I reckon that this movie is a great example of how you expectation of a film can have a big effect how much you enjoy it.

I wasn’t expecting too much of it, I watched it at the end of the night with a glass of wine or two as a simple DVD movie to relax with and ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

My wife on the other hand went to the Cinema to see it and was expecting it to be very funny, although I’m not sure why, the trailers weren’t that good, and she ended up being dissapointed with it.

I think this is often why people are dissapointed with sequels to their favorite movies, they go with high expectations and that makes it very difficult for the movie to be as good as the original.

Being in the middle of a bit of a “life style” change (divorce and moving, again) I’ve not had chance to make it to the Big Screen much over the last couple of months and have got a little bit out of touch with what’s on, so when a friend of mine called to say “we gotta go see Cloverfield” I had no idea what the movie was about or why he was keen.

He sold it to me as “The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla” which turned out to be a pretty accurate description, although I enjoyed it a LOT more than GodZilla.

The movie is almost split in to three seperate “acts”.

Black Snake Moan on DVD

I could say more about this movie, as there are some pretty funny moments, although most of them were in the trailer..

but the main memory I have of the movie is simply that at the start Samuel Jackson doesn’t seem to be able to sing very well, at all, and then towards the end of the movie I was actually enjoying the blues band performance in the bar.

I think I’m going to have to watch it again to work out what happened..

Heath Ledger Died unexpectedly this week, on Tuesday (22nd Jan 2008) at the age of just 28.

Early news reports suggested that his death may have been the result of a drugs overdose, as his body was apparently discovered “surrounded” by pills. His housekeeper made the discovery when he failed to answer the door for a massage appointment in his New York appartment.

He may be most remembered for his performance in Brokeback Mountain, a role in which he was nominated for an Oscar.

but I’ll remember him more for an earlier film of his, A Knights Tale in 2001, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Watching this movie was a bit of an accident, it was just supposed to be something interesting to watch while I was playing Warcraft on my laptop in front of the TV.

The problem was that I hadn’t realised it was a french movie with the obligatory sub-titles, which of course meant I had to pay attention to keep track of what was being said.

It turned out to be a very good mistake, as this is one of the most enjoyable movies I’ve watched in quite a while.

The plot revolves around a doctor who’s wife is apparently kidnapped, and later murdered, whilst he is knocked unconcious having been knocked out by the “bad guys”.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this movie as I’d not seen any of the previews, but it sounded interesting and I usually like Will Smith’s films, so I took the chance and grabbed some popcorn for the journey.

Im not going to say I was dissapointed, as it was certainly an entertaining movie, but it kind of left me wanting/expecting more somehow, I just can’t work out why.

I guess because there’s so little character interaction, it could be because you don’t really build up that much of an “relationship” with Will Smith’s character.

Probably the only time I really felt for Will’s character was when he had to kill his “best friend”, although even that seemed a little hollow, possibly because you could see it coming so easily.

OK, so this wasn’t my first choice of movie to go watch with my kids, I was keen on seeing The Golden Compass, but the kids vetoed my choice.

The first 5 minutes had me worried that I was not going to enjoy the movie, as it was more than a little “tacky” in the old fashioned Disney cartoon fairy tale movie style, but it quite quickly changes gear as the characters suddenly find themselves in a very real, non-cartoon New York.

Amy Adams is not only more than attractive enough to be the fairly tale heroine, but has some great scenes as the cartoon “princess” thrown in to the “real” world with no idea what’s happened.

well I’ve not made it to the movies in a while, although I’m hoping to make it out to see StarLight with the kids shortly, but there’s not been much on that I was that worried about missing, and I seem to have ended up with a bit of a pile of new DVD’s to watch.

so last night I settled down with a couple of beers to watch a new dvd - Road Hogs

I’ve been looking forward to this movie, although I didn’t think it was worth going to the cinem to watch and I wasn’t expecting anything “high brow” or overly taxing, and I was right.

It was real easy and funr to watch, just sit back, switch off the brain and enjoy a good old fashioned, although somewhat lame at times, simple comedy.

Seems like the star of one of my favorite shows has been arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence of alcohol), and apparently it’s not the first time.

Kiefer Sutherland has been sentanced to 48 days for his somewhat ill advised decision to drive after one too many, although he was apprently only twice over the legal limit, and I’m guessing he’ll probably be out sooner than 48 days, so it’s not likely to cause any problems for him being on board for the start of filming for series 7 of 24.

Perhaps the judge missed a chance for some irony though, he could have just given him 24 days…

It didn’t seem to have the edge that the earlier pixar movies did, but that may be because I’ve become used to Pixar delivering such impressive movies.

Both myself and the kids laughed quite a lot, although not always at the same spots, there weren’t as many adult “in jokes” as there have been in past pixar movies, but certainly enough to be enjoyable as an adult, and the kids walked out with a smile on their faces.

My son said afterwards that it seemed quite short, even though it was 111 minutes long, so I guess he was drawn in by the story.

The plot has not particular surprises, but is good simple fun, although it wasn’t tough to guess what was coming next.