True Grit
The Coen’s never fail to write great characters (I know they didn’t create these characters but they’ve reinvented them in their own style). Their use of language and accents has always been one of their great strengths, their characters always fit perfectly into the landscapes and surroundings of the film. True Grit is no exception. There’s also plenty of the Coen’s trademark humour, all the performances are strong (special mentions to Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld who is absolutely outstanding in the lead role, see the video below) and it is beautifully shot by Roger Deakins. The only issue I had was struggling to understand Jeff bridges, genuinely could have done with subtitles at times.
“I’m a Texas Ranger”
Troll 2
A catastrophic failure. As a serious horror film, which is what it was meant to be, it is unbelievably terrible. As an accidental comedy, a spoof even, it’s quite funny. Unfortunately for director Drake Floyd, the hard truth is that when you’re finished film ends up working better as a spoof of what it was actually meant to be, you know something’s gone badly wrong. If you watch it for a laugh as I did, it’s pretty entertaining. There’s more than a hint of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace about the acting, script and special effects. Strangely there is absolutely no mention of trolls during the film, it’s all goblin this and goblin that.
“Nilbog! It’s goblin spelled backwards! This is their kingdom!”
Wow, someone’s seen The Shining then.
Thor
Thor is comparable to most of the Marvel films i’ve seen in that it’s purely a money-making exercise with little to no substance that thinks it’s a lot funnier than it actually is. It’s a shame because there was potential for some good comedy with Thor arriving on Earth, I suppose in a similar sort of way to Crocodile Dundee arriving in Manhattan. There are a couple of passable action sequences and the acting is solid enough, but it’s VERY predictable.
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Pretty amusing at times and George Clooney is very good as Lyn Cassidy who claims to be a former member of the New Earth Army, a special branch of the US army that specialised in using paranormal and psychic powers on missions. I like Ewan Macgregor, but I don’t think he’s particularly good at accents, it was a little distracting. The best moments are when it is poking fun at the paranormal believers, and satirising the army and Cold War.
“So they started doing psy-research because they thought we were doing psy-research, when in fact we weren’t doing psy-research?”
“Yes sir. But now that they are doing psy-research, we’re gonna have to do psy-research, sir. We can’t afford to have the Russian’s leading the field in the paranormal.”
FILMDRIVEL 
True Grit is great, but I like Thor a lot more than you… I thought the story was not predictable at all, I was holding my breath for the last half and hour or so of the film! 😀
Great looking blog you have here! Welcome to the LAMB!
Thank you!
So here’s the connundrum that I’ve got FD… see if you can help.
Troll 2. Epic fail, right? Except its so damn funny that I love watching it. Doesnt THAT make it good? With these so bad theyre good movies, do they really become GOOD?
Cause I would recommend that flick to people. I would sell it hard, I’d be like, watch this, you’ll laugh your ass off!
I know i did think about that for a little while myself, it’s a good question. I enjoyed it more than Thor and The Men Who Stare At Goats, but it’s a much, much worse film.
Again, by all OBJECTIVE standards, absolutely. In fact there are few – if any – films it’s NOT worse that objectively.
But SUBJECTIVELY? A different ballgame altogether
“Ain’t no %#$@ing ballpark, neither!”
I second what Bonjous said, welcome to LAMB and great blog! Nice writing as well, I loved True Grit but agree with you on Thor. Compared to most comic book films it could be considered above average, but overall meh. Too bad Roger Ebert had to go off writing a ridiculously biased review. Ah well, you have a new follower! I hope you have the time to check out my blog as well.
Thanks Matt i’ll definitely take a look at your blog. Yeah just read Ebert’s review, he did lay into it pretty heavily! I loved his review of the new footloose film, pretty funny.
Troll 2 is freakin’ hilarious. You oughta check out Best Worst Movie, a fantastic documentary about the film and its cult following. It was directed by Michael Stephenson, who played the little boy in Troll 2.
Also, one slight correction: the director of Troll 2 is Claudio Fragasso, an Italian who could barely speak English on set. The language barrier is part of the reason the movie is so bad. 🙂
Ah ok, so Drake Floyd is a pseudonym then, i’m not surprised this Claudio character wanted to hide his real identity. I will DEFINITELY try and track down a copy of that documentary, thanks for the tip
Highly agree with what you said about Thor. I didn’t think that a movie about a ass-kicking God could be boring…
And thanks for the comment on my page. I’m now following you!