It’s been a busy month for cinema this month, but sadly not a great one, with a lot of mediocrity in there. Anyway…

Waz (actualy W Delta Z) is a fairly terrible film. Two stereotyped detectives (the hard-ass and the rookie) investigate a series of brutal murders that tie inexplicably into an old case. It could’ve been watchable, but what little original material that’s on show is badly fumbled. Instead we get a noir thriller with no snappy dialogue, poor acting, and cliche. By the time you find out why the killer is doing these things the will to care will be long gone. Avoid.

Will Ferrell films that are penned by someone outside of his immediate peers all suffer from the same problem: they’re fun, with some great moments, and generally work as decent comedies, but they pale in comparison to the genuine article. Semi-Pro is no exception. The poker scene, some of Jackie Moon’s show boating, and the fights are brilliantly pitched; the Woody Harrelson love interest sub-plot less so. It’s worth seeing if you’re after a light comedy that won’t necessarily make it as a classic.

While any film featuring both Scarlett Johanssen and Natalie Portman in corsets really doesn’t need anything else, The Other Boleyn Girl disappoints by not really delivering much. The performances are certainly good enough, but the handling of the characters was weak: pitching Anne Boleyn as manipulative and vengeful until the final scenes, and then trying to draw sympathy. Henry VIII’s life and his role in the the reformation becomes trivialised in the pursuit of simplistic cinema, and none of the central characters are interesting enough to garner either respect or pity. Plodding, and somewhat dull.

I’m something of a zombie film fan, so when the master of the genre releases another installment of his landmark series, I pay attention. Sadly, Diary of the Dead is a horrible mistake. It tries, in Romero’s usual style, to show the influence of continued media coverage and always being connected. In small parts, it works and it may have continued to work if it wasn’t dealt with in such a ham-fisted fashion. Instead we have a bunch of whiny twenty-somethings who are very aware of the terrible dialogue they’re saying. The direction, the acting, the message: they all lack the subtlety of earlier films, and the whole film suffers for it.

Saw defined its own little niche in the horror genre that several films recently have tried to dig into; Untraceable is one such effort. It’s terrible and over the top, but just about claws itself into the category of “bad enough to be entertaining”. You won’t care about the victims of the elaborate death machines, you won’t care about the protagonist, and, if you’re technically inclined, you’ll wince at the “hacking” references, but if you can completely switch off and laugh at how bad the film is, you’ll have some breezy entertainment.

After some fairly disappointing animated films lately, it’s a pleasure to watch Horton Hears a Who.Where Bee Movie failed, it manages to balance the light moralising we expect with a fairly entertaining story. The cast are excellent throughout, with both Carey and Carrell performing well, with some excellent gags propping up the film. Of particular note is an animé sequence which had me nearly in tears. Ok, it’s a kid’s film, but it’s also very entertaining. Go see.

In stark contrast to the lightness of the last film is the fairly dark Children of Glory: a Hungarian film about the undefeated water polo team at the time of the Hungarian uprising against Russia. It is at times brilliant, capturing the atmosphere of the time in an effortless manner. At other points, it leaves a lot to be desired, obviously put together on a low budget (not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself if the result works), and focussing too much on the polo at the end. While the team were very important to the Hungarian people, it doesn’t translate well, sapping the last half hour of any real drama. A shame, as there are some very promising moments throughout.

Lars and the Real Girl is a quiet film about a man who, after losing a lot in his life, becomes convinced a rubber doll he buys from the internet is a real person. His town are told that the best way to help is to buy into it and allow him to work it through. If from the synopsis you’re thinking comedy mishaps ensue, you’re largely wrong. While it does have comedy elements, it’s a lot more about the drama and tension around this man and his family. There’s too much dead space here, though, with the typical twee-indie film pace making the lack of weighty plot shine through. An utterly serious film along these lines would’ve faired better, but what we get is a merely ok tale.

