Hot Fuzz is the movie that everyone should go to see if they like good entertainment, comedy and action movies. It has all three, but only for those who are 14 and over. The film does feature some choice comedic use of swear words, including in writing :)! When one of the biggest cheers from the audience occurs when an old woman is hit, you should get the idea that this movie has some outrageous moments. Also, when an audience in a small theatre is cheering, you know the movie carries some clout. I should point out that there were probably 14, 41 and 61 year olds in the audience and they all seemed to have a good time. The pace reaches pure brilliance in the last 15 minutes of the movie, and isn’t too shabby starting up either. My only negative comment was that the ex-girlfriend story was redundant.

It’s clear these guys did watch many movies (as the trailer claims) to master the technique of grabbing the audience’s attention and then getting the laughs by bringing on the absurd or non-PC. It’s just a shame this movie didn’t have a bigger marketing budget.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost star with a collection of other great supporting actors in this fantastically entertaining British movie. And I’m not just saying that because I’m British – any bias is totally drowned out by actual quality entertainment.

Did I mention that while is has no nudity, sex or drugs (other than beer), it pulls off its achievements with comedy, action, violence, smut, beer, cranberry juice, profanity, buddy humour, murder, mystery, and a dark comedy twist?

Fracture brings together Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling in a battle of legal/life wits.

The best aspect about this movie is Anthony’s acting and character (Ted Crawford), the worst is that it was quite predictable – it was practically obvious from the start, how the gun thing was done.

The arrogant brilliance of Ted Crawford seemed worth rooting for, vs. the naive arrogance of Ryan’s Willy Beachum. Anthony does play this in a way that is distinct from Hannibal Lecture, but then he is a great actor who seems to effortlessly deliver the part.

Perhaps the lack of a soundtrack in parts made the movie about 15 minutes longer that he should have been. I don’t regret seeing it and I was entertained, but mostly just by the pleasure of watching great acting when Anthony was on screen.

Watch out for Fiona Shaw, more popularly seen as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter movies.

Like Hannibal Lecture in Silence of the Lambs, will Ted Crawford walk away scott-free from a homicide?

Disturbia stars Shia LaBeouf as a teenager under house arrest who begins to suspect that his neighbour may be a serial killer.

The only unpredictable element in this movie is discovering how the lead character ends up in trouble.

The movie was spoiled by two things, both of which had the audience laughing and pointing during story-building elements, though one of which was a local screening issue. Boom mics (of various flavours) kept bobbing into the shots (during the scenes in the lead’s bedroom). Fortunately this only occured during the first half of the movie. It is amazing that this made it into print. I can only assume that budget constraints and bad monitoring of the framing caused the issue. Also, the film was being scratched up and residue was collecting at the bottom of the frame, to the point where the movie was stopped at one by the management in an failed attempt to clean up the mess. The problem was that the build up looked like some kind of hair which got everyone tittering somewhat.

The movie was entertaining enough and the audience yelped at the right moments in the final scenes. However it was a total waste of talent from David Morse and Carrie-Anne Moss, and not much of a talent showcase for Shia.

There is certainly an element of self-indulgence in these two movies (Planet Terror and Death Proof that make up The Grindhouse double-feature bonanza) and I believe there’s enough old-style cheesiness in the trailers to make most teenagers stay away which is good because, frankly, they’d be disappointed. There was enough cheesiness for me to give it a try though.

In Planet Terror, you can look forward to many people in the audience whispering “That’s Bruce Willis,” and even better… “That’s the guy from Lost”. They are in fact referring to Naveen Andrews who plays Sayid; here he has his English accent on display and for some reason displays a penchant for a ridiculously inexplicable and bizarre trophey that I wont reveal…

Death Proof is for the most part utterly boring and even the eventual stunt-scene (which seems to go on for no apparent reason, although that’s probably deliberate) focuses on largely one stunt for a long time. The end is pure throw-back. Kurt Russell doesn’t seem to do all that much acting – but look for him at a bar stool in the second cafe scene.

Some people will probably say that some of the worst parts of the movies are genius, but if by that they acknowledge that the movies are slow, have no character development to speak of, are boring in most places and offer some awful close up camera angles and what amounts to a not very entertaining movie, they’d be right.

For self-indulgence: Quentin Tarantino gets a cameo in both movies and does in one scene what no man, even in the worst porno, has ever done probably; Robert Rodriguez (apart from probably having the more entertaing movie) of course does every job he can (including the music) except act in it (but has a surname namesake actor do that) or provide catering.

If you’ve ever been to a grind house movie from way back (and clearly these two guys have seen too many) you may enjoy this (and critics may love it for old-style cinema replication qualities) and it did admittedly have some laugh out loud cheesy moments. However, it was not entertaining enough, much of which could be equally attributed to the excessive length.