friend, Baron Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer), on the basis that she will become a baroness and he will share her wealth. The two move to Africa (I think it’s Kenya) with intentions of starting a dairy, but unbeknownst to Karen her new husband has changed all the plans to growing coffee instead. He proves to be an inadequate husband, always being away hunting whilst his wife is left home with nothing to do, as whenever she tries to help out with the work the local staff are confused at her presence. Enter Denys (Robert Redford), a big game hunter who at first becomes friends with Karen, along with another man, Michael Kitchen’s Berkeley, but soon, inevitably, starts a relationship with her too. 5704_4_1080p Continue reading →

Manhunter

Posted on January 15, 2015 by jaycluitt

Will Graham (William Petersen) is a profiler for the FBI who, after getting too close to his previous case, has taken a leave of absence, or possibly even retired, to recuperate and get his head back together with his wife (Kim Greist) and young son. However, his former boss Jack (Dennis Farina) has a case he can’t crack, and must pull Will out of retirement for one last job. A serial killer, dubbed the Tooth Fairy because of the bite marks he leaves behind, has so far massacred two families with several young children each, but he only strikes on the full moon. With the next one a few weeks away, time is running out for the FBI to find the guy, and with no leads to go on it is up to Will to get into the criminal mindset, and to do that he must meet with a former conquest of his, the incarcerated, highly intelligent but ruthlessly vicious mass murdered Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox).

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My 2015 Oscar Predictions

Posted on January 14, 2015 by jaycluitt

Shane over at Film Actually is once again hosting his Oscar Nominations contest, and this year I’ve managed to remember it’s happening before it’s already over, so I’m going to take part. I’ve got no hope of winning, I just want to pitch in and promote it a bit more, but I’m still going to throw in my ballot. My predictions all kind of fall apart towards the end (I haven’t even seen any of the potential nominees for Best Foreign Language Picture of Best Documentary) and in some cases I went with what I want to be nominated rather than what I think (see the Best Original Song category). Regardless, here’s my predictions for this year’s nominees: Continue reading →

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Posted on January 14, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

I used to watch South Park when I was a teenager. It was the kind of seemingly juvenile, vulgar and immature gross-out humour that my parents probably would have greatly disapproved of had they known I was watching it, or even what South Park was, as they presumably just assumed it was some kind of shoddy animated show for kids that I’d eventually grow out of, and to a certain respect I did. I haven’t seen the show in many years – I think I only ever saw the first season or two – and I’d never seen the film before, but it being set in Colorado was a perfect opportunity for me to catch up. Unfortunately, the humour just wasn’t what I remember it being. Continue reading →

My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 2

Posted on January 13, 2015 by jaycluitt

Like most of my fellow movie bloggers and podcasters, these past few weeks have been spent looking back at the past year and working out those films that I’ll hopefully still be remembering this time next year. Well, thankfully that time is now over, and we can get onto the future, or in my case even further into the past. Due to all the time spent looking back and writing my mammoth annual review of the year (links are below) as well as prepping for and editing the Lambcast’s flagship Best of the Year show, I’ve not actually written any reviews this week, but I have seen a few movies: Continue reading →

2014 Review of the Year Part 3 of 3

Posted on January 12, 2015 by jaycluitt

Here it is, the final part of my review of 2014 (that’s, for various reasons, taken me a little longer to write than anticipated, seeing as last year I posted a third of the whole list a day for three days straight). You can read part 1 of the list here, and part 2 of the list here. Or, you can skip them entirely because really, the only important part is here, with my Top 20 Films of 2014: Continue reading →