Much has been made of the Guillermo Del Toro presented psychological horror film, The Orphanage. Sadly, everything about it is lacking the originality and freshness the genre so badly needs. Take any Japanese horror film (think The Ring, The Eye, The Grudge etc), set it in Spain, and slow the pace some, and you’ll end up with The Orphanage. Again, the pacing is far off where it should be (the medium scenes being particularly dull), and it fails to take advantage of the one great idea it has by recanting it for a more feel-good ending. Rent something scarier, like Poltergeist, before coming to this weak entry.

Finally, The Spiderwick Chronicles follows a bunch of fairly annoying and badly acted children as they embark on a fantastical adventure of monsters and magic. Yes, it’s that trite. Yes, it’s entirely forgettable. No, there’s nothing to redeem it (though the bird-munching Hogsqueal tries). Hopefully this will be forgotten and be buried before sequel talk starts, but I doubt that’ll happen. Not worth seeing.

And the winner? Well, there’s nothing that particularly grabs me this month. Of the 10 films viewed, most were mediocre at best. I think Semi-pro wins by default. While it’s no masterpiece, there’s enough good material here to warrant a repeat viewing at some point and I can’t honestly say that about any of the other films here.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Gary, we love Solitude,  read your twitter, go to all your del.icio.us links, and listen to everything you do on last.fm but is there any way we can follow you just a little bit more/easier?”.

Well, gentle readers, inspired by Joe Gregorio’s Me Page, I’ve set up my own readr account.

By subscribing to/reading, my readr page you can now stalk me in one single space, with my Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Jyte, Good Reads and more all appearing. Heck, it even aggregates all my online games of Halo 3. It even has the bonus that if I start producing content somewhere new, I can easily add it to my readr account and you automatically start seeing it. Enjoy!

(P.S. Of course I don’t believe anyone actually needs/wants this, but I am interested in this kind of aggregation for my own purposes. I think when the social graph becomes truly open, this kind of content-mulching will be very interesting.)

29 days, 7 films: it’s the February 2008 Film Fight.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is an interesting character piece. It follows two brothers who botch a fairly terrible crime, and the effect this has on their lives and everyone else involved, the perspective cutting and changing constantly. Through a fairly odd progression of action, back to motivation and then consequence, we’re made to dislike, sympathise with and then despise the characters; the changes in time toying with our perception. This has the unfortunate side-effect of making quite an interesting film, with some great acting from Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman, far too long. Some of the strands are extraneous, and with a little more editing a great film could’ve become a classic.

The months of mystery around Cloverfield came to an end in February, with the monster film finally crashing down. It totally reinvents and sets a new high bar for both monster movies and action mysteries. From the fairly slow set-up, through the initial panic and confusion, into the determined end game, Cloverfield proves itself to be confident and perfectly shot. The single handy-cam filming technique forces you to sit and watch, helplessly, through dozens of near misses, hopelessly glued to the action. Although at times uncomfortable, you cannot look away. A well-written, well-executed script. Solid all-round.

Surprise indie-hit Juno, by now, is no longer that much of a surprise. The story is that of a teenage girl who gets pregnant, and gives the child up for adoption. It’s a relatively sweet and somewhat twee story, focussed on the titular character: a smart-mouthed but likeable teen who guides us through her strange little world. It’s a romantic comedy, without being saccharine or schmaltzy, with enough intelligent laughs to keep away from teen comedy hell. Definitely worth seeing.

Although the concept shows a lot of promise, Jumper fails to deliver. From the initial dead-of-life narration into the clumsy back story, you know that Hayden Christensen will, once again, fail to act; why he still gets offered roles is beyond me. It’s not all his fault, of course, as the film heads into dumb special-effects territory pretty quickly, and backs itself up with terrible dialogue (“Like a Marvel comics team up?”) and a horrendously tacked-on love interest. A real shame because, with better writers and lead actor, the idea of the war could’ve been a lot of fun.

It would take more space than I tend to devote to any given film here to truly do justice to There Will be Blood, the story of an uncomprising, self-made, turn-of-the-century oil man. The opening sequences are perfect, with not a word uttered for minutes as we’re shown the quality of Daniel Plainview’s character, rather than being clumsily talked through it. The cinematography and story are great throughout, showing his empire building and growing madness in solid progressions. Of course, the finest aspect of the movie is Daniel Day Lewis’ Oscar winning performance as the lead. Every line and look is rife with a calibre of acting you simply will not find elsewhere, a brilliant portrayal of a complex man. Fantastic.

Finally, Michel Gondry’s latest, Be Kind Rewind, slightly disappoints. Through some fairly silly circumstances, a video store clerk and his friend find themselves making cheap remakes of classic films. While these “sweded” films are very funny and show Gondry’s imaginative cinematography, the rest of the film is simply a place-holder. The character progression all but falls flat. A shame that Gondry couldn’t find a better container for the excellent sweded remakes.

UPDATE: Seems I missed out Rambo. Someone obviously misses the classic eighties action films, when the screens were awash with Van Damme, Schwarzenegger and, pertinently, Stallone. The plot here is minimal, and the exposition is perfunctory: the bad guys are very bad, some good guys try to do some good things, and the tough guys need to go save the good guys from the bad guys. Carnage ensues. I do mean that. This is one of the bloodiest films I’ve ever seen, the body count hits high numbers, and the whole thing brings back the type of action film we just don’t see any more. It won’t win any awards, but it is some good silly fun.

The obvious winner this month is There Will be Blood. The incredible lead performance makes this an early tip for film of the year.

As alluded to in my previous post, I recently bought an iPod Touch. It’s a 16Gb model, that I bought 2 weeks before the 32Gb models were announced (damn!). I didn’t buy it as a replacement media player, as my Archos 504 is still in service (though its utility is shrinking every day). No, given that I travel a fair amount, I decided to get a portable device that would let me browse the web. It came down to either the touch or the Asus EEE PC.

While I have no doubt that the EEE is an excellent and hackable little toy, the size, interface and battery life of the touch are much better proposition for such a limited set of requirements.

The Touch version of Safari is excellent. Being able to double tap to zoom into a particular containing block and use the two-finger crunch and expand for more fine-grained is ridiculously intuitive, and feels absolutely right. Being able to flick photos up and down, with a sea of thumbnails when viewing en masse, is perfect. Being able to browse through albums in cover flow with your hands is just how it should be (the mouse version on PC/MAC is pretty flimsy feeling). That’s the genius of the Touch design: the tactile interface makes much more sense than any other computing device. We will be seeing this much more in the future, directly interacting with the virtual objects we see.

I would also recommend to anyone who buys a touch that they Jailbreak it (i.e. do a series of very easy steps so that you can install your own software on the device). I’ve added an eBook reader, a mobile scrobbler for my last fm account, a few games, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s easy and pretty safe, and really enhances the device.

Bad points on the touch? It’ll smudge itself up a treat if you so much as look at it, so you will require a case (I went for a thin rubber backing and the original plastic screen membrane). The USB charger is a bit slow, so a powerline charger is probably a good idea.

More annoying than that though is that it stores files in a bizarre structure, rather than just acting like a disk with a software layer on top (like every other player on the market I know about). This is presumably to control uploading onto other computers, and possibly to make indexing easier, but it’s a royal pain in the arse I could do without.

All in all, well worth a purchase, particularly for the web browsing on the move.

I’m a little curious about something, so this is a post for those who’ve visited Glasgow or have travelled to the airport in the last few months; if you don’t fit, bear with me.

As part of my job, I travel to London a reasonable amount. This means that I generally get the Glasgow Flyer bus service (recently taken over and upgraded by Arriva) from Glasgow city centre direct to the airport, and vice versa. As part of the increase in ticket prices and better service etc., they announced free wi-fi (which I believe is provided by Moovera Networks).

I’ve tried this both from my N95 and iPod Touch (which I’ll talk about at some point in the near future), and I get the same result on every trip: I can connect to the router just fine (i.e. the devices can talk to the buses equipment), but if I try to request ANYTHING from the internet it just does not work. It looks to me like the outgoing connection to the internet just doesn’t work. I’ve tried numerous different sites that don’t go down (Google, IMDB etc) and I’ve never made a successful request.

Has anyone else had this working? If so, what were you doing? Am I missing something really basic here? I’d be interested in finding out.

UPDATE: Moovera have replied in the comments, seems to be a known and now-fixed issue. Excellent.